by Sam Giancana
Scarpelli and Basile took Petrocelli’s body, wrapped it in an old sleeping bag and put it into the trunk of a four-door Ford sedan parked outside. Per instructions from Angelo La Pietra, the car was driven by the Calabrese brothers to an abandoned tow lot under a freeway viaduct on the city’s South Side and torched.
The body was not discovered until four months later. According to numerous reports, at some time during the morbid ordeal—either before he died or after—Petrocelli’s head and chest were burned with an acetylene blowtorch.
Gerry Scarpelli’s life lasted about nine years longer than Petrocelli’s, but his ending, just like his former Wild Buncher, was far from pleasant. One of Scarpelli’s longtime partners in crime, Jimmy Basile turned informant and began logging a mass of taped conversations between the two of them, concerning an abundance of illegal activity. Detained in a prison cell after he was caught red-handed by the FBI committing a home invasion in Michigan City, Indiana, and faced with knowledge of the Basile tapes, Scarpelli had little wiggle room. When word surfaced that his indiscretions had led his capo Joe Ferriola to issue a murder contract on his head and give it to his primary enforcer Ernest “Rocky” Infelice, Scarpelli agreed to become a government witness himself.
As a result of flipping Scarpelli, a mob soldier with an admitted eight murders under his belt, not to mention incredible insight into the inner workings of Joe Ferriola’s West Side crew, the FBI had hit major pay dirt. Giving both written and videotaped confessions, Scarpelli divulged everything he knew, hoping the judge in his case would spare him significant prison time as reward for his cooperation.
Consumed with guilt in the months leading up to his time on the stand, he got cold feet about turning against his old buddies in the mafia and recanted the statements he had made against them. While he sat in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Corrections Center lockup in downtown Chicago, hoping that The Outfit, and especially Ferriola, who had since risen to don status, would find a way to forgive him for his misdeeds, his lawyers fought to have his confessions suppressed. In the end, Scarpelli didn’t even wait for the ruling to come down and hanged himself in the shower room barely two days before he was going to get a verdict on his attorney’s suppression motion.
Ronnie Jarrett would end up being gunned down in front of his home in late December 1999, dying in the hospital a month later. Frank Calabrese, the last of the Daubers’ executioners left alive or not cooperating, would, in 2007, be forced to stand trial for those slayings and the murder of Butchie Petrocelli.
Although he wasn’t killed, Jerry Scalise had his good fortunes undermined by a lengthy prison sentence overseas. Shortly after the Billy and Charlotte Dauber hit, Scalise, whose nickname “The Witherhand” derived from the fact that he was missing three fingers on his left hand, found himself in a London jail, after being convicted of a $3.6 million jewel heist that took place in Knightsbridge, England. The heist included the theft of the Marlborough Diamond, a $960,000 stone that had once been the property of Winston Churchill and was considered the most prized piece of jewelry in all of Great Britain. Returning to Chicago after his prison bit in London, Scalise, who also went by the street name “One-Armed Jerry” or “Jerry the Hand,” stayed out of trouble for a while, but he was back behind bars in the late 1990s on a drug conviction. Recently paroled, Jerry the Witherhand, is back in his old stomping grounds of west Chicago and in the summer of 2008 acted as an on-set consultant for the feature film, Public Enemies. To this day, the Marlborough Diamond has never been recovered.
10.
Terror at the Tee
Pilotto’s Botched Execution
Going into the summer of 1981, Al Pilotto had a lot of factors working against his job security and personal safety. A capo of the south suburbs and The Outfit’s territory in northern Indiana, Pilotto had recently been indicted in Florida alongside Outfit boss Tony Accardo, for allegedly receiving over $2 million in kickbacks from a labor union insurance policy. Notorious for wanting to cut ties with anyone and anything that could possibly lead to a criminal conviction and subsequent time behind bars, Accardo was not beyond putting murder contracts on even his closest and most respected lieutenants if he thought it was in his best interest. Accardo worried that Pilotto, already into his seventies, might not want to spend his remaining golden years in prison and could turn government witness. He was also quite upset because he believed Pilotto’s poor mob management skills had led him into the legal mess in the first place. Pilotto was well aware of this and knew if his boss thought there was even the slightest possibility of him cooperating with the government in their case, he was a dead man.
