Murder Machine: A True Story

¶ … Murder Machine: A True Story of Murder, Madness, and the Mafia

Reporters Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci, authors of Murder Machine: A True Story of Murder, Madness, and the Mafia, profile the life of Dominick Montiglio, a one-time associate of the notorious Cosa Nostra Gambino Family Mafia crew headed by Roy Demeo. Mustain and Capeci combine the testimony of law enforcement officers with first-hand accounts from within the closed world of Mafia families provided by, Montiglio, the nephew of Anthony "Nino" Gaggi, a Gambino crime family captain or "Capo." In addition to first-hand accounts of grisly murders and the gruesome techniques detailed by the authors, Murder Machine provides a glimpse into the psychological makeup and motives behind the murderers themselves. I addition to the expected motives like greed, the Demeo crew used murder as a way of dealing with potential witnesses and, essentially, as just another way of to settling business disputes, especially those that could not be resolved more simply.

Murder Machine describes the evolution of street-wise youths into various roles within organized crime. They lived by the ancient, traditional Sicilian codes emphasizing patriarchal loyalty, defiance to legal authorities, and the ruthless avenging of any slight to one's family. It follows two entirely different paths into Cosa Nostra: on the one hand was "Nino" Gaggi, whose boyhood environment on the mean streets of New York City's Lower East Side prepared him for a life of organized crime; on the other hand was Roy DeMeo, who ignored the wishes of his parents and their efforts to steer him into a more respectable life.

Once indoctrinated into the realities of life in organized crime, both Gaggi and DeMeo lived by a strange set of values that involved maintaining two separate lives, that of loving husbands and fathers to their real families juxtaposed against the horrible acts of violence they perpetrated for their crime families.

They lived by ancient traditional Sicilian rules that rewarded loyalty to the crime family, and values that emphasized defiance to legal authorities, a long memory for grudges, and the willingness to avenge any insult to the family. Above all else, was the idea of Omerta, or silence about their organized crime families.

Even within the family, Sicilians differentiated between themselves and their Neapolitan associates from Italy's Northern regions, regarding them as less reliable than Sicilians.

Gaggi, DeMeo, and Montiglio lived in a world where one proved one's worth by the ability to earn, or "kick up" to higher elements within the organization, and through the ruthless following of orders to "eliminate" anybody deemed to pose a danger to the interests of the family. In addition to murdering on the unquestioned orders of superiors, murder was also used as a tool for taking over rival businesses, sometimes, by starting unfounded rumors that a competitor was cooperating with authorities, or even that he had insulted the honor of a boss behind his back. Once the boss sanctioned the "hit" whoever started the rumor had received a green light to eliminate his competition. According to the strict hierarchical rules, murdering another "made" member of the organization would likely result in an order to kill the offender, more to reinforce the expected chain of command than out of any sense of "justice" or anything else.

Montiglio, who served in Vietnam as a Green Beret, later worked for his uncle, "Nino" Gaggi, collecting proceeds from his gambling and loan sharking operations and filling the role of driver and bodyguard. He describes an environment where members of the organization, ("wiseguys"), preyed on anyone not in the organization, extorting "protection" fees from honest business owners and routinely using violence to collect ridiculous interest payments or "vig" from gambling debts. Loans were made with the specific intention of bleeding interest fees indefinitely, rather than with any expectation of repayment of the principal.

Most memorable to readers unfamiliar with the extensive violence and utter disregard for human life displayed by the DeMeo crew is the method used to gett rid of their victims' bodies. Montiglio describes the evolution of the so- called "Gemini Method" of dismembering bodies above DeMeo's Gemini Lounge in Brooklyn. After shooting them in the head, the preferred method started by wrapping a towel around the head to minimize the amount of blood to be cleaned.