# Hearing of October 1, 1963, pp. 166–168: "All the Castellemarese were sentenced to death"; the Morello and Pinzolo killings as Valachi told them

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/mcc-1963-10-01-pp166-168-castellammarese-sentenced-morello/

Valachi testified that Masseria had condemned "all the Castellemarese" to death, that Peter Morello was killed "by the Maranzano group," and that the Maranzano and Gagliano sides then joined forces. Counsel put the dates of August 15 and September 9, 1930 from police records. Testimony, much of it hearsay.

Printed pages 166 to 168 of Part 1 (NCJRS PDF pages 181 to 183), October 1, 1963. This is the passage that explains the name of the war.

Valachi testified that Joseph Profaci explained it to him: "All the Castellemarese were sentenced to death." Asked by counsel Jerome Adlerman what the Castellammarese are, he said he could explain in Italian, and agreed that Castellammare is a town "In Sicily." Asked whether Masseria condemned to death anybody who came from that area, wherever they were in the United States, he answered: "All Castellemarese. That is the way I was told. I never found out the reason. I never asked for the reason." Asked to name Castellammarese in New York, he named "Joseph Profaci, Joe Bonanno," and said Tom Gagliano was not one. Asked whether Maranzano was a Castellammarese, he said "Yes."

Adlerman then put the sequence: "The first one that was killed was Tommy Reina," then "Peter Morello was killed, I think, August 15, 1930." Valachi said Morello "was killed by the Castellemarese group, put it this way, by the Maranzano group," by a gunman he knew only as "Buster of Chicago." Adlerman said the Pinzolo killing "took place according to the police records on September 9, 1930"; Valachi attributed it to Bobby Doyle of "the Gagliano group" and said of the date, "Dates I didn't know but that sounds about right." He testified that the two sides then exchanged names to be killed and "joined forces." Staff counsel Duffy added: "This became a nationwide war after these two men were killed."

The dates are counsel's, taken from police records; the police readings are filed as [pp. 174–179](/items/mcc-1963-10-01-pp174-179-salerno-police-records-1930/). Who killed whom is what Valachi said he was told, and nobody named here was charged on it. "Buster" is never identified further in the record. These are a witness's sworn answers, not findings.

Page images: [printed p. 166](/media/mcc-1963-10-01-pp166-168-castellammarese-sentenced-morello.jpg) (stored above), [p. 167](/media/mcc-1963-10-01-pp166-168-castellammarese-sentenced-morello-pdf-182.jpg) and [p. 168](/media/mcc-1963-10-01-pp168-174-ferrigno-mineo-pelham-parkway.jpg).

## Sources

- National Criminal Justice Reference Service, scan of the printed hearings (NCJ 119303): https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/119303NCJRS.pdf
- NCJRS catalog record (NCJ 119303): https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/organized-crime-and-illicit-traffic-narcotics-hearing-us-senate