Adding to his problems was the fact that with the knowledge of his precarious situation, certain members of The Outfit leadership sought to take advantage of his weakened position and started to plan a siege on his turf. Many wanted Pilotto out of the picture so they could start profiting from dealing drugs, an activity he was known to vigorously prohibit. The sharks were circling, and he could do little to combat the issue other than attempt to wait it out and hope it passed without incident.
According to FBI agents who worked the south suburbs, West Side capos Joe Ferriola and Joey Lombardo were scheming to get Pilotto out of the picture so they could take over his rackets. Some even believe Albert Tocco, Pilotto’s trusted second in command, was plotting with Ferriola and Lombardo to kill his boss, so he could take over as capo while splitting the crew’s assets and illegal business endeavors with his allies on the West Side.
Enemies were coming out of the woodwork. If he was to be safe from harm, he was going to need eyes in the back of his head. Given the storm of chaos that was gathering around him, it comes as no surprise that Al Pilotto’s summer was anything but relaxing.
BORN in the city of Chicago in 1915, Pilotto grew up on the South Side, making money as early as the age of sixteen working for a bookmaking business ran by Outfit heavyweight Francisco “Frank La Porte” Liparota. His first run-in with the law came in June 1935, when he was arrested in a bar in Calumet City and charged with aiding an illegal gambling operation. La Porte, a former top lieutenant under Al Capone, took a liking to Pilotto and eventually made him his bodyguard and driver. In 1942, when Pilotto was only twenty-seven, La Porte, via his Outfit political connections, got him appointed president of Local 5 of the International Hod Carriers Building and Common Laborers Union. The local was based out of Chicago Heights, a city traditionally known as a hotbed for mob activity. Shortly thereafter, he was elected to the city labor unions’ district council, eventually rising as high as vice president.
As La Porte’s criminal empire grew throughout the south suburbs and parts of northern Indiana, Pilotto, his right-hand man, benefited greatly. In 1947, with La Porte sponsoring him, don Tony Accardo officially initiated Pilotto into The Outfit. Throughout the late 1940s and into the 1950s he saw his own stock grow significantly in mob circles due to his relationship with La Porte. The pair of wiseguys opened up a series of bars and strip clubs in Calumet City and taxed all independent criminals conducting business in the area. Out of several of these taverns and topless bars, they ran prostitution, juice loans, and gambling operations, even setting up a back-door casino at the Owl Club, a restaurant and lounge that became the duo’s headquarters.
Most evenings Pilotto could often be found at either the Palace Tap or the Club Palace, both of which he owned and both of which held high-stakes late-night poker games that he oversaw. Pilotto and La Porte’s legitimate business front was the Co-Operative Music Company, which provided jukeboxes and slot machines to all the local mobbed-up watering holes, strip clubs, and restaurants.
For a period of time, Pilotto held a no-show job at Tony Accardo’s Premium Beer distributorship, which sold his own brand of beer called Fox Head. On a tax return he filed in the late 1950s, he listed that he had partial ownership of Wilco Amusement and Tobacco Company, a vending machine business run out of Joliet.
He was forced to step down as presid
ent of the union in 1962 as a result of pressure being applied by the government to cleanse organized labor of unsavory influences, but his time away didn’t last long as he was reelected to the post a year later. When Frank La Porte died of a heart attack in 1973, Accardo named Pilotto to succeed him as boss of the south suburbs, a position he held without incident until that fateful summer of 1981.
“Al Pilotto came up through The Outfit the hard way,” said former FBI agent Jim Wagner. “He worked the streets for over forty years until he became a boss. As a result, he was old school in the way he did business. In some ways that hurt him because he wasn’t willing to adapt to the changing times and that bred some resentment in the people he had around him. Drugs were starting to become a major money maker in the 1970s and 1980s, and he wouldn’t turn his head and let his guys do their thing. This was a big reason why some of his loyalists were willing to turn against him. Plus, it didn’t help matters that he got Tony Accardo in trouble. And then I remember the day we brought both of them into the office to book them on their case and Pilotto called Accardo ‘boss.’ It was in a joking manner, but it was in front of all of us, and Accardo shot him back a look that could kill. At that point in time, he didn’t have many allies standing behind him.”
