December 1978/January 1979
In the movie Goodfellas, the character Tommy DeVito is based on Thomas “Two-Gun Tommy” DeSimone. Actor Joe Pesci won an Academy Award for that role. Mobster Henry Hill has been quoted as saying that the actor’s performance was dead on, and he would know.
DeSimone was a pal of gangster James “Gentleman Jim” Burke and a member of the Lucchese family. Described as a psychopath even by those who knew and admired him, DeSimone once killed a man in the street—an innocent stranger—just to prove how tough he was.
Tommy DeSimone’s brother Anthony had been executed for being an informant and DeSimone expended a lot of energy trying to live this dishonour down. Anyway, he loved violence for its own sake. He used to take great pleasure in breaking noses and teeth, or shooting off kneecaps with the guns that he used to carry around in paper bags.
Nobody ever knew what was going to set off DeSimone next. Things got so bad that he once killed a “made man”—William “Billy Bats” Bentvena—for some off-hand remark Bentvena had made. Killing a made man without permission was not done in Mafia circles. DeSimone tried to dispose of the body, stuffing it in a trunk and hauling it off somewhere for burial. Bentvena was not quite dead yet, and began pounding on the trunk for release. This didn’t deter DeSimone, who stopped the car, and together with Jimmy the Gent, he proceeded to finish the job.
DeSimone’s biggest claim to fame, though, was his involvement in the Lufthansa Heist of 1978, a robbery that netted Burke’s crew around six million dollars in cash and jewellery. It was a spectacular job, beautifully planned and beautifully executed. And the loot has never been recovered.
One thing went wrong with the heist, however. Immediately following the job, driver Parnell Edwards decided to get high and flop at his girlfriend’s pad instead of disposing of the getaway van like he was supposed to. The van was found in a no-parking zone and the FBI immediately tried to tie the case to the Burke crew. Edwards had to be removed from the picture.
It was up to DeSimone to deal with Edwards, a job that he carried out several days after the heist. In fact Edwards was only the first to die because of his involvement in the Lufthansa robbery. Burke managed to dispose of a total of ten people associated with that robbery, which of course meant more money for him.
With his latest murder under his belt DeSimone was feeling pretty good. He’d been promised that with this job he’d become a made man. So some time in December of 1978 or January of 1979, DeSimone was brought to an unknown location where the induction ceremony was supposedly to take place. Of course, there was no ceremony, and Tommy “Two-Gun” DeSimone disappeared without a trace.
No one really knows who killed DeSimone, but the prevailing theory is that the Gambino family was responsible because of that Billy Bats Bentvena incident all those years ago.