Giuseppe DeMarco
Alias: Joe DeMarco
Born: 1885
Nationality: Italian
Died: 20th July, 1916
Where: 54 James Street
Cause: Shot
Killer: Giuseppe Verazzano
Joseph DeMarco, a known gambling operator, left the dangerous world of Harlem after battling with the Morello gang, on one occasion DeMarco had attempted to shoot kill Nick Terranova. After two separate attempts were made on his own life :
He had been walking past 112th St and 1st Av in April 1913, when he was shot in the neck from behind a fence. DeMarco almost died from his wounds but surgeons in Harlem Hospital were able to save his life.
In July 1914, a second attempt was made when he was being shaved in a barbers on E106th near 3rd Av, when two men fired at him with sawn off shotguns. More than a dozen slugs entered his body, but he later recovered.
DeMarco moved downtown and opened a restaurant at 163 W49th. He opened several gambling joints in Mulberry St, before opening one located at 54 James Street.
On June 24th 1916 a meeting took place at Coney Island between the Sicilian Morello gang, the Neapolitan Navy Street gang and the Neapolitan Coney Island gang. The idea of the meeting was to discuss the expansion of gambling dens in lower Manhattan. Pelligrino Morano, from Coney Island, began talking about the lucrative Italian Zaconette card games. Nick Terranova and Steve LaSalle explained that Joe DeMarco would have to be killed before they could expand in the area. The Brooklyn gang also had an interest in killing DeMarco as he had recently taken over one their games on Mullberry Street. Demarco was noted in the press as an aspirant to the rackets left open by Giosue Gallucci’s murder in Harlem.
Around three weeks later Nick Terranova, Steve LaSalle, Ciro Terranova and Giuseppe Verazzano travelled to Navy St to discuss the plan to kill Joe DeMarco. Verazzano worked with DeMarco and was introduced as the man who would be able to help kill him. The Morellos were too well known by Demarco for them to use their own gunmen. So together they created a plan where Verazzano would get the Navy St gunmen in to the James St gambling den, where he would then secretly identify DeMarco to the gunmen as the man to be shot.
On the morning of July 20th 1916, the Navy St gunmen, Pagano, Esposito and Fetto, made their way to a saloon on Elizabeth St to await their signal to move. At around five O’clock Verazzano arrived at the saloon and notified the waiting gunmen that Demarco had arrived at James St, they left and made their way to the entrance of the gambling house. Nick Sassi, an employee of Demarco’s but also friend of the Navy St gang, got the gunmen inside past the doorman. They made their way through a kitchen and in to a back bedroom. Inside Joe DeMarco and Charles Lombardi were sat next to each other playing cards with several other men, with numerous spectators sat around watching the card game. Verazzano sat down opposite DeMarco to help identify him to the gunmen who were now standing watching the game. Nick Sassi and Rocco Valente from Navy St waited outside to help the gunmen escape. Esposito and Pagano misread the signals from Verazzano and shot and killed Charles Lombardi by mistake, Verazzano managed to kill DeMarco. The gunmen made their escape through the bedroom window into Oliver St.
Salvatore DeMarco, brother to the slain Joseph Demarco, was found dead in a clump of weeds in a lot in Washington Avenue, near William St, Astoria. His body was discovered on Friday 13th October 1916. His skull had been smashed sometime before the body was dropped, and the his throat was cut once he had been dumped. Salvatore had been living above his dead brothers restaurant at 163 W49th, however he sold the restaurant at auction on October 11th a few days before his murder.
Ciro Terranova was tried for complicity in June 1918, in connection with the DeMarco/Lombardi killing. Johnny Esposito, the killer of Lombardi, had turned state evidence the same Daniello, and testified against Terranova. Ciro was acquitted due to lack of corroboration when it was tenuously proved that Esposito and Terranova were part of the same gang.
