McDonough’s name made headlines again in 1985 when the Globe reported that FBI tapes played during the trial of Gennaro “Jerry” Angiulo revealed that Angiulo had once talked about the possibility of killing her because she had become a “detriment, a jeopardy, a danger” to the mob.

It was McDonough’s hat — albeit a different one — that made headlines in 1984 when a masked gunman tried shooting her in the head in a North End bar. “The attacker fired at the hat, probably thinking all three bullets would go through her head,” Boston police Officer Jay Connolly told the Globe at the time. “As it turned out, there are six bullet holes in the hat, but only one slug grazed the top of her head.”