From South Philly To Sicily

 By Paul Davis 

I visited Sicily in 1975, five years before the Rigano murders. 

I was a young, enlisted sailor stationed aboard the USS Saugus, a U.S. Navy harbor tugboat at the American nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. 

I previously served on the USS Kitty Hawk as the aircraft carrier performed combat operations on “Yankee Station” in the South China Sea and the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North Vietnam during the final years of the Vietnam War. I was separated from the Navy in December of 1971, and after two years of broken service, I went back into the Navy. I was assigned to the tugboat, so I went from serving on one of the largest warships in the world to a 100-foot boat. 

During the Cold War the U.S. Navy base at Holy Loch was the headquarters of Submarine Squadron 14 (COMSUBRON 14). The base, called "Site One," consisted of the USS Canopus, a 644-foot-long ship called a submarine tender, a floating dry dock that could accommodate submarines, and a large barge with a super crane. All were anchored squarely in the middle of the loch.

Submarines ventured to Site One from the sea before and after their patrols and tied up to the anchored submarine tender. The submarines received supplies, maintenance and repairs at the floating Navy base. The base also had several small boats that were tied up to the barge. Two of the boats were 100-foot harbor tugboats, which were the workhorses of the bustling naval base.

The USS Saugus (YTB 780) and the USS Natick (YTB 760) towed ships, barges, submarines and other craft in, out and around the site, as well as put out fires and broke up oil slicks. The tugboats were also sent to sea often to rendezvous with submarines for medivacs, classified missions, and the tugboats performed in exercises with the submerged submarines. During the winter months the tugboat sailed into rough and cold seas, gale force winds and high waves.

Working on the tugboat was hard, physical and dangerous, but we were proud of our service. Working with the rugged and independent crew on the tugboat felt like I was serving in McHale's Navy, one of my favorite TV shows from my youth. 

On my time off, I traveled across the British Isles as well as Ireland, France, Spain and Germany. As I was nearing the end of my enlistment, I took a week’s leave and ventured to Sicily, the island where my mother’s parents had come from. 

I enjoyed Sicily’s wonderful scenery, food and people, and as a student of crime, I was fascinated with Sicily’s darker side. 

I was warned by fellow sailors who had been stationed in Sicily not to fool with Sicilian women, as Sicilian men could be dangerous, but several pretty young girls flirted openly with me. The American dollar went very far in Europe in those days, so I was treated like an American prince. 

I met one beautiful girl who was a waitress in a Palermo café and spoke English well. She introduced herself as Nina. She had lustrous dark hair, lovely light olive skin and a full enticing figure. She returned often to my table, filling my wine glass and smiling at me. 

I asked her to have a drink with me after her shift, and we went to a bar and drank wine together and talked for hours. She said she was interested in America and wanted to immigrant to New York. I told her that I lived in South Philadelphia in the “Little Italy” section, and that I was half-Sicilian. She warmly embraced me. 

The following day we met, and she took me on a bus ride to the beach at Mondello, where we swam in the Mediterranean Sea and ate and drank heartily at a nearby restaurant. 

Lounging on the beach and looking out at the beautiful sea, I told Nina that I would soon be leaving the Navy and returning home to Philadelphia. I told her that I wanted to attend college and major in journalism, as I’ve always wanted to be a writer. 

As I looked out at the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, I asked Nina why she wanted to leave all this for America. 

“There is limited opportunity here for a girl like me,” she replied. “But in America, there is unlimited opportunities.” 

“Well, there are some limits,” I told her. “And there is luck as well.” 

She smiled broadly and leaned over and kissed me. I enjoyed that day at Mondello and as we were leaving, we made plans to meet again the following day in Palermo at her café. 

When I returned to her café, I sat at an outdoor table and waited for her. I saw a small group of serious-looking hard men who were mulling around the café.  

Nina joined me at my table, and she told me in an excited voice that she had informed her father that my mother’s family came from Sicily and that I lived in South Philadelphia. Her father in turn told his Padrone, Don Nunzio Stillitano, who also came from South Philadelphia in America. 

As an aspiring crime writer, I knew very well who Nunzio Stillitano was. Known as “Nick the Broker,” he was a former boxing promoter and gambler, and he was the caporegime, or captain, of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family’s Wildwood, New Jersey crew. 

Despite coming from a relatively small organized crime crew in Wildwood, Stillitano was a powerful and influential criminal. His power and influence came from his national boxing promotions and illegal gambling, and his brokering overseas criminal enterprises as a representative of the American Cosa Nostra Crime Commission. 

