On the evening of December 16, 1979, Vincent Falcone walked into a beachfront apartment in Margate, New Jersey, expecting to share Christmas drinks with men he had known for years. Nicodemo Scarfo sat relaxed in front of the television. His nephew Philip Leonetti was in the room, along with Lawrence Merlino and a plumber named Joseph Salerno Jr. Falcone had no reason to believe he had entered an execution chamber.
He mixed with these men, worked in the same construction field, drank with them, and had spent enough time at Scarfo’s side to believe any tension between them had faded. Scarfo looked toward Falcone and asked him to fix the drinks. Falcone turned his back, walked away, filled the glasses, and returned to the room. Behind him, Philip Leonetti raised a .
32 caliber pistol. The weapon did not belong to Leonetti. It belonged to Joseph Salerno, the frightened plumber standing only a few feet away. Leonetti fired into the back of Falcone’s head.
Falcone spun as his body began to collapse, trying to see who had attacked him. Scarfo watched his nephew stand over the wounded man. Then he said he might fire another shot into Falcone himself. Leonetti refused to give up the moment.
He fired again into Falcone’s chest. Asked how he felt, he said he felt nothing but cold. The cement contractor who had walked in expecting drinks lay dead inside the apartment. Scarfo did not appear shocked.
He did not rush toward the door. He began giving instructions. The gun had to disappear. Falcone’s car had to be collected.
The apartment had to be cleaned. The body had to be wrapped and moved. While Joseph Salerno bound the dead man and covered him with a blanket, Scarfo watched the work and said three words Salerno would remember for the rest of his life: I love this. Vincent Falcone was not killed because he was an informant.
He had not stolen mob money. He had not attacked the Scarfo family. According to testimony later presented to a federal court, his fatal mistake was expressing an opinion. During a conversation weeks earlier, he was said to have remarked that Nicky Scarfo was crazy and should be kept out of the cement business.
The words reached Scarfo. Now the man Falcone had criticized watched his nephew place Falcone’s body inside the trunk of a car. But the murder would not produce the result Scarfo expected. One witness inside the apartment would become so terrified that he would go to the police.
Scarfo would try to destroy that witness and even target the witness’s father. The first jury would acquit Scarfo, convincing him that fear and loyalty had protected him. Then, years later, the same murder would resurface within a federal racketeering case that helped send Nicky the Little and most of his organization to prison. Vincent Falcone was a cement contractor who worked and socialized with men connected to the underworld in Philadelphia and South Jersey.
Construction was transforming Atlantic City. Casino gambling had brought enormous investment to a city filled with old hotels, decaying neighborhoods, and vacant properties. The new casinos required concrete. Hotels needed foundations, parking structures, road improvements, and utility work.
Residential buildings and commercial projects demanded contractors, workers, trucks, and materials. Every building project generated legitimate money. It also created opportunities for organized crime. A mob figure did not need to own an entire casino.
Controlling a single supplier, a union official, a trucking company, or a contractor could generate money from every floor built. Concrete was especially valuable because construction could not continue without it. Materials had to arrive on schedule. Drivers had to deliver before the mix hardened.
Workers had to pour it properly. Any delay could shut down an entire site. The man who controlled those supplies held influence over developers spending millions of dollars each week. Nicky Scarfo understood that influence well.
He had spent years operating from Atlantic City while the Philadelphia crime family was under the control of Angelo Bruno. Bruno preferred quiet arrangements, political relationships, and profitable practices that avoided unnecessary open violence. Scarfo was different. He had already served time in prison for killing a sailor during a confrontation in an Atlantic City restaurant.
He viewed violence not merely as a last resort but as a language. A beating could answer disrespect. A disappearance could end a business dispute. A murder could teach others how they were expected to behave.
Scarfo was not yet the official boss when Falcone was killed. But he already expected the men of Atlantic City to recognize his authority. He worked from offices on Georgia Avenue and maintained relationships with contractors, bartenders, union figures, and local criminals. He was short in stature and extremely sensitive to any hint that others considered him weak.
