The Barrel Murder

Morristown Fives

A new coun­ter­feit five-dollar note was detect­ed in March 1901. Based on cur­ren­cy print­ed by the Nation­al Iron Bank of Mor­ris­town, New Jer­sey, it was described as a decep­tive coun­ter­feit with pro­duc­tion esti­mat­ed at $250,000.¹The Repub­lic (Mar 23, 1901)
New York NY Evening Telegram (Dec 12, 1910) Secret Ser­vice agents arrest­ed Giuseppe Di Primo, Isidoro Cro­cev­era and Giuseppe Gial­lom­bar­do for pass­ing the coun­ter­feits in Yonkers in late Decem­ber 1902.²The Brook­lyn Cit­i­zen (Jan 4, 1903) 1
Fall River Daily Globe (Apr 22, 1903) 2

Just weeks later, agents arrest­ed Vito LaD­u­ca and two asso­ciates in Pitts­burgh, after track­ing them from New York to San Fran­cis­co and many cities across the south. Their cap­ture was described as “most sen­sa­tion­al arrest in the his­to­ry of the detec­tive bureau.”³The Pitts­burgh Press (Jan 18, 1903) 1&5 Vito Cot­tone attempt­ed escape by lung­ing at detec­tives with a knife and then flee­ing into near­by rail yards. Offi­cers chased him down using a com­man­deered train and man­aged to knock him out by hurl­ing bricks after him. He was taken to Mercy Hos­pi­tal, where he then tried to kill a nurse using his din­ner knife.⁴Wash­ing­ton Times (Jan 19, 22, 1903)  

The Mor­ris­town coun­ter­feits were being dis­trib­uted under the direc­tion of Mafia lead­ers Ignazio Lupo and Giuseppe Morel­lo.⁵Flynn, William J. (1919) The Bar­rel Mys­tery. James A. McCann Com­pa­ny. 18 The arrests in Pitts­burgh and Yonkers led to a vio­lent gang­land exe­cu­tion in New York and ulti­mate­ly to the cap­ture of the Mafiosi.

Fol­low­ing their arrest in Yonkers, Di Primo, Cro­cev­era and Gial­lom­bar­do were locked up in New York City’s Lud­low Street Jail. They were soon vis­it­ed by Ignazio Lupo, who arranged pay­ment of their attor­ney. Lupo later attend­ed the trial and brought news of the case to Giuseppe Morel­lo.⁶U.S. Nation­al Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion (here­after referred to as NARA), RG 87, Daily Reports of Agents, (here­after referred to as DRA). William Flynn. Vols. 8 – 9. (Feb … Con­tin­ue read­ing 

The trio was found guilty of pass­ing the Mor­ris­town coun­ter­feits on 13 March, 1903.⁷NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.8 (Mar 13, 1903) That week­end Lupo, Cas­cio­fer­ro and “prac­ti­cal­ly all of the Morel­lo gang” were observed hold­ing a meet­ing in the rear of their Prince Street saloon head­quar­ters.⁸NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.8 (Mar 15, 1903) 

The Secret Ser­vice planned a sting oper­a­tion against the group. Agents sup­plied an infor­mant with marked bills to use in the pur­chase of coun­ter­feits from the gang.⁹NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (Apr 9, 14 1903) Eleven search war­rants were obtained for the raids of homes and busi­ness­es.¹⁰NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (Apr 8, 1903) The plan was stalled on April 13, after an unfa­mil­iar face appeared in the gang’s com­pa­ny. Morel­lo and Cas­cio­fer­ro were seen “talk­ing earnest­ly” between them­selves before tak­ing the stranger to the back of a butch­er shop at 16 Stan­ton Street.¹¹NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (Apr 13, 1903) 

The Gruesome Discovery

At 5:30 the next morn­ing, Frances Con­nors, who was mak­ing her way to work, saw a sus­pi­cious bar­rel at East Eleventh Street. Look­ing inside, she was hor­ri­fied to find a male corpse. Police with­drew the body and dis­cov­ered it had been near­ly decap­i­tat­ed by a deep knife wound across the throat.¹²The Brook­lyn Daily Eagle (Apr 14, 1903) 1

