The murder of Tommy DeSimone, famously depicted in Goodfellas, has been debated for decades. But many of the other killings shown in the film also deviate from what actually happened. Several characters based on real mob figures met very different ends in reality than they did on screen. Frankie Carbone, played by Frank Sivero, is believed to have been based on mobster Angelo Sepe.
Born in Ozone Park, Queens on January 14, 1941, Sepe had an arrest record that included a 1967 robbery, plus narcotics and weapons charges. In 1972, he was sentenced to ten years in Lewisburg Penitentiary for bank robbery, and was released on parole after serving roughly five years. Sepe is strongly believed to have been one of the gunmen in the 1978 Lufthansa heist at Kennedy Airport, and he was among the first arrested. The FBI announced his arrest in connection with the $5.
8 million robbery, but the charges were later dropped and he was released. He is also believed to have participated in the murder of Parnell “Stacks” Edwards alongside Tommy DeSimone. In the film, Carbone is found dead in a meat truck, frozen so stiff that it took two days to thaw him out for the autopsy. In reality, that did not happen to Sepe.
He survived the wave of killings that followed the heist. But five years later, in July 1984, Sepe was murdered along with his 19-year-old girlfriend, Joanne Lombardo. Police said Sepe, 42, had been shot several times in the face, while Lombardo had been shot once in the throat with the bullet passing through her head. Newspaper reports at the time noted that Sepe had once bragged, “When my time comes, my own people will kill me.
” The FBI said he was the 11th person connected to the Lufthansa robbery to be killed or vanish. Seven had been slain and four were missing. None of the money has ever been recovered. Despite linking his death to the heist, rumors persisted that Sepe was actually killed because he robbed a mob-backed drug dealer.
Interestingly, there was a real man found in a meat truck. Richard Eaton was laundering money from the heist but made the mistake of trying to skim cash from Jimmy Burke. The character Frenchie, portrayed by Mike Starr, is based on Robert “Bobby” McMahon, a cargo foreman at Air France who had been there so long his nickname was “Frenchie. ” Henry Hill described him as one of his best customers and a source for stolen perfume, clothes, and jewelry.
In the film, Frenchie is the inside man for a $480,000 theft from the Air France cargo building in April 1967. McMahon had been charged with attempted airline hijacking in 1972. In 1977, he was convicted along with John Ciaone of hijacking a truck, but neither served time after a retrial was ordered when it was revealed a court officer had delivered unauthorized instructions to the jury. McMahon was not actually involved in carrying out the Lufthansa heist.
In the movie, the voiceover says Frenchie and Joe Buddha rounded up the workers. In reality, it is believed Frenchie helped supply equipment used in the heist but did not participate. The film shows his body found in a garbage truck, but in reality, he was shot to death in a car alongside Joe Manori on May 17, 1979. Both men were killed with single shots to the back of the head.
Joe Manori, the man killed alongside McMahon, is the basis for Joe Buddha in the film. He allegedly participated in the heist and reportedly pistol-whipped one of the guards. Some sources suggest he was murdered because he was complaining he had only received half of his $200,000 share. Parnell “Stacks” Edwards, played by Samuel L.
Jackson, was a hanger-on at Jimmy Burke’s haunt, Robert’s Lounge. Henry Hill described him as a “credit card booster” who used stolen or counterfeit cards with fake IDs to buy goods under the authorization limit, then sold them through a network of street sellers and small shops. He was a tall, skinny black guy who played blues guitar on weekends. In the late 1970s, Edwards was used as muscle by Bonanno family mobster Vincent Asaro to intimidate associate Peter Zaccaro.
In 2015, Zaccaro, who had become an informant, testified about the incident. Asaro was furious because Zaccaro had shot a guard dog protecting his nephew’s auto body shop. Zaccaro testified that the dog jumped over a desk and started chewing on his arm after he returned from a robbery wearing a disguise. “I shot him in the head.
He mauled my arm. I had no choice,” he said. That night, Asaro, Jimmy Burke, Tommy DeSimone, Stacks Edwards, and Frank Burke showed up at Zaccaro’s home. A screaming Asaro said he was going to have Zaccaro killed for shooting the dog.
Zaccaro’s life was ultimately spared after a sit-down. Edwards was tasked with disposing of the van used in the Lufthansa heist, but he allegedly went home, got high, and fell asleep instead of taking it to a junkyard to be compacted. The next day, police found the van on East 98th Street and Linden Boulevard in Canarsie, about a mile and a half from the airport, with prints all over it. Hill recalled that Edwards, unaware of his danger, was joking at Robert’s Lounge about how the “mafia guys” got all the money.
“I knew that Stacks had signed his death warrant that day,” Hill wrote. Jimmy gave the order, but it was Paulie who gave Jimmy the look. That weekend, Tommy DeSimone and Angelo Sepe went to see Stacks. It was easy.
The guy was still in bed. They did it fast. Six in the head. Morris Kessler, played by Chuck Low, is based on Martin “Marty” Krugman.
Like his film counterpart, Krugman owned a wig shop and salon called For Men Only and operated as a bookmaker. A cargo supervisor named Louis Werner allegedly provided the tip about the Lufthansa heist through a man called Frank Menna, who Werner used to place bets with. According to Henry Hill, Krugman continually pestered Jimmy Burke for his full cut of the heist.
On January 6, 1979, Krugman disappeared.