Whacked in Waterdown: The Murder of Angelo Musitano
Niagara ripe for facilitating the fruits of organized crime
Angelo Musitano had reformed his life, a new beginning, attempting to redeem himself from his sinister past and the sins he had committed.
While a lot of people may have forgiven and accepted the new Musitano, many from the depths of the underworld have never forgotten the past that he had been desperately trying to suppress and leave behind.
This came to fruition on May 2, 2017, when an unknown gunman approached Musitano in his Waterdown driveway, oblivious to the daylight hours, spraying him with a hail of bullets, killing Musitano where he sat in the driver’s seat.
Nobody in the Mafia concerns themself with anyone’s feeble attempts to seek redemption and attempt to escape from their past life as a mobster. There is no retirement package or RRSP when you are a blood member of a criminal organization such as “Ndraghetta,” the Calabrian faction of the Mafia that the Musitano crime family has long been affiliated with. The adage “live by the sword, die by the sword” could not have been more applicable than with the murder of Angelo Musitano.
There are two incredible traits the Mafia has long possessed: an unforgiving long-term memory and the patient ability to exact revenge, most times waiting several years, if not decades to right a perceived wrong in the shadows of the underworld. In the Mafia, killing a mobster like Angelo Musitano in the driveway of his home, while steps from his children, is a pure sign of disrespect. This was not a random murder.
It was 1997 when Johnny (Pops) Papalia, then crime boss of Hamilton, with Mafia tentacles to the Stefano Maggadino crime family in Buffalo, N.Y., was murdered on a Hamilton sidewalk, just steps from his Railway Street home.
Shortly after that contract hit, Papalia’s underboss, Carmen Barrillaro, was gunned down in cold blood in the doorway of his Niagara Falls home as his killer stood there, at the behest of the Musitano brothers Angelo and Pasquale, a.k.a. Fat Pat. The killer was Kenneth Murdock, hired to carry out the deadly underworld assassinations that would leverage the Musitano crime family into the Mafia driver’s seat in the Golden Horseshoe area, with possible connections to Buffalo and the Rizzuto crime family in Montreal, the Sicilian “La Cosa Nostra” faction of the mob.
The hired contract killer, Murdock, rolled over on the Musitano brothers quicker than an alligator trying to subdue its prey, resulting in Angelo and Pat being charged for conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to prison for 10 years. Twenty years later, almost to the day, Angelo was murdered. Was this exacted revenge for the murderous sins committed by Musitano 20 years ago in Hamilton and Niagara Falls?
The list of motives and persons/ groups of interest for the Musitano murder is endless. In today’s underworld, various factions of organized crime, comprising traditional organized crime (Italianbased), Asian, Eastern European organized crime and outlaw motorcycle gangs, to name a few, will work together with one common goal — making money. The motive for this murder could simply be revenge for the Papalia/ Barillaro hits 20 years earlier, a power shift with the Violi brothers of Hamilton, or any type of beef or power struggle encountered with other factions of organized crime. Or perhaps the answer could be found in the city of Niagara Falls?
Since the dismantling of the Outlaws and Hells Angels motorcycle gangs in the Niagara area, Niagara Falls has been void of an identifiable criminal group. This area is ripe for facilitating the fruits of organized crime: the Canada/U.S.A. border and the waterway, affording routes for drug importation among many other criminal activities.
The absence of an identifiable crime group in Niagara Falls is eerily reminiscent of the criminal vacuum in the city of Montreal when various criminal groups were vying for power and control when the Rizzuto crime family was weakened by many unsolved murders of members within their crime family, as the boss, Vito Rizzuto, sat in a Colorado prison cell.
The Musitano crime family has long been affiliated with drug importation, gambling and possible corrupt ties to various unions and trades in the city of Hamilton and into Niagara Falls. The latest drive-by shooting at the home of Pat Musitano, likely connected to the suspects behind his brother’s murder, may be the foreshadowing of another power shift about to occur in the underworld, with other criminal groups looking to either exact revenge for slights from 20 years ago or a criminal takeover of all the rackets long affiliated with the Musitano crime family. Murder has always been synonymous with any criminal takeover in the underworld.
Organized crime murders are difficult to investigate and are rarely solved. Angelo Musitano’s murder will be no different. There are people in the criminal underworld no doubt privy to the details of his murder who are adhering to the code of “Omerta” — Mafia jargon for not divulging criminal secrets of the mob. Another old saying in the Mafia is “three can keep a secret if two are dead” — an adage that still prevents people from stepping forward, unlike the rarities of a Kenneth Murdock, and co-operating with authorities.
Investigators trying to solve the Musitano homicide will have to take a page out of the Mafia handbook by adopting and exuding that long-held Mafia trait — patience.
— Stephen G. Metelsky is a freelance crime writer, criminologist and organized crime expert and historian. smetelsky333bcm@cogeco.ca Twitter:@StephenGm_Jr