WITH Pilotto’s trial date fast approaching and a number of members of The Outfit becoming increasingly worried that he was going to flip, Tony Accardo didn’t have a hard decision to make. He sent for Sam “The Gobber” Guzzino, Pilotto’s driver and bodyguard, and Nick D’Andrea, Guzzino’s right-hand man and a reputed mob assassin. In a meeting reported to have taken place in Florida, Guzzino and D’Andrea—a top suspect in a mid-seventies gangland homicide in Milwaukee—were allegedly told to begin making arrangements to have Pilotto killed before the start of their trial. Whether Albert Tocco or Joe Ferriola and Joey Lombardo played a role in convincing Accardo to issue the murder contract is unknown but, according to law enforcement reports regarding the plot, highly suspected.
Less than two weeks before Pilotto and Accardo’s trial was set to begin in a federal courthouse in Miami, Guzzino had a meeting with his former son-in-law Danny Bounds and asked him if he would be interested in undertaking an assignment. After some discussion, Guzzino informed him it was a homicide he wanted committed. As someone who was not an accomplished hoodlum and had never killed before, Bounds was a bit reluctant. Attempting to entice him into accepting the job, Guzzino offered Bounds, an employee at Guzzino’s taxicab company, a $2,000 down payment, with $8,000 coming after the assignment was carried out and a promotion to a better-paying position at work. In addition, Guzzino told Bounds that he would talk to his daughter about getting Bounds more visiting time with his young child, who he did not get custody of in the divorce. When Bounds was still hesitant to take on the murder contract, Guzzino tried to intimidate him by informing him that because he already knew a homicide was about to be committed, failing to go along with the plan could end up being a dangerous move. Feeling backed into a corner, Bounds accepted the offer.
Over the next forty-eight hours, Bounds met with Guzzino two more times, once at the cab company and another time at the Vagabond Lounge in Chicago Heights, a bar that Guzzino owned and a location often used as an after-hours mob gambling den. Present at both of these meetings were D’Andrea, Richard “Fat Richie” Guzzino, Sam’s younger brother, and Robert Ciarrocchi, an Outfit weapon’s specialist. Bounds’ compensation and further specifics of the proposed murder were discussed at more length, and he was informed, for his own well-being, that he would not know who the target of the hit would be until a later date.
After the meeting at the cab stand, the five men traveled to an desolate, roadside field in Will County to test out weapons for the job. It was decided that a rifle was too loud and that it would be better to use two pistols instead. Leaving their target practice, the foursome drove by the Lincolnshire Country Club and it was pointed out to Bounds that was the location of the future hit.
Supplied with work clothes and a police scanner, Bounds was then shown a videotape of the Guzzinos’ mother’s seventy-fifth birthday party. During the viewing, Sam Guzzino froze the tape on a frame that showed a man on the dance floor. The man was Al Pilotto, and for the first time, Guzzino identified for Bounds the intended target of their planned assassination.
When Bounds learned that it was Pilotto they wanted him to kill, he became very nervous. He was well aware of Pilotto’s significant status within the Chicago mafia and the fact that his brother, Henry, was the chief of police for the city of Chicago Heights. Trying to calm his fears, Guzzino told him that the hit “had been blessed” and that Pilotto “had a case coming up in Miami,” “We’re afraid that he’s going to spill some names,” Guzzino said to him.
It was explained to Bounds that on the morning of Saturday July 25—two days before the Pilotto and Accardo trial was to start—Sam Guzzino, Al Pilotto, and two of their associates were going to be playing a round of golf at Lincolnshire Country Club and that he was “to be hit on the course.” The location of the assassination attempt was selected as a way to put Pilotto at ease because the foursome had played there together every Saturday morning for the past six years. Bounds was instructed to position himself in some bushes that were to the side of the tee-off point for the eighth hole and wait for the group to arrive in two separate golf carts after completing the seventh hole. As soon as Pilotto exited his golf cart, Bounds was told to come out of the bushes and shoot him as many times as possible. Guzzino warned Bounds to be certain not to be too loud when he approached his target because Pilotto was aware of the circumstances surrounding him and, “If he hears even a twig in those bushes crack, he’s going to be in his cart and taking off.” After completing his task, he was to run to a rendezvous point near the closest main road and meet up with Ciarrocchi, who would be waiting for him in a car to take him from the scene.
