Wild Bill was murdered for a few reasons. One, the Persicos were worried that he was going to stage a coup and take over the family. Cutolo did have a lot of supporters and underlings. Two, Cutolo allegedly called Persico a rat for acknowledging the existence of the Mafia in the 1986 Commission trial, which angered Persico. Lastly, Cutolo sided with Vic Orena in the war. The Persicos decided to demote Cutolo to soldier as punishment but then chose to kill him a few years later. I don't know if they were planning to kill him all along, or just decided to do it. But grudges are held in that life so I am certain a lot of Persico people wanted to see him go from the start.
All of this plus...
In the end they went after him under the veil of the claims to Chris Paciello in Miami. Cutolo held weight in South Florida and when Paciello began operating down there successfully there was a series of sit downs over who he belonged to and who had a legitimate claim. This was used as the straw that broke the camels back and got Cutolo murdered while all the other things IMO weighed far more heavily into it, it was the Paciello claim that acted at the vehicle for his murder.
P.S.
Anyone have any idea what happened to his son? I know he got thrown out of Wit Sec but can't really find anything else about him.
