Johnny Martorano

John Vincent Martorano also known as "Vincent Joseph Rancourt", "Richard O'Coin", and "The Executioner" (b. December 13 1940), is a former hitman for the Winter Hill Gang in Boston, Massachusetts who has admitted to 20 gang-related killings.

Early life

Johnny Martorano was born in Somerville, Massachusetts in 1940. He is the older brother of James Martorano. His father, Patriarca crime family associate Luigi Martorano, was an immigrant from Emilia-Romagna, Italy. His Irish-American mother was a full time homemaker. He was raised in Milton, Massachusetts and attended Mount Saint Charles Academy in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. During high school, he played football with future CBS News television journalist Ed Bradley whom he affectionately referred to as "Big Ed". [ [http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/articles/2008/01/02/a_star_in_the_classroom/ From prison to prime time] ] On the football field he earned the moniker "The Millkman" because as Ed Bradley would say, "... he always delivered." He graduated with his younger brother James from Milton High School in 1959. He attended Boston College and was enrolled in a class he shared with future FBI Agent John Connolly. After becoming a mob turncoat, Martorano agreed to have Bradley interview him on "60 Minutes", but Bradley died before this could occur. Steve Kroft interviewed Martorano in Ed Bradley's place shortly after his death.

Criminal career

After graduating from high school, John had turned down seven football scholarships and instead stayed in Boston. Hanging out in the Combat Zone, Martorano fell under the guidance of Stephen Flemmi, and by the age of twenty-five had become a professional mobster.

John rapidly became one of the Winter Hill Gang's most prolific enforcers, a reputation he solidified in January 1968, after a forty-seven year old black man made the mistake of beating up Flemmi in an after-hours saloon. Martorano tracked his quarry to a car on Normandy Street in Roxbury, where the man was sitting with two people who turned out to be, not fellow criminals, but a nineteen year old girl and a seventeen year old boy. John walked up alongside the car and calmly killed all three of them with his trademark .38-caliber Police Special revolver. As a result of this, Martorano was facetiously called "Sickle Cell Anemia" by his fellow gangsters. [ [http://www.justiceforjohn.com/johnbio.html Justice For John-Newly Discovered Evidence ] ]

John Martorano, despite being on the run for sixteen years, took a shot at bail, but he and his lawyer, Martin Weinberg, were pushing a weak hand. He gave his trial judge several letters from other parents in Boca Raton, Florida commending Martorano's apparent devotion to his son John Martorano Jr. and Martorano's daughter Jean, who was pregnant at the time pledged the $30,000 equity she had in her home in Plymouth, Massachusetts as security for his bail. During the last sixteen years as a fugitive he was living off his illicit bookmaking operation. His in-laws agreed to post $260,000, while a friend of his wife Patricia. meanwhile agreed to put up another $200,000. Arrested in 1995, Martorano agreed to a plea bargain deal in 1999. In return for confessing his murders, Martorano received a reduced prison sentence of 14 years. In 2007, he was released from prison and given $20,000 to start a new life. [cite web
url=http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/01/16/us_paid_hit_man_20000_on_release/
title=US paid hit man $20,000 on release
publisher=The Boston Globe
first=Shelley
last=Murphy
date=2008-01-16] On January 15, 2008, Martorano appeared on the CBS News television program "60 Minutes" [cite web
url=http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/132/the_executioner/
title=The Executioner
publisher=60 Minutes
date=2008-01-15] . During the interview, Martorano expressed remorse for the murder of a woman who was unexpectedly with one of his targets inside a car.

Murder victims of John Martorano

*Alfred Angeli
*John Banno
*Douglas Barrett
*John Callahan
*Richard Castucci
*Elizabeth Dickson
*Ronald Hicks
*John Jackson
*Tommy King
*Michael Milano
*Joseph J. "Indian Joe" Notarangelli
*William O'Brien
*James "Spike" O'Toole
*Robert Palladino
*Albert Plummer
*William O'Brien
*Herbert Sith
*James Sousa
*Anthony Veranis
*Roger Wheeler

References

External links

* [http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/07/a_rat_through_and_through/ Cullen, Kevin. "A Rat Through and Through." The Boston Globe: January 7, 2008.]
* http://www.boston.com/news/packages/whitey/globe_stories/1999/0913_comrades_betrayal_turned_mob_enforcer.htm