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| Richard Kuklinski |
In Carlo's book, Kuklinski claims that Gambino capo Roy DeMeo hired him on behalf of his family to be part of the three-man hit team assigned to rub out Galante. According to Kuklinski, he never met the other two assassins but was instructed to be at the counter of Galante's favorite Italian restaurant at 12:15 P.M. on the day of the hit. "Just make sure the guys that come in know I'm on the team," he told DeMeo.
Kuklinski told Carlo that on July 12, 1979, he arrived at Joe and Mary's Italian-American Restaurant in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn armed to the teeth with "two six-shot .357s and a .38 with a four-inch barrel." He sat down at the counter and ordered a "meatball hero" and waited for the other two gunmen to arrive. When their car pulled up to the curb, Kuklinski somehow knew it was them and started toward the back patio where Galante was having lunch. Kuklinski pulled his two .357s, one in each hand, and started firing cowboy- style at Galante as the mob boss was about to light a fresh cigar. Kuklinski says he emptied both guns, hitting Galante and one of his two bodyguards. In Kuklinski's telling, the other two hit men enter the patio after he's finished firing, and one of them shoots Galante with a shotgun.
Once again we have to question the veracity of Kuklinski's story. Would the mob have hired an outsider for such an important hit? Highly unlikely.
And would Kuklinski, self-proclaimed hitman without equal who holds a "doctorate in murder," agree to carry out a murder where he didn't know the other hitters? The police who investigated Kuklinski all agree that he was careful to a fault and never left anything to chance. The Galante hit as described in Carlo's book doesn't fit his pattern.
The use of two .357 revolvers doesn't ring true either. Kuklinski had told me that whenever he killed, he preferred small-caliber weapons, like .22s. They were better suited for stealthy attacks, and with a headshot the bullet ricocheted inside the skull and tore up the brain, insuring a kill.
Furthermore, in 1986 Bonanno soldier Anthony Indelicato was convicted of the Galante slaying. Kuklinski's name never came up at that trial.
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| Anthony Indelicato |
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