Investigators at Mafia Dig Unearth Bones of Two Bodies
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FBI agents and police investigators digging at a suspected mob graveyard in Queens have unearthed what are believed to be the bones of two captains of the Bonanno crime family slain more than 20 years ago.
The remains uncovered at the abandoned Ozone Park lot are believed to be the bones of Dominick “Big Trin” Trinchera and Philip “Philly Lucky” Giaccone, according to a law enforcement source.
“We went back to the site where we uncovered human remains yesterday, and we continued to uncover additional human remains,” said an FBI spokesman, Jim Margolin.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Medical Examiner, Ellen Borakove, said her office received “remains from more than one person” and they were turned over to a forensic anthropologist for further examination. They have yet to be formally identified.
A law enforcement source said that investigators realized they had more than one victim when they dug up a second pelvis. The source said that other human finds include part of a skull, part of a jawbone, and a set of teeth, as well as eyeglasses and a watch.
In speaking about the dig yesterday morning, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the discoveries included a femur, a tibia, and “skeletal remains inside of shoes.” In addition, Mr. Kelly said some jewelry and a watch were found, as were “some other personal items.”
“There’s a feeling that it’s now starting to be productive,” said Mr. Kelly.
Armed with a backhoe and dozens of agents, the FBI and police began to excavate the weed-choked, concrete crowded lot near the Queens-Brooklyn border on October 4, hoping to find the remains of Trinchera and Giaccone, as well as those of John Favara.
Favara, who lived near the late Gambino boss John Gotti, accidentally ran over the mobster’s 12-year-old son in March 1980. Favara disappeared three months later.
In a hit made famous by Joe Pistone’s book “Donnie Brasco,” Trinchera, Giaccone, and Alphonse “Sonny Red” Indelicato were murdered in May 1981 by a rival faction of mobsters led by Joseph Massino as part of an intrafamily feud. Massino’s mobsters, who were loyal to Bonanno boss Philip Rastelli, had been sanctioned by Gambino boss Paul Castellano to carry out the killings in the belief that the soon-to-be-dead captains were arming themselves for a mob war.
Massino, a former Bonanno boss, was convicted for the murders at Brooklyn Federal Court this summer. Trial testimony from cooperating former mobsters said the captains were lured to a Brooklyn social club, where they were slain by ski mask-wearing gunmen.
The body of Indelicato was discovered by children in a shallow grave at the site shortly after the killings, but more than two decades would pass before any more human remains were found.