January 10, 1983
Some mobsters turn out to be stand-up guys in the end. Take Dominick Napolitano, for instance, who had a personal code of honour that he would not deviate from, no matter what the cost. Roy DeMeo, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish. Roy—nasty and brutish—and the DeMeo crew built up a reputation in the Gambino family for a number of things, including narcotics and car theft. But the main focus of the DeMeo crew, its real raison d’être, was murder. To sum up, DeMeo just liked to kill.
The specialty of this band was something called the Gemini Method, named after the club where the crew used to hang out—the Gemini Lounge. The Gemini Method involved knives, saws and plastic garbage bags deployed by a crew as efficient, and coldblooded, as a factory. It’s hard to track how many people they had done away with because the bodies were so difficult to find. Estimates range anywhere from 75 to 200.
DeMeo’s greatest wish was to become a “made man”, but mob boss Big Paulie Castellano, who viewed himself more as a businessman than a hood, didn’t want to give credence to the thuggish and murderous DeMeo and his crew. Then in 1977 DeMeo brokered a fantastic deal, letting the Gambino family in on some of the lucrative rackets that the Irish mob, the Westies, were running in Hell’s Kitchen. After this, even Castellano had to admit that DeMeo was an earner, and he opened the books.
But it was murder that DeMeo loved best, and after a while he began to freelance, taking contracts outside the mob, just so he could keep his hand in. Inevitably then, before long, the crew began to devour its own. In 1978 and ’79, Roy had DeMeo crew members Danny Grillo and Chris Rosenberg murdered, for either real or imagined infractions. It must be said, though, that supposedly DeMeo wept after killing his protégé Rosenberg.
But things couldn’t go on like this forever. Some time around 1982, the police were finally able to connect the dots regarding the stolen car ring they’d been investigating and the mysterious dismembered corpses that kept popping up. DeMeo was beginning to draw a lot of unwanted attention—an unforgiveable crime in the Mafia—and had to go. Yet at first Castellano had a hard time finding anybody willing to take the contract—DeMeo and his crew were just too feared.
By now DeMeo, who was getting rather paranoid, began to consider faking his own death and going on the lam. But the Gambinos beat him to the punch. Finally on January 20, 1983, the body of Roy DeMeo was found stuffed into the trunk of his car. It’s rumoured that it was members of his own crew that finally picked up the contract on Roy. After all, it was what they did best.