Men around him learned that an insult did not end when the conversation ended. Scarfo carried it with him, repeated it, waited for the right opportunity, and then responded in a way designed to be remembered by the entire community. Falcone understood that Scarfo was dangerous. Yet he made the mistake of believing that some conversations remained private.
The discussion was not recorded. According to Joseph Salerno’s later account, Falcone was drunk when he expressed his opinion of Scarfo. Reports indicate he called Nicky the Little crazy. Then he went further.
Falcone said Scarfo should not be allowed into the cement contracting field. That second part turned a personal insult into a financial threat. Calling Scarfo crazy questioned his judgment, and saying he should be excluded from concrete challenged his right to share in the building boom transforming Atlantic City. Falcone was not merely criticizing a personality.
He was suggesting that people in the industry should keep Scarfo away from one of the region’s most valuable businesses. In ordinary life, one contractor could disagree with another. He could warn business partners that someone was unreliable. He could refuse to enter a partnership.
Inside Scarfo’s world, the words attacked reputation itself. If one contractor could say publicly that Nicky the Little should be excluded, another might refuse to give Scarfo work. A union official might ignore his recommendation. A developer might choose a different company.
An associate might begin wondering whether Scarfo was really as powerful as he claimed. Mob authority depended on impressions. Scarfo did not need everyone to like him. He needed them to believe that criticizing him had consequences.
The words came back through the social circle. Reports also said Falcone made insulting comments about Philip Leonetti. That made the insult useful to Scarfo in another way. Philip was not just one of his young associates.
He was the son of Scarfo’s sister. Leonetti had grown up under his uncle’s influence in Atlantic City. Scarfo presented himself as the controlling man in the family and gradually drew Philip toward organized crime. The relationship was a mixture of family loyalty and criminal training.
Scarfo taught him who deserved respect, taught him that fear was more reliable than affection, and taught him that a man proved himself by carrying out difficult orders without hesitation. Leonetti wanted his uncle’s approval. That gave Scarfo a power no ordinary leader possessed. He could present the murder as a family duty.
Falcone had insulted both of them. Scarfo could now make Philip answer the insult and prove that his loyalty to his uncle outweighed any friendship with the victim. The murder required planning. Scarfo first needed a weapon that would not lead investigators directly to him.
In late 1979, he approached Joseph Salerno Jr. inside a Philadelphia restaurant. Salerno was not a professional killer. He was a plumber who worked near Falcone, Leonetti, and other men involved in Atlantic City construction.
Financial problems had pushed him closer to this group. He borrowed money and entered relationships he did not fully understand until pulling away became dangerous. Scarfo asked whether Salerno owned any firearms. Salerno said he had a shotgun and an old .
32 caliber pistol. A few weeks later, Scarfo ordered him to bring the weapons to the Scarfo company office on Georgia Avenue. Scarfo, Leonetti, and Lawrence Merlino took possession of them. Salerno understood enough to be afraid.
He did not realize what Scarfo intended to do. That ignorance protected the plan. Had Salerno known a murder was coming, he might have refused to attend. He might have called the police before the shooting.
He might have warned Falcone. Scarfo needed him frightened but uninformed. The borrowed pistol did more than provide an untraceable weapon. It implicated Salerno in the crime.
If police found the gun or identified it through forensic evidence, the investigation could lead to him. Scarfo could tell Salerno that silence was now the only way to protect himself. The weapon turned a potential witness into someone who might appear involved. On Sunday, December 16, Salerno was at his home in Brigantine.
Christmas was approaching. He wanted to spend the evening with his children and decorate the family tree. Then the phone rang. Salerno was ordered to go to the office on Georgia Avenue.
When he arrived, he said he wanted to return home. The men did not let the evening end so easily. He rode in a car with Falcone, Leonetti, and Lawrence Merlino. They drove to the apartment in Margate where Scarfo was waiting.