Stillitano was involved in world-wide gambling, narcotics and other criminal enterprises. The FBI and the DEA claimed he headed a modern-day “Murder Inc,” group that strictly enforced Cosa Nostra’s criminal enterprises overseas. 

Stillitano became wealthy as he received a percentage of all the gambling and narcotic deals that he brokered. He also made the crime commission’s members wealthy, which made them happy. 

And according to Nina, he was the dapper, lean and gray-haired elderly man who was seated at a table near us. Nina said that Don Nunzio wanted to meet me. 

Nina took me to his table. Stillitano told me and Nina to sit, and he poured us wine from the bottle on his table. We ordered lunch. 

He was a very polite old school gentleman. He appeared to retain just a bit of his old South Philly accent. He told me to call him Nick. 

I took note of his elderly handsome features but what stood out to me was his large, protruding, and cold black eyes that belied his courtly manners and dress. 

I told him I recalled seeing him often at Rocco’s Gym in South Philadelphia when I was a teenager. I was an amateur boxer at the South Philly Boy’s Club along with my friend Tony DeAngelo, whose uncle was Rocco DeAngelo, a former professional boxer who owned and operated the gym on Passyunk Avenue. 

I loved going to the gym and hitting the bags alongside pro fighters. And I enjoyed seeing the famous former and current fighters who came to visit. Stillitano also came into the gym, impeccably dressed in a dark business suit, white shirt, black tie and shined shoes. 

Stillitano was well-known in South Philly as a boxing promoter and a Philadelphia Cosa Nostra member. He was treated like royalty at the gym, although he acted like a businessman rather than a gangster.  

Stillitano laughed at my recollection and said he remembered Rocco and his gym very well. He asked about me and my family. I told him my late mother was a Guardino, and my maternal grandparents came from Palermo. We also talked about South Philly, which he had not seen in some time. 

He asked me what I planned to do when I got out of the Navy, and I told him that I wanted to become a writer. 

“Newspaper guy or book writer?” he asked. 

“Both, I hope,” I replied. 

“Like Hemingway?” 

“Well, yes. Hemingway was one of my favorite writers, and many other writers I admire also worked as newspaper reporters before they wrote novels.”                          

 “I met Hemingway in Cuba. Good guy. I knew many newspaper guys from the old days, but a man in my tradition,” he told me that day in Sicily, “does not speak about himself publicly.” 

We talked about Cuba, Hemingway and South Philly for about an hour, and I was taken aback that he spoke openly about himself and his criminal life – up to a point - often using the euphemism “in my tradition.” 

The tradition being the Cosa Nostra way of life. 

After eating, Nina stood up and I followed suit. I shook hands with Stillitano, and he wished me luck in my future endeavors. I thanked him, but I refrained from wishing him further success in the crime and murder business. He kissed Nina on her cheek, and he walked away from of the café slowly, the serious-looking men following in his wake. 

I would go on to spend two more wonderful days with Nina before I headed back to Scotland. 

I returned home to Philadelphia in 1976. Since then, I have often thought about Sicily, about Nina, and about my meeting with Nunzio Stillitano. I thought it portended the future that I, an aspiring crime writer, met one of the biggest criminals in the world many years before I became a published writer. 

And now, so many years later, having achieved my dream of becoming a newspaper crime reporter and columnist, I was on my way to interview Salvatore Stillitano, Nunzio Stillitano’s son. 

Salvatore Stillitano, a fourth-generation Cosa Nostra member, was known by mobsters, cops and reporters as a “Mafia Prince.” 

'The Rigano Murders'

 The Rigano Murders 

By Paul Davis

Rigano’s was crowded on that Friday evening in January of 1980.

People were lined up three deep at the nightclub’s long bar as they waited to buy drinks from the busy bartenders. Many others danced wildly and happily to club music on the large, square dance floor under a glitter ball that flashed roving light beams down upon them.

The well-dressed crowd was mixed, but many of the patrons were young people in their 20s from nearby South Philadelphia. They crossed the Walt Whitman bridge from South Philadelphia and drove to the upscale neighborhood in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to visit the trendy nightclub. Among the South Philadelphia patrons were a dozen or so of the younger members of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family.    

The young criminals from South Philadelphia were more than welcome at Rigano’s, as they were flashy big spenders and the two owners were themselves members of Cosa Nostra, although they were connected to the New York Bonfiglio crime family by way of Sicily.

