February 7, 2005 - From the Chicago Sun-Times

BY STEVE WARMBIR AND ROBERT HERGUTH Staff Reporters

When the gangsters slaughtered trucking executive Michael Cagnoni, they punctuated their violence with unusual boldness.

The killers did it in broad daylight.

In a quiet Chicago suburb.

And with a car bomb that showered the road with shredded steel and body parts.

The 1981 mob hit shook the idyllic west suburb of Hinsdale and marked a new sophistication in the mob's bomb-making efforts. A clever remote-control device was used to trigger the bomb under the seat of Cagnoni's silver Mercedes.

For years, the slaying was yet another mob murder that went unsolved, one more killing added to the already voluminous list of Outfit hits that have gone without arrests.

But now, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned that the murder is among a series of old mob hits -- as many as 18 -- that could be solved in an FBI operation dubbed "Family Secrets."

Spilling those family secrets is a made member of the mob, Nick Calabrese, who allegedly participated in at least some of the hits, sources said. In some crimes, Nick Calabrese is implicating his imprisoned brother, Frank Calabrese, also a made guy and once Chicago's top loan shark, the sources said.

Nick Calabrese flipped after the feds hit him with a murder rap and other pressures. Now, the mobster, nicknamed "Slim," is filling in the feds on mob hits dating back decades.

Victim feared for his life


His cooperation could help put away the upper echelon of the Chicago mob, including his own brother, Frank. The men are now mortal enemies, but at the time of the Cagnoni slaying, they were partners.

Nick Calabrese has provided the feds with important information about the Cagnoni case, sources said.

FBI officials now think they have culprits in the murder nailed cold, the sources said.

Cagnoni was a 37-year-old, wealthy trucking executive who ran afoul of the mob. He was an ambitious man bent on expansion whose plans apparently rubbed organized crime the wrong way, sources said.

Before he was blown apart, Cagnoni knew his life was in danger.

His business was under attack.

His trucks were being shot up and vandalized.

He discovered a tap on his phone at home.

For safety, Cagnoni hired a bodyguard, carried a gun and wore a bulletproof vest.

He spoke to his brother-in-law about what to do with the business if he died.

Before his murder, Cagnoni had associated with Outfit figures, law enforcement sources said, even at one point dressing like them.

But in the days closer to his death, Cagnoni went back to the business suits he usually wore.

Just before his June 24, 1981, murder, Cagnoni became upset after noticing scratches on the passenger side of his car, as if someone had been trying to break in. His wife, Margaret, wrote it off as someone trying to steal her husband's radar detector, according to court testimony in a civil case.

The morning Cagnoni died, he wasn't the first to drive his car.

His wife, Margaret, then pregnant, had an errand to run. She took her husband's son from his first marriage to Hinsdale Junior High School for summer school, driving the Mercedes.

A sophisticated device


The bomb was already in the car, investigators say.

The explosive was placed inside the car directly under Cagnoni's seat. Under the passenger's seat next to Cagnoni was a battery for the bomb and radio receiver connected to the explosive by wire.

"Whoever prepared the explosive had to have some skill and some nerve," said Gene W. Oitker, a retired supervisor with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who investigated the case.

Once the bomb was in the car, a stray radio frequency could have set it off at any time.

When his wife returned, Cagnoni left for work at the trucking association he ran at 2608 S. Damen in Chicago.

Mercedes disintegrated


Whoever wanted him dead had knowledge of where he was headed and what route he was taking that morning, law enforcement sources said.

Cagnoni did not always take the same route to work. Just the day before, he drove in the morning to his accountant in Aurora.

But on that fateful Wednesday, Cagnoni drove from his home on Vine Street in Hinsdale on the two-mile trip to the Tri-State Tollway.

The death trap was waiting for him.

About an hour before, at 8:30 a.m., a man was seen pulling a black 1974 Buick into the parking lot of the Cypress Restaurant in Hinsdale, which at the time abutted the Ogden on-ramp onto the Tri-State. The car had been stolen about six months before. Several witnesses saw the man and described him to police.

Inside the Buick was a triggering device switched on to emit a radio frequency to trigger the bomb, once the Mercedes drove into range.

Cagnoni entered the on-ramp from Ogden. Several car lengths back was a Downers Grove man, driving another vehicle.

About halfway down the ramp, the driver saw a wisp of white smoke from the Mercedes and a yellow flash.

The Mercedes disintegrated before his eyes, according to investigators' reports.

The explosion "almost turned the car inside out," Oitker remembered.

What was left of the Mercedes kept going and plowed into a guardrail.

Debris from the car and from Cagnoni's corpse showered the roadway.

Oitker said he had never seen anything like the twisted shell of the Mercedes, even in training exercises.

The day after the bombing, an electrical worker found Cagnoni's arm about 100 yards away, according to investigators' reports.

Checkbook entry questioned


Several items, though, survived the blast.

Slides for a presentation that Cagnoni kept in the back seat of his Mercedes were discovered.

So was Cagnoni's checkbook. A notation inside caught the attention of investigators.

Cagnoni had just put down a $5,000 deposit for an option to buy land south of downtown Chicago. It was near rail yards, and Cagnoni had ambitions to create a new produce distribution center there.

Such ambition may have clashed with some members of organized crime in the trucking business and the unions.

"Whoever did this wanted to send a message," one law enforcement source said.

"It's one thing to shoot someone coming out of a tavern at midnight. It's another thing to splatter someone across the Tri-State Tollway in the middle of the morning."

If you'll remember, I posted an article about the same informant who told a different story of how "Casino" ended.