The setting was designed to feel friendly. Christmas drinks, men who knew one another, a beachfront apartment instead of a dark alley, Scarfo watching television instead of pacing with a weapon. The most effective traps allow the victim to justify every warning. Falcone may have known his comment reached Scarfo, but Scarfo continued allowing him to be around the group.
The invitation suggested forgiveness. If Nicky the Little really intended to kill him, Falcone could tell himself, why would everyone gather openly for drinks? That was precisely why the meeting succeeded. Scarfo had not forgotten.
He waited until Falcone stopped expecting any reaction. Inside the apartment, Scarfo asked the condemned man to prepare drinks for the people about to kill him. The request served several purposes. It made the meeting look natural.
It placed Falcone in a submissive role, serving the men inside the room. Most importantly, it forced him to move away from Leonetti. Philip used Salerno’s pistol. The first shot hit Falcone from behind.
After the second, there was no more discussion about concrete, respect, or apologies. Scarfo’s opinion was the only one allowed inside the apartment. The men divided the cleanup tasks immediately. Leonetti and Merlino left to dispose of the weapon and retrieve Falcone’s car.
Salerno remained behind with Scarfo. He was told to bind the body and wrap it inside a cover. Salerno later described performing that task while still absorbing what he had witnessed. He had entered the apartment as a frightened acquaintance.
Now he was handling the body of a man he knew while the killer kept his weapon. Scarfo’s comment that he loved what was happening destroyed any possibility that the murder had been an impulsive reaction. Nicky the Little was enjoying the control. Falcone had criticized him.
Now Scarfo could watch other men erase Falcone while no one in the room dared object. When Merlino returned with the car, Salerno helped place the body in the trunk. The conspirators moved the car and abandoned it elsewhere in Margate. They returned to clean the apartment.
Clothing and other evidence were disposed of through a sewer drain. Then the men had dinner. That meal showed the emotional order Scarfo wanted his followers to adopt. A man could drink beside them one moment.
Minutes later they could wrap his body. Afterward, they were expected to eat as if the evening had been ordinary. Violence is followed by routine, because routine makes killers feel protected. The men convinced themselves that Falcone had caused his own death through careless talk.
They were only applying the rules. Joseph Salerno could not accept that explanation. The murder showed him the true meaning of Scarfo’s friendship. Salerno had worked alongside these men.
They had bought him meals. They had talked about families, construction jobs, and ordinary neighborhood problems. On the surface, they seemed generous and familiar. Beneath it, Scarfo could decide that one of them deserved to die and expect everyone to participate.
Salerno realized he was now trapped. Scarfo could use the pistol to tie him to the murder. The men could claim he had been willingly involved. If he tried to leave quietly, Scarfo might decide he knew too much.
If he stayed, another invitation might place him where Falcone had stood. Sitting behind a bulletproof barrier, surrounded by at least twelve state and federal law enforcement officers, Joseph Salerno told his story. During his earlier association with Nicodemo Scarfo, he said, he had heard the alleged mob boss boast about controlling Atlantic City unions. Authorities placed him and his family under protection because his testimony was directed against Scarfo, Leonetti, and Merlino.
Investigators now had something rare in mob cases: an eyewitness who had been inside the room. Salerno could identify the weapon. He could explain the details of the car ride. He could describe Scarfo watching television.
He could describe the first shot, the second, and the orders that followed. He could explain how the body was placed in Falcone’s car. But witnesses connected to organized crime enter court with vulnerabilities. Salerno had borrowed money.
He socialized with gangsters. His personal weapon had been used. He helped wrap and move the victim instead of calling the police immediately. Defense attorneys could describe him as a participant protecting himself rather than an innocent observer telling the truth.
The state murder trial began in 1980. Scarfo, Philip Leonetti, and Lawrence Merlino sat at the defense table. Salerno testified against men he had once considered friends. The defense presented alibi witnesses and attacked inconsistencies in the prosecution’s reconstruction.
After only a few hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted all three defendants. Scarfo left court believing his system had worked. The body had been moved. The apartment had been cleaned.
The gun had disappeared. The key witness had been damaged by his own closeness to the crime. Acquittal did not prove the murder never happened. It meant the state failed to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.
