Hearing of October 1, 1963, pp. 174–179: Sgt. Ralph Salerno reads the police records of the 1930 killings of Reina, Morello, Pinzolo, Ferrigno and Mineo

Printed pages 174 to 179 of Part 1 (NCJRS PDF pages 189 to 194), October 1, 1963. Asked whether he could give “any confirmation from police records with respect to these crimes,” Sergeant Ralph Salerno of the New York Police Department read the department’s entries. He was reading from the records; the records themselves are not printed. He told the subcommittee that “the amount of confirmation that we can give you has been limited by the district attorney’s offices of the counties concerned.”

• Tom Reina, February 26, 1930. “On February 26, 1930, at 8:10 p.m., one night, Tom Reina, male, white, 40, … while leaving premise 1522 Sheridan Avenue, … was shot and killed by unknown male who fired both barrels of a sawed-off shotgun into Reina’s body, causing death.”
• Peter Morello, August 15, 1930. “Peter Morello was killed at about 3:30 p.m. on August 15, 1930. He was 50 years of age. … He was shot and killed in his office at 362 East 116th Street by persons unknown.” A visitor to the office, Giuseppe Piranio, also died of gunshot wounds. Salerno said both the Reina and Morello cases were “active.”
• Joseph Pinzolo, September 9, 1930. “On September 9, 1930, at 9 p.m., the body of Joseph Pinzola, who was in the fruit business, was found on the floor of his office, which is in suite 1007 in the Brokaw Building at 1487 Broadway, New York City.” The firm was the California Dried Fruit Importers, and “The lessee of these premises was Thomas Lucchese.” Pinzolo died of gunshot wounds of the left chest and the neck. Salerno introduced him as “the one over here that Masseria had put in as boss after Reina was killed.”
• Stephen Ferrigno and Manfredi Mineo, November 5, 1930. “On November 5, 1930, at 2:45 p.m., Stephen Ferrigno, also known as Samuel Ferraro and Funnuci and Manfredi Maineo, while leaving Ferrigno’s apartment at 75 Pelham Parkway in Bronx County was fatally shot by shotgun fire by persons unknown who were occupying apartment C-1 at 760 Pelham Parkway South. Shots were fired from a ground floor apartment through closed windows. Three guns were recovered. The case is active.” The sentence runs the two names together; counsel’s next question treats them as two men, “Minio [Maineo] and Ferrigno,” and Valachi agreed with the date.

Lucchese and the Pinzolo case. Salerno testified that “On September 11, two days later, Thomas Lucchese was arraigned in homicide court,” that he “was held without bail,” and that “The evidence was presented the grand jury which failed to return an indictment.” He said what he had been permitted to say by the district attorney was limited. Valachi said the killer was “Bobby Doyle. Santuccio, Bobby Doyle, not Lucchese.” The FBI’s identification record of Lucchese lists a September 1930 homicide arrest, dismissed on February 26, 1931 (FBI identification record). An arraignment is a charge, not a finding of guilt, and no one was convicted of any of these killings in this record.

Asked by counsel who did the actual killing at Pelham Parkway, Valachi named Bobby Doyle, “Buster” and Nick Capuzzi. That is his testimony, not the police record. Valachi said “Buster” “died right after Maranzano died.” Spellings “Pinzola,” “Maineo” and “Minio” are the transcript’s. The record also prints the home addresses of Reina and Morello and the name of a woman Reina had visited; they are not repeated here.

Page images: printed p. 174 (stored above), p. 175 and p. 178.