The two owners and operators of the nightclub were Ciro and Angelo Rigano. The two brothers hailed from Palermo, Sicily. The 26 and 25-year-old stocky brothers with curly black hair looked like twins. They left Sicily to make their reputation and fortune in America. Their entry into America was sponsored by their father’s cousin, Luigi “Lupo” Bonfiglio, the boss of the New York Bonfiglio Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

The Rigano brothers’ popular and successful nightclub was not their primary source of income. The two brothers made the bulk of their money selling heroin, using the nightclub as their base. Their dealers spread across the region.

To operate in the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family’s territory, Bonfiglio had to approach Angelo Bruno, his longtime friend and fellow Cosa Nostra National Crime Commission member, and ask him for permission for his second cousins to set up a nightclub and heroin operation in the Philly mob’s territory. Of course, Bonfiglio offered Bruno a percentage of the drug sales. Bruno agreed.

Bruno and Bonfiglio were partners in several criminal ventures, from organizing overseas high-end gambling junkets to promoting and “fixing” national boxing matches. Bruno and Bonfiglio also voted together whenever an issue came to a head at the National Cosa Nostra Crime Commission.   

Known as a businessman and racketeer rather than a violent gangster, Bruno was a friend to politicians, cops, entertainers and his South Philadelphia neighbors. He made most of his money from illegal gambling, loansharking and controlling unions. Although in his more than two decades as the Philly boss, he had men killed and many more beaten over serious issues, he much preferred to negotiate and exert influence over others rather than commit violence.

In one situation in 1969, a heroin addict named Michael “Blackie” Russo was holding up mob-run card games. Russo was called Blackie due to his raven-black long hair and scraggily black beard, and he was recognized easily by the poker players when he waved a long-barreled revolver at them and demanded they place the money on the table, and their wallets, watches and rings into a pillow sack.

When the series of robberies were reported to Bruno, his underlings asked the mob boss for the authority to murder the drug addict. Bruno gave Russo a pass, as the addict was a nephew to a made member.

“Lean on him,” Bruno ordered. “Tell him to go rob liquor stores.”

But despite a “good talking to” by his uncle, Russo went on to hold up another game. Bruno’s underlings, including Russo’s uncle, called for Russo to be “whacked,” but Bruno ordered that Russo be given “a good beating.”

When Russo recovered from the beating, he needed money for his drugs, so he went out and robbed another card game. Only then did Bruno reluctantly order that Russo be murdered.          

Bruno was born Angelo Annaloro in Sicily in 1910. His conciliatory reputation began in 1959 when the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Joseph Ida fled the United States to avoid narcotic charges. Antonio “Mr. Miggs” Pollina succeeded Ida as the crime family boss.

Concerned about Bruno as a rival, Pollino ordered an underling to murder him. Instead, the underling informed Bruno of the murder plot. Bruno went to the Commission in New York to redress his grievance. The Commission sided with Bruno and authorized him to murder Pollino and become head of the Philadelphia crime family.

Instead, Bruno spared Pollino’s life and told him to retire from Cosa Nostra and move away from Philadelphia. Bruno then became the Philadelphia boss.

With his easy-going public demeaner, pencil moustache, white hair, jeff cap and big glasses, Bruno appeared to be everyone’s kindly grandfather. But in private, he ruled his crime family with an iron hand. But as the 1980s began, many in his crime family came to resent him for his greed and his old school Cosa Nostra ways. 

Allowing the Rigano brothers to sell heroin in Cherry Hill, New Jersey infuriated Bruno’s captains, soldiers and associates, as he forbade them to sell narcotics. It was bad enough that despite Bruno’s edict on narcotics, he turned a blind eye as the biggest methamphetamine dealer in Philadelphia operated openly in Bruno’s South Philly neighborhood as well as across the city.

The mobsters also knew that Bruno received a weekly fat envelope full of cash from the “meth” dealer. Now, Bruno was receiving another fat envelope from the Sicilian heroin dealers. And he was not sharing any of that tribute drug money with anyone under him.

The Philadelphia Cosa Nostra troops under Bruno were not happy.

Ricardo “Ricky” Amato, a tall, thin man in his 50s with a pinched face, was an unhappy caporegime in the Philadelphia crime family. He was unhappy that Angelo Bruno restricted his ability to earn a living by not allowing him to venture into narcotic trafficking. He was especially unhappy that Bruno did not share his drug money from those who were exceptions to his rule.

