Salvatore Testa was shot once in the back of the head at close range on September 14, 1984, inside a candy store in South Philadelphia. He was 28 years old and died before hitting the floor. What set his murder apart from other mob killings in Philadelphia history was who ordered it: the man who had sat at his father’s dinner table, mentored him as a teenager, and called him family. Testa was born in 1956 in South Philadelphia, the son of Philip Testa, one of the most powerful men in Philadelphia organized crime.
Unlike many who entered the mob out of desperation, Testa was born inside it. He was physically imposing, tough, and connected, and he received his button—becoming a made member of the Philadelphia family—while still in his early twenties. He was loyal, smart, and carried the bloodline of royalty: Philip Testa’s son. Philip “the Chicken Man” Testa earned his nickname from a legitimate poultry business in South Philadelphia’s Italian Market.
He rose through the organization under longtime boss Angelo Bruno, known as the Docile Don for his preference for quiet, profitable operations. Testa served as Bruno’s underboss, respected and feared, with connections to families in New York, Chicago, and beyond. In March 1980, Angelo Bruno was shot in the head outside his home, opening a power vacuum the city hadn’t seen in decades. Philip Testa stepped in as boss but lasted exactly one year.
On March 15, 1981, he was killed instantly by a nail bomb planted under the front porch of his home. The bomb had been planted by men inside his own organization, led by Rocco Marinucci, acting on behalf of Pete Casella, who wanted the boss’s position. Sal Testa was 24 when his father was blown apart on his own porch. In the chaos that followed, one man stepped forward and essentially said, “I’ve got him.
” That man was Nicodemo “Nicky” Scarfo, who became boss of the Philadelphia family in 1981. Scarfo was only five feet one inch tall, and his physical stature was inseparable from his psychology. Known as “Little Nicky,” he’d spent his life overcompensating. He’d been exiled to Atlantic City by Angelo Bruno years earlier after stabbing a longshoreman over a table argument.
But after Philip Testa’s death, Scarfo had the right connections, the right backers in New York, and no serious competition. He took Sal under his wing early in his leadership, calling him his “golden boy” and promoting him rapidly to one of his most trusted captains. Some accounts describe Scarfo treating Sal like a surrogate son, a protector and mentor in place of Philip Testa. Whether genuine or politically calculated—likely both—it worked.
Sal thrived under Scarfo, running crews, earning, and commanding respect from men twice his age. He also handled the most personal business: Scarfo put him on the assignment to kill Rocco Marinucci, the man who built the bomb that killed his father. In March 1983, exactly two years after Philip Testa’s murder, Sal shot Marinucci to death and scattered firecrackers over the body—a deliberate, brutal message about the man who used an explosive device on a boss. In any functional mob hierarchy, such loyalty should have been permanent insurance.
But Scarfo’s Philadelphia was not functional. It was a paranoia factory that converted loyalty into suspicion and success into threat. Scarfo did not see strength in his subordinates as an asset; he saw it as a rival. Every time Sal earned respect, Scarfo logged it and let it fester.
The turning point came with a broken engagement, not a murder or power grab. Sal had been engaged to Maria Merlino, daughter of Chuckie Merlino, Scarfo’s underboss. In mob culture, such a union was not a love story but a political merger, a signal about who Sal was going to become. Scarfo had blessed the arrangement.
In 1983, the engagement ended. Sources disagree on who ended it—some say Sal, some say Maria, some say the relationship simply deteriorated. Scarfo did not see a personal matter; he saw public defiance. Sal had rejected an alliance, undone something Scarfo sanctioned, and done so without permission.
Scarfo didn’t explode. He smiled. He kept calling Sal his golden boy, shook his hand warmly, and let Sal continue operating as if nothing had shifted. Sal believed it—he had been loyal, performed, and killed his father’s murderer on Scarfo’s behalf.
But behind that smile, Scarfo was already getting approvals from New York and building the architecture of a murder. Scarfo needed men inside Sal’s own circle. He tapped Joseph “Joey” Pungitore and the Salvatore brothers, Nicholas and Philip—friends, associates, men Sal drank and worked with. In Scarfo’s world, you either did what you were told or you ended up dead.
These men chose their lives over their friend. The setup relied on familiarity: Sal was told about a meeting at a specific location, a neighborhood candy store where nothing bad was supposed to happen. On September 14, 1984, Sal Testa walked into that store with men he trusted. He was relaxed, comfortable.
One of them produced a gun and fired a single shot into the back of his head. He was dead instantly. The men walked out, got into a car, and drove away. The whole thing took seconds.
Word moved fast through South Philadelphia. By nightfall, everyone knew. The meaning was unmistakable: if Scarfo would kill Sal Testa, Philip Testa’s son, his own golden boy, then no one was protected. Scarfo had sent a message without saying a word—only Nicky Scarfo was safe in Philadelphia.
The murder broke something in the Philadelphia organization that never fully healed. Scarfo’s rule through terror created a crisis of loyalty that the FBI exploited. Joseph Pungitore eventually cooperated with federal investigators, as did others. Their testimony described the Testa murder in detail and helped convict Scarfo and much of his leadership in 1988.
Scarfo received a 14-year sentence on racketeering charges that year, plus an additional 55 years in 1991 on murder and conspiracy charges. He died in a federal prison medical facility in January 2022 at age 87—outliving nearly everyone who worked for or against him. He never showed remorse for Sal Testa. Sal was buried in South Philadelphia.
Even some men who participated in his murder struggled with what they’d done—not enough to stop them, but enough to haunt them. Philip Testa was killed by enemies; his son was killed by friends. The core of Sal’s story is not about a gangster who played a dangerous game and lost. It is about protection promised and then weaponized.
Philip Testa entrusted his son to a man who had every obligation to honor that trust. Scarfo’s early embrace was a promise, even if unspoken: you looked after the dead man’s son. Scarfo broke it the moment keeping it became inconvenient. There is no external authority in organized crime to hold anyone accountable.
Only power matters, and Scarfo had it. Sal didn’t have enough of it. He was too loyal for too long, did everything right by the rules of that world, and those rules were rewritten while he wasn’t looking. He was a threat to Scarfo’s ego and paranoia, not a liability in any traditional sense.
In Scarfo’s Philadelphia, that was enough. Philip Testa died believing Nicky Scarfo would protect his son. That belief was the last illusion of a man who’d spent his life inside a world built on the performance of loyalty.
His son paid the price in a candy store on a September afternoon—shot once, dead instantly, 28 years old, with a future that never arrived and a promise broken before the man who made it ever intended to keep it.