by Linda Scarpa
“He never said he was sorry for killing anyone, except Tommy Amato, who he killed by accident, and Joe Brewster. Those were the only regrets he really had of the people he murdered,” my mother concluded. “The others—they tried to kill him. And after they tried to kill him when Linda and her kid were in the other car, he’d have killed anybody. He just got crazy. He wanted to kill anybody that was involved—and he did get a few.”
Even though my father was so sick at Rochester, he always asked my mother how Joey and I were doing and how my son and Joey’s daughter were doing. The only picture he had on the wall in his room was a picture of my son. He would look at it every day.
“When we were sitting in his room, he’d take my hand and ask how the kids were and how our grandson and granddaughter were. He loved them. Then he’d ask, ‘Everything all right with money?’ I’d say yeah, but it really wasn’t. I didn’t want to tell him that everybody took the money, because he’d probably escape. He probably would have,” my mother said.
I didn’t get to see my father before he died, but at least my mother was there to celebrate his last birthday with him: “His birthday was May eighth, so I got him a piece of cake. Then I told one of the nurses and she said we would all go into his room and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him. So we did and he was all smiles. I was trying to get him home because he didn’t have very long to live. I got his doctor on it, I got those AIDS people—everybody was on it.
“About a month after his birthday I was visiting Greg and I got a call from the doctor who said because Greg was bedridden and couldn’t move, the judge was going to allow him to go home. But then I got another call and the doctor said he couldn’t come home. He said the prosecutor had called him and asked if Greg could move the finger he pulled the trigger with, and the doctor said he could move it. So I asked if he told the DA that Greg only weighed, like, fifty pounds. The doctor said he did tell him that. The prosecutor was worried that Greg would go out and kill somebody if he was allowed to go home. I said, ‘You have to be kidding me.’ But I thought that if he did go home, he probably would have killed someone.
“That day I tried to take Greg for a walk, but he didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to do anything. He just wanted to lie there and hold my hand, and that’s what we did. I left that day. The next morning I got a phone call that he had passed,” my mother shared.
The day my father died—it was June 8, 1994—I talked to him on the phone. I told him I was going to see him that weekend. I was just waiting for the papers, which were supposed to arrive that day.
“I don’t know if I can wait that long,” he said.
“Dad, please, I’m coming this weekend.” He told my mother that it was going to be over very soon, and it was. He didn’t make it to the weekend. He knew he was dying—I guess that was his last phone call.
That same morning I called my mother and told her that I had just gotten the papers so that I could visit him. But it was too late.
When my mother told me that he had died, the feeling of loss was so tremendous that I didn’t know how I was going to make it through it. I felt guilty that I hadn’t gone to see him before he died, but I couldn’t face it.
When he was arrested and he was no longer accessible to us, and we weren’t accessible to him and able to be there for him, that was a very painful time in my life. I wasn’t protecting myself by not visiting him, I was in too much pain to watch this person I loved so much—my hero, my father, my life—suffer. I couldn’t bear the fact that he would be in that prison and not being able to take care of him, knowing that he was living with the guilt of what he had done to us.
My father was my best friend. I went to him before I went to anyone else. I wasn’t able to see him because the bond that we had was so unbelievably strong that when that bond was broken because we had no choice, it was as if my lifeline had been taken away. My best friend had been taken away.
I thought about all the times when I was a kid and I told my father that I hated him, and I felt so bad because I never hated him—not for one second.
I hated what was happening to our family, but I never hated him. I always loved my father, no matter what, even if I was angry with him. Hate was never something that I ever felt, although I used the word. I hated who he became, but it wasn’t his fault—it was the disease.
It was more being angry because deep down I knew that this was going to be the end of our family as we knew it from when we were kids. I knew it wasn’t going to end in a good way, and I said that to my father many times. I hated that life and I hated the fact that I had to lose him.
After my father died, the prison officials said they were going to send him home on a plane. I didn’t want him to be alone, so I went to the funeral parlor and waited in the front for his body to arrive.
I waited there all night. I called my mother every hour on the hour, asking where he was. I didn’t have a cell phone. I had to go to a pay phone. At seven-thirty in the morning I started banging on the door until the funeral director opened it.
“My father, Greg Scarpa, was supposed to come here last night. Where is he?”
“He’s here. We bring the bodies in through a separate door.”
“Well, I’m his daughter. I want to see him.”
“We can’t really let you see him, because we just got him. We don’t know what condition he’s in right now and we have to prep him.”
“Well, can I still be in the room with him? If he’s in the coffin they sent him in, can I stay with him?”
“Sure, no problem.”
So I went into the room, and the guy walked away. I shut the doors, and I figured out how to open the coffin. At first, I just opened it about an inch, and then I got scared, and I closed it. But then I didn’t even care what I was going to see. I just wanted my father.
