Giuseppe Fanaro

Giuseppe Fanaro was a known mem­ber of the Morel­lo gang, arriv­ing in New York in Feb­ru­ary 1902. He claimed to be a wine and oil mer­chant based in Riv­ing­ton Street, and had charges for coun­ter­feit­ing in the Win­ter of 1902. Fanaro was arrest­ed on the night of the Bar­rel Mur­der in 1903.  He had been involved in an argu­ment out­side the saloon at 8 Prince Street, when the police inter­vened he pro­duced a firearms license to explain the pis­tol he was car­ry­ing, but was arrest­ed for dis­or­der­ly con­duct. About fif­teen min­utes after Fanaro was locked up he was bailed out, and fined $10 the fol­low­ing morn­ing in the police court.

On Mon­day 20^th April, 1903, Fanaro was dis­missed from the Bar­rel Mur­der trial due to lack of evi­dence, he was then called as a wit­ness. He was dis­missed from court and arrest­ed again for per­jury. He had claimed in court to not know the vic­tim, but the Secret Ser­vice had been trail­ing Fanaro and had records of him with Mado­nia on the days lead­ing up to the killing. He was grant­ed bail at $3000.

On 20^th Feb­ru­ary, 1908, a body was dis­cov­ered in Brook­lyn. Sal­va­tore Marchinne was found with his nose removed, tongue cut out and his body cov­ered in stab wounds. In his pock­et was found a note addressed to Anto­nio Ganci say­ing ’ Times are hard here now in Paler­mo. Give my regards to Fanaro. And remem­ber one thing — cau­tion !’ — the note was from a man named Can­taldo in Sicily.

Anto­nio Ganci, a coun­ter­feit­er, was arrest­ed when he pre­sent­ed him­self to Hamil­ton Avenue police sta­tion on Sat­ur­day 22^nd Feb­ru­ary. He explained the pres­ence of his let­ter in the dead mans pock­et by say­ing he was unable to read, and often helped Marchinne to read his mail. The police also arrest­ed Fanaro, Gan­ci’s brother-in-law, at 158 Ninth Street. Fanaro described him­self as a long­shore­man work­ing in Brook­lyn for a fruit import­ing com­pa­ny. No charges were filed. It was thought that Marchinne was killed by the Mafia in rela­tion to a mur­der case in Sicily.

In Novem­ber 1913, Fanaro was walk­ing home early one morn­ing when he was shot by four men. He was taken to hos­pi­tal where he later died.