When Secret Ser­vice agents iden­ti­fied the vic­tim as the stranger seen in Morello’s com­pa­ny the pre­vi­ous night, the police began to round up the gang. Morel­lo was picked up on the Bow­ery. Lupo was arrest­ed at his house, where a large amount of cor­re­spon­dence was taken as evi­dence. Vito Lad­u­ca, dis­charged for lack of evi­dence in the recent Pitts­burgh case, was cap­tured in a ten­e­ment oppo­site the Stan­ton Street butch­er shop. More than a dozen arrests were made, but Cas­cio­fer­ro could not be locat­ed in the city.¹³NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (Apr 15, 1903)
The World. Evening Edi­tion (Apr 16, 1903) 1,2

Five days after the mur­der, the police caught a lucky break when an anony­mous let­ter aided in the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the bar­rel mur­der vic­tim. The let­ter claimed the dead man had arrived in New York to help secure money owed to the recent­ly impris­oned Giuseppe Di Primo.¹⁴NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (Apr 20, 1903) 

Detec­tive Pet­rosi­no vis­it­ed Sing Sing Prison, where Di Primo rec­og­nized a photo of the vic­tim as his brother-in-law, Benedet­to Mado­nia.¹⁵The Boston Globe (Apr 20, 1903) 1
The World. Evening Edi­tion (April 20, 1903) 1 The next day, Pet­rosi­no moved on to Buf­fa­lo to inter­view Madonia’s wife. She declared her hus­band had been a mem­ber of “a secret soci­ety” and had trav­eled to New York to assist Di Primo.¹⁶NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (Apr 20, 1903)
The Evening Telegram (Apr 20, 1903) 1
The Buf­fa­lo Times (Apr 20, 1903) 1
The Buf­fa­lo Enquir­er (Apr 20, 1903) 1,2

Morel­lo was placed on the wit­ness stand on April 22. He became “very ner­vous” when con­front­ed with a let­ter Mado­nia had sent him from Pitts­burgh.¹⁷NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (Apr 21, 22, 1903) The let­ter revealed Morel­lo had instruct­ed Mado­nia to trav­el to Pitts­burgh to help secure the release of the two recent­ly impris­oned gang mem­bers. Not­ing his fail­ure in that assign­ment, Mado­nia lev­eled abuse and crit­i­cism against Morel­lo, accus­ing him of “being unwill­ing to spend any money” to help his men and referred to the treach­ery against his brother-in-law De Primo.¹⁸The Sun (April 23, 1903)
New York Times (Apr 23, 1903) 16
The Evening World. New York (Apr 23, 1903) 

With most of the gang still in jail, threat­en­ing let­ters were sent out from New York to Ital­ian com­mu­ni­ties in the US. They demand­ed dona­tions to help build a legal defense fund. Dis­ap­point­ing col­lec­tions in Newark led ner­vous Ital­ians to buy up second-hand guns to pro­tect them­selves, while pas­tors appealed to their con­gre­ga­tions to remain calm.¹⁹New York Tri­bune (April 28, 1903)
The Bal­ti­more Sun (Apr 27, 1903) One of the gang, who had been released on bail with the help of con­gress­man “Big Tim” Sul­li­van, was heard to remark that it was Madonia’s own fault that he was killed.²⁰NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (Apr 26, 1903)  

Coroner’s Inquest

A coroner’s inquest was incon­clu­sive. On May 8, the jury held that Benedet­to Mado­nia was “mur­dered by some per­son unknown.”²¹NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (May 8, 1903) Near­ly all the sus­pects were freed. Efforts to pros­e­cute the case ended on Jan­u­ary 29, 1904, when key sus­pect Tomas­so Petto was final­ly dis­charged from custody. 

Dr. Albert West­on, the coroner’s physi­cian, said, “I have never heard of a more dis­grace­ful pro­ceed­ing in my life than to let this man escape pun­ish­ment … The man who rec­om­mend­ed the dis­charge of ‘Petto the Bull’ ought to be removed from office imme­di­ate­ly.”²²New York Times (Jan 30, 1904) 

In 1905, Petto was mur­dered in Penn­syl­va­nia by an unknown gun­man. Giuseppe Di Primo had been released from prison just two weeks ear­li­er.²³Wilkes Barre Semi Week­ly Record (Oct 27, 1905) 7