The next day, the Guzzino brothers and Ciarrocchi took Bounds out to the country club and put him through a test run of the planned hit. When the Guzzinos’ drove up to the eighth tee in a golf cart, Bounds came storming out of the bushes and pretended to empty his gun. While being timed, he then ran as fast as he could to the roadside rendezvous point and jumped into Ciarrocchi’s waiting automobile. The duo sped off and met back up with the Guzzino brothers at the clubhouse, where Guzzino remarked, “That was great, that was beautiful,” and then treated everybody to lunch.
After shaving off his moustache and crafting a makeshift mask out of a nylon stocking, Bounds was ready to go. He was picked up in front of his home around 2:30 in the morning by Robert Ciarrocchi on the day of the hit and transported to an Outfit associate’s apartment, where Richie Guzzino was waiting to help them complete final preparations for the big event. At the apartment, Ciarrocchi provided Bounds with a knapsack outfitted with a pair of leather gloves, two automatic pistols, and the police scanner the group had purchased a week earlier. Around 5:30, Sam Guzzino stopped by and assured everyone that the hit was “still a go”; he told Bounds to be sure to be in position in the bushes by 8:30.
Ciarrocchi and Richie Guzzino dropped Bounds off at the golf course at approximately 8:00, and he immediately got into place to perform his duties. The foursome soon approached the eighth hole, and everyone exited their golf carts. Despite his instructions to the contrary, nerve-wrecked Bounds allowed Pilotto to tee off before commencing the attack. With Pilotto standing in front of his cart and another one of the golfers preparing to tee off, he rushed out of the bushes and began shooting.
Hit in the shoulder and neck, Pilotto fell to the ground and began pleading with his assailant to spare his life. Ignoring the pleas for mercy, Bounds fired three more shots into Pilotto at a closer range and then sprinted off, nearly shooting himself in the foot as his gun misfired. Finally reaching Ciarrocchi in the getaway car, he realized that he had left the knapsack with the radio scanner in it behind at his hiding spot in the bushes. Pilotto, bleeding profusely from his wounds, was driven b
y Guzzino in the golf cart to a nearby condominium complex where an ambulance was called.
Miraculously, the barrage of bullets fired into Pilotto’s body missed any major organs, and after nearly five hours of surgery he was stabilized, and his family was informed that he would survive. His brother, Henry, the police chief, set up a round-the-clock security team to guard his room and word quickly made it back to The Outfit that the assassination attempt had been unsuccessful. Everyone involved in the botched hit immediately felt severely unsettled, ill at ease at the prospect of answering for their shoddy work. Each knew all too well that repercussions for such a misstep were severe and very possibly deadly.
The plot to kill Al Pilotto was essentially cursed from the moment Sam Guzzino decided to use his son-in-law, a man who was not a killer, nor a member of any street crew that would normally be tasked with such a treacherous duty. Guzzino’s decision not to make adequate preparations for such a high-profile hit would soon bring doom to everyone involved.
WHEN Bounds showed up for work the day after the golf course shooting, he was called into a meeting with Sam Guzzino in his office. After being told by Guzzino that it appeared that their target was “going to be okay,” Bounds apologized for not being able to complete the task he was given and offered to do anything he could to make up for his mistake. Guzzino let him know that the police had recovered his knapsack at the scene and that people—both law enforcement and the mob—were already speculating that he was the culprit. At this point, Bounds was told that it would in his best interest if he got out of town as quickly as possible. Richie Guzzino, who was also present at the meeting, gave him a wad of cash and the number of a friend in Atlanta that he could stay with. Fearing for his life, Bounds disappeared from Chicago for the next four months.