I opened the coffin all the way, and I put half my body on top of him—I leaned my head and my chest on his chest and I started to cry. I was so distraught when I saw him. It disturbs me now even to think about it. Then I softly sang the song to him that we danced to at my wedding reception—“Wind Beneath My Wings.” That song had a lot of meaning for us because he was my hero.
Then the funeral director walked in, and he flipped out.
“Oh, my God. What did you do?”
I just glared at him. “Get out and leave me alone with my father.”
The guy was absolutely beside himself, but he just turned around and walked out of the room.
I was able to be strong and deal with my father’s death. Once I saw him, it was a relief, even though I knew that he was gone. I broke down afterward.
When my father died, his role as a government informer was an open secret. As a result his funeral was mainly attended by relatives. There was no lavish Mafia funeral for Gregory Scarpa Senior.
CHAPTER 15
THEY KILLED YOUR BROTHER
After my father died, my brother went into a downward spiral. He became very depressed and kind of lost.
My brother missed my father badly. He was heartbroken. He used to tell me, “Life’s not the same without Dad.”
We used to tell each other that we were afraid to be happy. Whenever we were happy, something bad would happen. A couple months after my father died, Joey asked me if I could see myself old.
“No, not really. Could you?”
“No, I don’t see myself old at all, ever.”
Even though Joey and I were only two years apart, we never hung out together. He had his friends, and I had mine. It wasn’t until we were both married and going through tough times in our marriages that we started to get closer.
One day he called me. He had just bought a beautiful, flashy red car. He said, “I’m picking you up and taking you for a ride. You ready?” I said I was ready. So he picked me up and we went for a ride. He blasted Pearl Jam on the radio. I couldn’t believe I didn’t know that about him.
“You like Pearl Jam?”
“This is what I listen to.”
“I thought you were more of a disco guy.”
“I like that, too, but I listen to Pearl Jam. I love Pearl Jam.”
I thought that was pretty cool. I was in the passenger seat of my little brother’s car, and we’re blasting the radio to Pearl Jam. It was nice.
Joey tried to get away after my father died. Lin DeVecchio told us to keep him out of Brooklyn. He told my mother he would pay for everything to send him and the family to Florida. Joey went to Florida, but he missed his daughter. He called my mother the next night and asked her to go down there. She flew there the next morning and stayed a few days with him.
When she went back to New York, he kept calling her because he wanted to come home. He came back because he didn’t want people to think he was running away because his father wasn’t around to protect him anymore.
When he got back, my brother started hanging out in the Brooklyn neighborhoods. He was looking for ways to make some fast money. He was separated from his wife and had to pay child support.
One of the people Joey started hanging out with was Vinny Rizzuto. They weren’t best friends. Instead, it was more about making some scores. A Brooklyn drug dealer told Joey how he could make a quick buck by buying and then selling some cheap pot. Joey gave that information to Vinny. But instead of buying the pot, Vinny, Joey and Joey’s best friend, John “Jay” Novoa, decided to steal it. The problem was that Frank Fappiano, the guy they stole the dope from, was working for a major Mafia boss in the Gambino family.
When I found out that my brother was hanging out with Vinny, I was concerned about it. I knew what type of person Vinny was. I was worried about my brother just associating with him, but my brother never listened. He used to joke around with me. He’d say there was nothing to worry about because Vinny knew us. He always defended him.
About a week before my brother was murdered, I had a dream. We were in a club and Vinny shot my brother in the stomach. He died in my arms. I woke up hysterical. I called my mother—I was living in New Jersey at the time.
“Where’s Joey? Where’s Joey?”
“I just got off the phone with him. What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Oh, my God. I had this really bad dream that something happened to him.”
“Call him. I just got off the phone with him.”
So I called him.
“Joe, you can’t imagine the dream I had. You died in my arms! Vinny killed you. You got shot in the stomach.”
He started laughing at me.
“Bubbles, you’re so crazy.” (“Bubbles” was his nickname for me. He had nicknames and pet names for everyone.)
“Bubbles, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Vinny’s my friend. He’s your friend, too. He always asks about you.”
“Joey, he’s not your friend. You don’t understand. He’s the type of guy who will kill you from the backseat of your own car.”
Those were my exact words, but he just blew it off. He didn’t listen to me.
When my brother got involved in drugs, he was still protected by my father, so he didn’t worry about paying other people if he was dealing in their territory.
These two brothers named Ronnie and Russell Carlucci used to fight with Joey over that all the time. They were fighting over some type of territory. One time my brother set their van on fire. So Joey, Ronnie and Russell were rivals; they didn’t like each other from day one. That’s why I had such a bad feeling about Joey being involved with Vinny, because Ronnie and Russell were his cousins.
On Friday, March 17, 1995, my mother met Joey at a restaurant in Brooklyn. He told her that one of the guys they robbed the pot from had grabbed him on Eighty-Sixth Street and put a gun to his head. My mother didn’t know what he was talking about, so he told her the story.
