Peter Morales

Peter Anselmo a.k.a ""Peter Burns" a.k.a ""Peter Morales" (born November 13, 1909, date of death unknown) was a Sicilian-American Lucchese crime family mobster, who served under Paul Vario and was an associate of the Vario Crew.

Biography

Peter Anselmo was born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn to Sicilian-American immigrants from Marsala, Province of Trapani, Sicily. Peter aligned himself with the Lucchese crime family and first served as a "sidewalk soldier" under Gaetano Lucchese in the late 1950's and was a member of the Vario Crew headed by Paul Vario and Jimmy Burke. Peter also was a prominent East Boston, Massachusetts mob figure who belonged to the Patriarca crime family of New England. He has a fleeting resemblance to Lucky Luciano. Crime reporter Howie Carr describes him as an "old time Boston mobster figure". He was a trigger man companion of Paul Vario. He fathered one known son named Peter Paul Anselmo on December 6, 1962 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. His son Peter Paul died August 6, 2005 in Brooklyn, New York. He is one of the few Boston mobsters associated with the Vario Crew, the others being J.R. Russo and Lawrence Gennino, who was later murdered in 1974 while incarcerated in Leavenworth by Thomas DeSimone and Angelo Sepe. He was involved in the Patriarca crime family up until at least 1973. During his career in organized crime he was under survelliance from the Boston Police Department, the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, the FBI and the Organized Crime Division Unit of the Boston Police Department. He is not to be mistaken as a relative of Bonnano crime family mobster John Morales.

Accomplice to Murder

Late at night on June 12, 1966, the day after Henry Hill's twenty-third birthday he witnessed Anselmo assist in the murder of an unidentified African-American youth for attempting to mug Theresa Bivona. (Not to be confused with Lufthansa heist suspect Theresa Ferrara). Theresa Bivona was a neighborhood girl who lived down the street from Henry Hill's childhood home as she was walking home from the Euclid Avenue subway stop. The African-American youth was identified as only dressed in a sweat shirt and denim jeans. He slowly followed Theressa, walking along the curb. The youth pretended to be looking at store windows but the stores along the street only had a butcher shop and a dry cleaner's which heightened Henry Hill and the wiseguy's suspicions. Hill knew that along with himself and Lawrence "Larry" Bilello, Peter used to sit on a barstool leaning against the wall at "Branco"'s a bar saloon located on Pitkin Avenue across the street from Presto Pizzeria in East New York, Brooklyn, and stare out the window as a lookout for police, until it closed around 2:00AM.

Peter "The Killer" Abbandante and his crew of associates were watching the youth from his club on the other side of Crescent Street. Also watching the suspicious African-American was Frank Sorace and Edward Barberra who were sitting in a car parked on the curb. As Theresa Bivona opened front door of her apartment building the black youth finally attacked her.

Henry Hill describes the aftermath of the murder, "There were at least three tons of wiseguys crammed in the hallway before I got there. There were so many of them that it looked as though the hallway and stairways were made of rubber ... [All] I could see [was] the top of the guy's head and arm of his sweat shirt. Then he was swept along with all the other bodies and arms and curses until he was carried up the stairs and out of sight." Abbandante and the other identified wiseguys, Peter Morales, Frank Sorace and Edward Barberra including a dozen others launched him off the room of her apartment building.

Hill would later comment on the incident, "he came down hard and splattered all over the street."

It is unknown if the murder was ever investigated by the police. None of the known killers were ever arrested or convicted for their involvement in the murder. Theresa Bovina survived the mugging, physically unharmed.

References

*Pileggi, Nicholas, "Wiseguy: Life In A Mafia Family", Corgi (1987) ISBN 055213094X

External links

* http://wrko-am.fimc.net/article.asp?id=50489

* Social Security Death Index