The Good Killers

1921’s Glimpse of the Mafia

Where is Tucker’s Cove?

The location of Tucker’s Cove, the Shark River inlet New Jersey where Camillo Caiozzo’s submerged remains were discovered in 1921, has been a minor mystery for many years. No portion Shark River now bears that name.

Newspaper reports of Caiozzo’s discovery, which included mention of Avon-by-the-Sea, Belmar and Asbury Park, only confused the issue. However, our investigation into the story of the Good Killers turned up evidence that the cove adjoined the riverbank in Neptune City, NJ.

There still can be found Tucker Drive, the approximate location of the old Tucker farm on West Sylvania Avenue, and Riverview Avenue, which shares its name with the Riverside Inn visited by Caiozzo and his killer Bartolo Fontano. Shark River still bows in the area. And much of the bank remains wooded, though housing developments have sprung up nearby in recent years.

The bank was probably a fair stretch of woods and marshland in the 1920s, a suitable spot for duck hunting, the sport in which Caiozzo was engaged when his friend Fontano killed him. A particularly wet semicircular area lies just to the southeast of Tucker Drive. That could have been the previous location of a bit of Tucker’s Cove, since reclaimed by filling.

A 1914 subdivision map on file with the Monmouth County Archives shows the Tucker property bounded by East End Avenue and Tucker Drive. The map labels an adjoining inlet, “the cove.” That this small body of water became known, however briefly, as “Tucker’s Cove” seems logical.