Murder ‘appears well planned,’ police say
2 people likely involved in mobster death’s
• Hamilton police believe two people were i nvolved in the daylight murder of mobster Angelo Musitano, although only one was captured on surveillance video.
Based on witness information and images captured on security systems peppered about the neighbourhood, police say the gunman got out of the driver’s door of the Ford Fusion before opening fire at close range on Musitano, 39, as he arrived home in his pickup truck. The gunman then returned to the driver’s seat of the Ford.
But that car was found Sunday just 450 metres away — less than a minute’s drive — from Musitano’s house.
Det.- Sgt. Peter Thom, the lead homicide investigator, told the National Post the gunman likely switched into a different car to make his escape, one likely driven by an accomplice.
“It appears well planned, and a second vehicle parked nearby with a driver would make sense,” said Thom. “You don’t want to be involved in something like this and get back to the car and find that the car has been towed or is gone. It would make sense there is a second person involved.”
The investigation of Tuesday’s murder in a suburban residential enclave of well- appointed homes became immediately more complicated when officers learned the identity of the victim, the middle son of a prominent Ontario Mafia boss who forged an active and aggressive crime family.
The car that was recovered was likely stolen, although police have not established that, Thom said. It was registered to a company and investigators are narrowing down who was supposed to be in control of the vehicle at the time.
The car was parked on the residential street and not set ablaze in a bid to destroy evidence, as is often done in mob hits. It sat at the side of the road for five days until a resident called police about a suspicious or abandoned car, he said.
Police want the public’s help to make that link, either by witnesses who unknowingly saw the fast car switch or a second suspicious vehicle or homeowners with surveillance systems that may have caught something on camera.
Thom said there is a different layer of complication to an investigation when a victim or crime is linked to organized crime.
“Is it something from the past? Is it something current? In an investigation like this there will be more theories than in your normal homicide investigation, because of the victim’s background,” he said.
In Mafia murder investigations, there is often tension between the homicide investigators tasked with solving a crime and proving it in court, and intelli- gence officers who have been watching and gathering information on the mobsters for decades.
Homicide officers chase physical evidence and are sometimes criticized for ignoring patterns and information about grudges and rivalries in the underworld, or for downplaying the ability of crime groups to farm out hits to otherwise noninvolved people; intelligence officers, on the other hand, are sometimes lampooned for trying to read tea leaves when they should be looking at blood stains, or are asked why they’re obsessed with something that happened 20 years ago when they should focus on what happened 20 minutes ago.
In this case, the victim is the middle son of three born to Mafia boss Dominic Musitano, who forged the family — originally from Calabria, Italy — into one of three Mafia clans that ran Hamilton’s underworld for decades.
Dominic Musitano died of natural causes in 1995, leaving his eldest son, the victim’s brother, Pasquale “Pat” Musitano, to lead the family.
Twenty years ago this month, John “Johnny Pops” Papalia, who was a veteran Mafia boss and leading mob figure in Ontario, was shot dead in the parking lot of his vending machine business in Hamilton.
Both Pat and Angelo Musitano were charged in the murder after the hit man, Ken Murdock, said he was ordered by the Musitanos to kill Papalia and his right- hand man, Niagara crime lord Carmen Barillaro. The brothers struck a plea deal that saw them plead guilty in Barillaro’s killing in return for charges in Papalia’s being dropped.
Over many decades, the Musitano crime family has been particularly active in gambling and extortion and involved in underworld intrigue as the Rizzuto Mafia family of Montreal made a move to control Ontario after Papalia’s death.
Motive for Mafia murders, however, are not easily pinned down because mobsters deal almost every day with men who can or have killed, and any slight could trigger an attack. While a 20- year revenge plot is in- triguing, Musitano’s murder could just as easily be over an old loan to an associate or soured business deal.
Musitano was given a discreet funeral service Friday at St. Mary’s Church, close to the house he grew up in. His funeral came on what would have been his fifth wedding anniversary, in the same church in which he was married.
Thom would not comment on whether police were monitoring the funeral service or burial at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, in neighbouring Burlington, f or entombment with his three young sons watching on.
Fr i e nds of Musitano said he had turned his life around in t he past f our years, found God and joined their men’s Christian Bible study group.
The suspected gunman is described as a white male with a stocky or athletic build, wearing a black toque, black jacket, grey pants and black shoes. He drove a burgundy, four- door, 2006 Ford Fusion.
YOU DON’T WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN SOMETHING LIKE THIS AND GET BACK TO THE CAR AND FIND THAT THE CAR HAS BEEN TOWED OR IS GONE. IT WOULD MAKE SENSE THERE IS A SECOND PERSON INVOLVED. — DET.- SGT. PETER THOM