Not that he needed the money. Amato was caught on an FBI wiretap telling his fellow caporegimes that he had more money than he could possibly spend in his lifetime. Amato made a fortune overseeing illegal gambling, loansharking and theft from legitimate businesses in South Philadelphia. But he hated the boss for not sharing his drug tributes with his captains.

“It’s the principal, not the money,” Amato told his fellow mobsters. But of course, he wanted the money as well.

Although Amato’s parents came over from Sicily, he hated Sicilians. He said they were greedy and notorious cheap skates. He called them “Zips” and “greaseballs,” and he hated that Bruno dealt with them.

Amato was also unhappy at the way Bruno had made Atlantic City an “open city” like Las Vegas when New Jersey legalized casino gambling in the seaside resort town in 1978. Bruno retained a hold on several unions in Atlantic City, so the Philadelphia crime family made a fortune as the casinos began to operate. But his decision to call Atlantic City an open city allowed other Cosa Nostra crime families to operate in a city that was firmly in the Philadelphia crime family’s territory.

“He’s allowing these New York wiseguys and other crooks to pick our pockets in Atlantic city,” Amato told the gathering of Philadelphia caporegimes in his South Philly home in the Packer Park area. “And we can’t sell narcotics, but he allows these fuckin’ Sicilian “Zips” to set up shop in our backyard.

“It’s a fuckin’ insult.”     

The other angry captains nodded in agreement. Richard Amato, the capo’s son, overheard the conversation as he emptied ashtrays and refilled the captains’ glasses with Sambuco, Scotch and wine. Some thought it ridiculous, but the son was called “Little Ricky,” even though the 25-year-old was hefty and even taller than his father.

Little Ricky was ambitious, and he waited desperately to become “made,” and he dreamed of being inducted formally into the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra crime family. He saw himself as a future boss of the crime family.

After the other captains left Amato’s house, the father sat his son down and explained what must be done, and how Little Ricky must do it.         

On that busy Friday night at Rigano’s, Little Ricky Amato was one of the many customers at the bar. He was accompanied by Joseph “Fireplug” Caruso, a short and stocky young man who was Amato’s best friend. Amato swallowed his Scotch in a gulp and Caruso lifted his bottle of beer and gulped down half of it. Amato slammed his glass on the bar, looked at Caruso and began to walk towards the men’s room. Caruso smacked his bottle down on the bar and the shorter man followed Amato.

Amato and Caruso lingered at the sinks, washing their hands until they were the only ones in the men’s room. Amato then pulled a ski mask out from his sport jacket and placed the mask over his head. As Caruso was also placing his ski mask on his head, Amato pulled out his 9mm Colt and theatrically jacked a round in the chamber, like they do in the movies. Caruso pulled out his 38. Smith & Weston.

“Let’s do this, Joe,” Amato said.

The two young mobsters rushed out of the men’s room and moved swiftly through the crowd towards a back table where the Rigano brothers were holding court with two young girls and a criminal associate named Billy Yates.

The Rigano brothers were so engrossed with drinking and laughing with the girls and Yates that they failed to see the two-masked gunmen moving towards their table.      

Amato and Caruso began shooting as they neared the table and Ciro Rigano and Yates died instantly from the hail of bullets. The girls screamed and ducked under the table as Angelo Rigano was up and attempting to run from the table. Amato ran up quickly behind the fleeing Sicilian and shot him in the upper back and the back of his head. Rigano fell and slid across the dance floor.

Most of the crowd at the nightclub were running and screaming from the numerous shots while many others had dropped to the floor. No one attempted to stop the two masked gunmen from running out of the nightclub. The two fleeing gunmen fired at a man in the parking lot as they jumped into their car. Amato rolled down his window and fired off two shots in the air to scare off anyone looking to stop them from driving away. 

      

The sensational murders at Rigano’s made headlines in all of the Philadelphia area newspapers and was the lead story on the TV news broadcasts. The Rigano murders also led to the murder of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family boss on March 21, 1980.  

After having dinner at a South Philly restaurant, Angelo Bruno was driven home by Sicilian John Stanfa. As Bruno sat in the passenger seat of the car in front of his South Philadelphia row home, someone came up to his window with a shotgun and blasted the 69-year-old mob boss. He died instantly. 

A macabre photo of the late mobster, his head back and his mouth agape, ran on the front page of the Philadelphia newspapers and other newspapers across the country.  

The brutal murder of Angelo Bruno led to further murders and an internecine mob war that stretched from South Philly to Sicily.  

© 2025 Paul Davis