Joseph Guglielmo

Joey "Dracula" Guglielmo (d. 1983) was the elderly first cousin of Gambino crime family Soldier Roy DeMeo. He was as vicious a gangster as any of the DeMeo Crew and although his penchant was for the pornography rings that the crew operated out of the city, Joey was also a convicted felon who had done prison time for a bank robbery.

He had decided to rob a bank in broad daylight dressed as a woman. He stole a getaway car, held up the bank in the middle of the afternoon, and then flipped the stolen car in his hurry to get away. He stripped off the woman's clothing as he ran down the busy street but neglected to wipe off the makeup. The manager of the bank quickly identified him in a police line up. Joe, who still wore the makeup immediately responded to the bank manager's accusations, "How the fuck do you know it was me? I was dressed like a woman."

Guglielmo's "Dracula" nickname has been attributed to either the gangster's all-night revelries in pornography studios, or to the blood rituals he allegedly performed with the blood of mob victims in his apartment. Albert DeMeo, Roy's son and nephew of Gugliemo, assumed that Joseph earned the nickname because of his tall frame and gray complexion. Albert would say, "He looked like a walking corpse dressed in baggy sweaters and pants, and resembled Bela Lugosi. He was an excellent cook who regularly prepared pasta dishes for Roy and Albert. By the end of the DeMeo Crew's reign, it had become well-accepted that Guglielmo and DeMeo were serial killers.

After his release from prison he moved into an apartment behind the Gemini Lounge, living in a sparsely furnished room with just a mattress. This was the room where Roy and Joseph would dismember their murder victims. Joe was more than a little perverted. He had a fascination with sex toys, and his large collection of unusual devices took up quite a bit of space in his apartment behind the Gemini Lounge. He lived in a sparsely furnished room with a bare mattress and little else.

By the early to mid 1980s, the DeMeo crew was under heavy investigation by the US Government. Warrants were handed out for many of the core and periphery crew members. It was around this time that Joseph Guglielmo disappeared. Law enforcement originally suspected that the same crew members who killed DeMeo also murdered Guglielmo to prevent him from becoming a government witness. It was also assumed Guglielmo's lack of discretion was a contributing factor to his murder.

However, according to Albert DeMeo's book, "For The Sins of My Father", Guglielmo was not killed, but actually fled New York to avoid prosecution. Albert claims he drove Guglielmo to the airport and never heard from him again. However, this account remains unsubstantiated.

References

*Mustain, Gene, and Capeci, Jerry, "Murder Machine" 1993, ISBN 0-451-40387-8.
*DeMeo, Al, "For The Sins of My Father: A Mafia Killer, His Son, and the Legacy of a Mob Life", 2003.