Friends of Ours

Feds Strike Pay Dirt In Queens Dig

The feds struck out (again) in a dig for Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa in Oakland Township, MI but may have hit pay dirt on another lost soul at the former home of deceased mobster Jimmy Burke in Queens, NY as reported by the Daily News:  "a forensic anthropologist will work to determine if the remains are human and whether they can be linked to a man reported missing by his family more than 30 years ago."

FBI Ends Latest Dig For Jimmy Hoffa

The FBI is packing up its shovels after failing to find the buried remains of Jimmy Hoffa in a rural field outside Detroit, MI as reported by CBS News: the "tip about Hoffa's remains came from reputed Mafia captain Tony Zerilli, who, through his lawyer, said Hoffa was buried beneath a concrete slab in a barn in Oakland Township."

Over the years more than a dozen digs have been conducted, and all this searching for the elusive remains of the one-time Teamsters boss "is not cheap" as reported by Tom Foreman for CNN:

Based on the sticker price of just one search as analyzed by the Detroit News, it is not unreasonable to estimate that police agencies have spent well over $3 million trying to find this man. Or more to the point: his body. He was legally declared dead in 1982, and even if he had been miraculously living incognito in Toledo all these years, he would be 100 years old.

John Martorano On Mob Hits: No Fun

It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it.

Under cross-examination by Whitey Bulger's defense team convicted-hitman-turned-government-witness John Martorano testified that he took no joy in the twenty murders he committed as reported by Shelley Murphy for The Boston Globe:

"Serial killers kill until they got caught or stopped," said Martorano, 72, testifying that he stopped on his own and later confessed to the slayings.  "A serial murderer kills for fun; they like it. . . . I didn't like doing any of it. . . . I never had any joy at all."

Apparently a job counsellor never advised Martorano to follow his passion, and the soulless freak instead just fell into becoming a career hitman.

In any event, Martorano obviously was very good at what he did.

Tainted Love: Whitey Bulger Broke Hitman's Heart

In a disgusting display of underworld perversion yesterday at the racketeering trial against Whitey Bulger convicted-hitman-turned-government-witness John Martorano testified that his heart was broken upon learning that his mob boss was an FBI informant as reported by G. Jeffrey McDonald for USA Today:  "'After I heard that (Bulger and Stephen Flemmi) were informants, it sort of broke my heart,' Martorano said. 'They broke all trust that we had.'"

Well, hopefully Martorano -- the sensitive thing -- achieved a catharsis by his testimony.

In 1999 Martorano reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors pursuant to which he confessed to twenty murders in exchange for a 14-year prison sentence and his testimony against other gangsters, and he was released in 2008. 

During his testimony Martorano "casually described shooting and stabbing people, sometimes the wrong ones, including a couple of teenagers huddled in a car during a blizzard, then cleaning up the blood and dumping bodies in the trunks of abandoned cars" as reported by Shelley Murphy and Milton J. Valencia for The Boston Globe.

The shameless freak has signed a movie deal for his ugly story.

Deadfellas: Feds Raid Deceased Mobster's Old Home In Search For Bodies

The FBI is looking for bodies at the former Queens home of deceased Lucchese mobster Jimmy Burke who orchestrated the infamous 1978 Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport, and then murdered many of his cohorts in order to keep the loot to himself them from talking as reported by the New York Post.  The boys made off with $5 million in cash and another $1 million in jewels none of which was ever recovered.  Burke was played by Robert DeNiro in the 1990 film Goodfellas which includes the bloodbath he ordered against his Lufthansa crew.

FBI Digs For Hoffa Remains

Earlier this year Tony Zerilli, the one-time reputed underboss for the Detroit Mafia, told the FBI that Jimmy Hoffa was buried on a property along Buell Road in Oakland County, MI, and today the G-men have broken out their shovels to dig for the Teamsters boss at the site as reported by WJBK:  "Hoffa said he was going to meet a suspected member of the Detroit Mafia [Tony Giacolone] and a Teamster boss [Tony Provenzano] from New Jersey at a restaurant in suburban Detroit when he disappeared in July 1975."

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