He told her not to worry because Vinny Rizzuto’s father, Vincent “Vinny Oil” Rizzuto, a soldier in the Gambino family, had worked out a deal with Fappiano. But my mother knew what that really meant— Joey was being set up. She told my brother that something was going to happen.
But my brother again said that Vinny’s father had straightened everything out.
“I’ve been in this life for thirty-three years with Daddy. Do not believe them,” she told him.
But Joey didn’t listen to my mother’s warning, either.
That weekend he had decided to go home—his former home, where his wife was living—to spend some time with his daughter, who was four. He wanted to spend St. Joseph’s Day, which was that Sunday, March 19, with her. He brought his friend Jay with him. Jay and Joey hung out together all the time. They were so close; they were like brothers.
Joey kept calling me that Sunday. The first time he called, I didn’t think anything of it. The second time he called, I asked him what was going on.
“Oh, nothing. I’m just home playing with the baby, watching my wedding video.”
He called a few more times and I was getting worried.
“Joe, what’s going on? Is everything okay? I never hear from you this many times in a month.”
“I was watching my wedding video and you were crying, Bubbles, while I was dancing.” Then he kind of laughed. He was making fun of me for crying. Joey had a nervous laugh—like I do. If he was emotional about something, he would laugh about it instead of crying. Although he did cry sometimes, if it was something really serious.
“Why were you crying?”
“What do you mean, why? It was sad—the song and everything, and my little brother getting married.”
“You’re so stupid, Bubbles.”
He called me “Bubbles” because I always laughed. He said I was always bubbly. He very rarely called me Lin. He called my mother “Mrs. Fletcher”—after Jessica Fletcher, the mystery writer and amateur detective—because she always had to know what was going on. He called my father “Papa Smurf.”
I thought it was odd that he called me so many times that day. During one of the calls Joey told me that Vinny had been calling him all weekend because he had wanted them to go out on Saturday. My brother, however, wasn’t leaving the house. He said he had a funny feeling. He didn’t know why, but he just didn’t want to go out.
When he told me about it on Sunday, I guess he was a little paranoid because they had ripped off that drug dealer. He knew that something wasn’t right, but he didn’t really know for sure.
On Monday morning Joey got a call from Vinny, who wanted to meet up. When Joey was leaving the house, his daughter threw a fit-and-a-half. She never wanted him to go, but her mother told us this time was different.
She was hysterical. She was screaming, crying.
“Please, Daddy, don’t leave!”
My brother promised her that when he came back, he was going to bring her the biggest doll that Toys “R” Us had. But he never came home.
That day, March 20, 1995, Joey was shot and killed. He was twenty-three years old.
Jay was with him. That’s how I know everything that happened in the car. But I didn’t get to see Jay right away. I didn’t get to talk to him about what happened until much later, because after the shooting he went into protective custody.
When they met up that day, Vinny told Joey and Jay he had a fake credit card and they were going to buy a bunch of stuff with it. Vinny’s cousins, Ronnie and Russell, were following in a different car. They couldn’t fit into my brother’s car.
As they were driving on Brown Street in Sheepshead Bay, Vinny, who was sitting in the backseat, told Joey, “Do me a favor, pull over.” My brother pulled over and put the car in park. Right at that moment Jay, who was in the front passenger seat, heard a gunshot. He went deaf because it was so loud. He thought someone was shooting at the three of them in the car. Jay didn’t know that it was Vinny.
Jay looked over at Joey and saw a small hole in his head, and the blood was just dripping down. Jay turned around and looked at Vinny, who was holding the gun. He said Vinny didn’t even look like Vinny. He looked like the Devil. He looked so evil and
vicious. It was as if he had a black soul. Jay told me that in his life he had never seen anybody have the look of the Devil like that.
Then Vinny shot at Jay, who was already halfway out of the car. Jay got shot in the arm. He ran and ran and started screaming and yelling for help. He flagged down a police car and told the cop that his friend was in a car around the block and had just been shot. So there was assistance there pretty quickly. Joey’s heart was still beating and he lived until he got to the hospital.
In the meantime Vinny had jumped into the car with Ronnie and Russell. Jay told the police what kind of car they were in. The police chased them, but they got away. Jay became a witness to my brother’s murder and went into protective custody.
When my brother was killed, I was living in New Jersey with this guy. We had been living there for about three years. About a week before Joey died, my brother went to see my boyfriend at his work and they got into an argument. When my boyfriend came home that day, he was swearing and yelling, saying he wished my brother were dead.
When the call came that Joey had been murdered, my boyfriend answered the phone. He was in the bedroom and I was in the hallway, but I could hear what he was saying.
“Oh, my God. Where? What happened?”
I started walking toward the bedroom.
“What’s going on?”
There was a look of horror on his face. He held the phone out to me.
“My brother?”
I just knew.
“What’s wrong? Is it my brother? Is he alive?”
I grabbed the phone. It was Charlie’s wife, who was a detective in the Seventy-Eighth Precinct. Charlie remarried after he and my mother divorced.