Richard Tassiello

Richard Tassiello a.k.a. “"Rickey"” Born March 24, 1954. (murdered January 18, 1978) was an Italian-American from Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan and a lifelong friend and partner-in-crime of Mickey Featherstone.

Biography

Richard, also known as Ricky, was born the middle of five children, raised in Hell's Kitchen and a product of the Catholic school system, being a straight A student throughout. Good looking and personable with a memorable sense of humour, Ricky was generally known to be a fearless street fighter and a loyal friend. He was also an incurable gambler. His old friends still recall him fondly, quick to recount the odd comic tale before morphing into a teary sadness when remembering how his 23 year old life would be cut short. Publications have consistently failed to note that he was married and that he and his wife Susan had two boys together, ages one and three at the time of his murder. He was close to his brother Arthur who was working as a bartender on the West Side of Manhattan in 1977. Arthur met with Jimmy Coonan about his brother’s debt. Jimmy informed Arthur that Richard was behind on his illicit shylock loans to the tune of $7,000 and he wanted the Tassiello family to either get Richard to pay up or settle his debt for him. It was Arthur who finally came up with the money. After his debt was settled Arthur pleaded with Coonan to stop making loans to his younger brother because he was a well-known uncontrollable gambler. A few months later Richard became in debt with Jimmy again for $6,000. The two worked out a payment schedule where Arthur would try to get his brother to make payments of $100 a week. Several months past since the arrangement and Coonan informed Arthur that Richard had stopped making his routine payments. Exasperated, Arthur confessed to Jimmy that there was nothing he could do. His childhood friend Mickey Featherstone was worried about Jimmy hurting Richard, but Jimmy convinced his friend they were just going to talk. On January 18, 1978 Jimmy and Mickey approached Richard at Tom’s Pub on 55th Street and 9th Avenue and said he wanted Richard to apologize to his loan shark Anton Lucchich. Ricky's unusual lack of fear and his reluctance to carry a gun would lead to his untimely and premature end. Ten minutes later they arrived at Lucchich’s apartment on 10th Avenue. Mickey and Richard sat down on the living room couch and Jimmy headed to a back room informing Richard that Tony was sick and in bed, and that he would fetch him. After Jimmy left, Mickey got up and headed to the kitchenette area for some Perrier water. As Mickey opened the refrigerator he glanced through a doorway that opened onto the hall and saw Jimmy heading back towards the living room by himself. He then heard the familiar sound of a round being loaded into the chamber of a gun. Richard shouted, “"What the fuck is going on? What are you doing?”" Richard ran into the kitchenette area. Mickey heard the silencer go off and a shot hit the wall. Richard started to reach for some knives in a rack on the kitchen wall. Mickey grabbed him to keep at getting at the knives. Just then, Jimmy stepped up behind Richard and shot him in the back of the head. Rickey slumped down against the wall and the refrigerator, where Jimmy shot him twice more. Mickey then stabbed him in the chest with a knife. After dinner at the Market Diner they returned to the apartment. Jimmy got some large kitchen knives with serrated edges and started dismembering Richard in the bathtub. Mickey could not handle witnessing his friend's dismemberment and stayed in the living room after vomiting. Mickey and Anton then put Richard’s body parts in large black plastic garbage bags, but put Richard’s severed hands in sandwich bags. Jimmy planned to preserve the hands in his freezer and plant the fingerprints on an upcoming murder he had planned. The plastic bags were then loaded into a number of cardboard boxes about three feet high and two feet wide. In reality Richard owed Jimmy at the time of his death $1,250. Mickey would later say that he knew the viciousness of the killing seemed entirely out of proportion to the debt, and of all the beatings, stabbings, murders, and dismemberments, Richard’s was the one that bothered him the most. His remains have never been found, forever denying his family and friends the closure that would normally accompany such a notorious murder.

References

The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob by T.J. English