Vito Laduca

Vito Lad­uca was a mem­ber of the Morello gang heav­ily involved in coun­ter­feit­ing. He was arrested in Pitts­burgh whilst try­ing to pass the gangs fake cur­rency, Benedetto Mado­nia was sent to help straighten things out.

How­ever Mado­nia was killed months later in New York in what became known as the Bar­rel Mudrer. He had been seen in the Stan­ton Street butcher shop where Lad­uca worked. Lad­uca was later arrested along with Nicola Testa in a ten­e­ment oppo­site the butch­ers, but was even­tu­ally released due to lack of evidence.

Vito Lad­uca moved his busi­ness to Brook­lyn in August 1904. He had a shop at Bridge and John­son Streets, where his busi­ness name was Vito Longo. His lived with his wife at 360 Hud­son Avenue.

Lad­uca was wanted by the police in con­nec­tion with kid­nap­ping of a rich con­trac­tors son, Anto­nio Man­nino, from Brook­lyn in August 1904. The father of the kid­napped boy had given gen­er­ously to the col­lec­tion that was made to sup­port the Morello gang dur­ing the Bar­rel trial in 1903. The police staked out the butch­ers shop at 16 Stan­ton Street but were informed that Lad­uca had trav­elled to Pitts­burgh. The police then vis­ited Laduca’s home in Brook­lyn, they ques­tioned the owner of the build­ing who claimed he had seen a man wait­ing for Lad­uca on two occa­sions. The descrip­tion matched that of Tom­maso “The Ox” Petto who had been arrested in con­nec­tion with the Bar­rel murder.

The kid­napped boy was even­tu­ally returned to his fam­ily. The police took him on a tour of the city to retrace his steps when he was kid­napped, but he failed to locate the exact house he was held in. The clos­est he could nar­row the area down to was East Harlem around 106^th and 107^th Streets. The police then learnt that the boy had an Uncle liv­ing in Harlem at 238 E108th called Colagero Costan­tino, he also hap­pened to fit the descrip­tion of the kidnappers.

On Octo­ber 3^rd 1905, Lad­uca was arrested in Bal­ti­more by Mealli and Vachris of the Brook­lyn Ital­ian Squad, he was charged with the abduc­tion of Anto­nio Mannino.

Lad­uca was later killed when he returned to Italy.