To Scarfo, that distinction did not matter. He was free. Salerno entered hiding. He and his family moved frequently.
Names changed. Relationships collapsed. Ordinary contact with relatives became dangerous. Scarfo was said to have placed a large bounty on his head.
When Salerno remained out of reach under protection, the organization tried to reach his father. In 1982, a gunman appeared at the office of Joseph Salerno Sr. in Wildwood Crest and fired when the older man opened the door. The father survived.
The message was still perfectly clear. Scarfo could not reach the witness, so he attacked the witness’s blood. The organization claimed Salerno had betrayed his friends. Scarfo had already demonstrated the meaning of friendship by ordering Falcone’s death and forcing Salerno to take part in the cleanup.
While Salerno lived in exile, Scarfo’s power grew. Angelo Bruno was assassinated in 1980. Philip Testa succeeded him briefly before being killed by a bomb in 1981. Scarfo emerged as the boss of the Philadelphia and South Jersey crime family.
The qualities Falcone had criticized now defined the organization. Scarfo demanded personal loyalty. Murders required his approval. Associates hoping to be formally inducted were expected to prove themselves through violence on behalf of the family.
Insults, business disputes, and doubts about loyalty became death sentences with increasing frequency. Philip Leonetti rose beside him. The nephew who fired the first shot at Falcone became a captain and eventually underboss. From Scarfo’s perspective, the system had worked.
He had used murder to strengthen the bond between uncle and nephew. Leonetti could not easily leave because he had committed his crimes under Scarfo’s direct observation. Every promotion tied him more closely to the man who knew everything he had done. But fear creates cooperation as easily as it creates obedience.
By the mid-1980s, several important Philadelphia mob figures had begun speaking to authorities. Investigators gathered murders, attempted murders, gambling, drug trafficking, loan sharking, and extortion into a federal racketeering case. The murder of Vincent Falcone returned as one of the criminal acts demonstrating how the Scarfo enterprise operated. The state jury had initially acquitted the defendants.
Federal prosecutors represented an independent authority and charged the murder as part of a broader violation of federal racketeering law. Joseph Salerno testified again. This time, Falcone’s death was not an isolated incident. Jurors heard it alongside a pattern of carefully authorized violence.
They learned that the boss held sole authority to issue murder orders. They heard how the Scarfo organization collected money and punished those who threatened its reputation. Falcone’s murder became an early example of the culture Scarfo later imposed on the entire family. In November 1988, a federal jury convicted Scarfo, Leonetti, and several other defendants in the broad racketeering case.
The jury specifically found that Scarfo and Leonetti had participated in Falcone’s murder as an act of racketeering. Roughly nine years after the apartment meeting, the killing finally helped produce federal convictions. An appeals court later upheld the result. The Scarfo organization was dismantled.
Leaders and soldiers received extremely long prison sentences. The boss who believed an acquittal had buried the Falcone case forever learned that a murder could remain inside the evidence even after the first prosecution failed. Philip Leonetti eventually became a government witness himself. The nephew Scarfo had trained to kill, promoted to captain, and then to underboss, broke with his uncle after their convictions.
Scarfo had believed shared blood and shared murder would guarantee loyalty. Instead, the nephew knew more about the family’s crimes than any surviving member. Leonetti could explain the hierarchy, the orders, the meetings, the bodies, and the private side of Nicky Scarfo that ordinary soldiers never saw. The same relationship Scarfo used to create a reliable killer ultimately created a dangerously effective witness.
That was the ultimate purpose of Vincent Falcone’s murder. The killing was meant to prove that no one could speak against Nicky Scarfo. It produced Joseph Salerno, one of the first witnesses willing to describe Scarfo’s violence from inside the room. The system was meant to turn Philip Leonetti into a permanent family asset.
Leonetti eventually cooperated as well. Scarfo wanted Falcone dead to protect his entry into the construction industry. Instead, the crime became one of the pieces of evidence used to prove that his organization operated through racketeering and violence.