Pasquarella Spinelli
? to March 20, 1912.

Spinelli was a casualty of early gang warfare in Italian Harlem. Spinelli and her step-daughter Nelly Lenere ran a large and profitable stable in the center of the Italian community. Some speculate that the stable was also the headquarters of a ring of thieves trained and led by Spinelli.

Whatever the source of her income, her wealth was sufficient to draw the attention of the neighborhood Black Hand extortionist, Aniello "Zopo" Prisco about 1910. Spinelli was reluctant to share her fortune, and Zopo sent Chuck Minaco over to help himself to it on Oct. 29, 1911.

Minaco apparently made the mistake of turning his back on Lenere during his raid on the house and he wound up in the morgue with 25 stab wounds.

Prisco retaliated for his associate's death by cornering Spinelli at her stable at dusk on March 20, 1912, and pumping three bullets into her. Spinelli quickly became the stuff of legend.

There are some who believe her stable was the location of the early underworld schooling for such notable hoodlums as Ciro and Vincent Terranova and that it was later to become the infamous "Murder Stable." Certainly, it was not long after Spinelli's death that there was a complete change in the underworld leadership in Harlem.

© 2007 T.Hunt
The American "Mafia"