The Good Killers

1921’s Glimpse of the Mafia

Who were the Good Killers?

The organization known as the Good Killers gang was comprised of immigrant Mafiosi of the Bonventre and Magaddino families of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, and their allies, Fontano revealed. Divided into crews of about 15 men, it had been in a state of war for a decade and a half since its leader, a Brooklyn baker named Bonventre, was brutally murdered by the rival Buccellato clan, also of Castellammare.

Bonventre’s corpse was mutilated, though sources disagree on the method and the extent of the mutilation. It appears that the body was dismembered, possibly also burned in one of Bonventre’s own bakery ovens. (The members of his organization subsequently adopted terms relating to burning as metaphors for murder.18)

Five of the 'Good Killers' gang: (top) Fontano, Lombardi, (middle) Magaddino, Bonventre, (bottom) Puma

The resulting gang war was conducted on both sides of the Atlantic, back in Sicily, as well as in cities in the U.S., such as New York and Detroit, where there were significant Castellammarese populations.

Joseph Bonanno, a native of Castellammare who would rise to rule a New York crime family,19 explained the situation in his autobiography. He noted that his cousin Stefano Magaddino and Magaddino ally Gaspar Milazzo were important men in the Brooklyn-based Bonventre underworld faction.

“As my cousin Stefano and Gaspar Milazzo made their way up, they came into conflict with rival groups in our world. Very often, these rivals were friends and relatives of enemies in Sicily. The Magaddino family was not alone in having members in America; the Buccellato family did also. They were archenemies in Castellammare, and archenemies they remained in Brooklyn.”20

Fontano began associating with the organization probably around 1913-14, when he lived in a Castellammarese colony in Detroit, Michigan,21 and went by his given name of Bartolomeo Fontana.22 It seems unlikely that he ever became a full member of the group, but he watched as it pursued its vendetta against Buccellato men. Fearful of being linked with the murders, the Good Killers either terrorized young immigrants into working as assassins or sponsored the immigration of men who would do the bloody work. The assignment often turned out badly for the assassin.“Whether he obeyed or not, his life was forfeit,” Fontano said. “They would kill the immigrant just to be sure he wouldn’t tell.”23

When a group of Good Killers moved from Detroit to Brooklyn, Fontano went along.24

The barber gave Fiaschetti the details he could remember of fifteen murders committed by the gang and of the one he was ordered to commit under the threat of death. He provided the names of six Good Killers gang leaders who had compelled him to slay his boyhood friend Caiozzo. Three of the leaders lived on Roebling Street in Brooklyn. They were Stefano Magaddino, 29, Magaddino’s brother-in-law Bartolo DiGregorio, 32, and Vito Bonventre, 46. The other three were all from Manhattan: Giuseppe Lombardi, 41, of Elizabeth Street; Mariano Galante, 27, of 198 Orchard Street; and Francesco Puma, 35, of East Twelfth Street.25