On May 13, 1977, at 5:45 p.m., Mickey Spillane walked toward his apartment building on 59th Street in Woodside, Queens. He was 43 years old. Five bullets tore through him in rapid succession, and he collapsed on the sidewalk as blood spread across the concrete.
The hit took 12 seconds. The shooter disappeared into traffic. Spillane died before the ambulance arrived.
For 15 years, Spillane had controlled Hell's Kitchen with an iron fist. Now he was just another body. The murder was not random. It was a gift, wrapped up and delivered to Jimmy Coonan by Roy DeMeo, the Gambino family's most prolific killer.
Spillane's death meant one thing: the old guard was finished. A new breed of Irish gangster was taking over Hell's Kitchen, and they were about to make Spillane's reign look gentle by comparison.
This is the story of the Westies, the Irish mob crew so violent and unpredictable that the Italian Mafia subcontracted murders to them. Dismemberment was not a threat; it was standard procedure. Bodies did not just disappear. They were cut into pieces and scattered across the Hudson River.
For two decades, Hell's Kitchen belonged to them. This is how they built an empire on fear, and how one man's betrayal brought it all crashing down.
The Westies were not just street thugs. They ran a sophisticated criminal operation worth millions, with interests in labor unions, loan sharking, and drug trafficking. They had direct partnerships with the Gambino crime family, and Paul Castellano himself gave them work. The Italians feared them, and with good reason.
Hell's Kitchen in the 1970s was a war zone. The territory ran from Ninth Avenue to 12th Avenue, 34th Street to 59th Street, 50 square blocks of poverty, violence, and Irish working-class grit. Tenement buildings had broken windows, bars stood on every corner, and docks where longshoremen unloaded cargo also ran numbers on the side. The NYPD called it the most dangerous neighborhood in Manhattan. Locals called it home.
Jimmy Coonan was born there on December 21, 1946. His father was an accountant with mob connections, and his mother kept the family together. Jimmy grew up watching the neighborhood's power structure. Mickey Spillane ran everything. If you wanted to operate in Hell's Kitchen, you paid Spillane. If you did not, you disappeared.
Coonan watched. He learned. And he waited.
By his 20s, Coonan was pulling scores, hijackings, burglaries, and small-time work. He was smart, fearless, and already building a reputation. But he had a problem: Spillane. The older mobster demanded tribute from everyone, and Coonan refused. That decision almost killed him.
Spillane put out a hit. Coonan survived, barely, and went into hiding for three years. During that time, he made connections with Gambino family members, men who saw potential in a young Irish kid with ambition and zero fear.
Then came 1977. Spillane's murder. Coonan did not pull the trigger. He did not need to. Roy DeMeo did it for him, a favor between friends. DeMeo was a stone-cold killer who ran a crew out of Brooklyn and had murdered over 100 people. Spillane was just another contract.
But for Coonan, it was everything. With Spillane gone, Hell's Kitchen was his. He was 30 years old, and he was just getting started.
Coonan built his crew carefully. First, he brought in Mickey Featherstone, born Francis Thomas Featherstone on September 3, 1948. Small at 5 feet 6 inches and 140 pounds, Featherstone was a combat veteran who spent nine months in the jungles of Vietnam and earned two Purple Hearts. He came home with PTSD, a hair-trigger temper, and skills that translated perfectly to organized crime. Featherstone became Coonan's enforcer, his collector, his killer.
Then there was Kevin Kelly, who joined the Westies in the late 1970s. Big, strong, and reliable, Kelly started as muscle and worked his way up to running his own loan-sharking operation. He did not ask questions. He followed orders. That made him valuable, and eventually, it made him a target.
The Westies operated out of a handful of bars, including the Sunbrite on 10th Avenue and the 596 Club. These were not just drinking spots. They were headquarters, with back rooms where deals were made, debts were collected, and bodies were dismembered. Coonan ran everything from these locations.
His wife, Edna, helped manage the money. She was not just a mob wife; she was part of the operation, keeping the books and laundering cash. Later, she would serve 15 years in federal prison for her role.
By the late 1970s, Coonan had a problem: money. The Westies were making good cash from loan sharking and hijacking, but Coonan wanted more. He needed a partnership with someone who had connections, resources, and reach. He needed the Italian Mafia, specifically the Gambino family, the most powerful crime family in America.
Paul Castellano was running the Gambinos. Known as Big Paul, he was a businessman in a tailored suit who lived in a mansion on Staten Island. Castellano did not like violence. He liked money.
Coonan reached out with an offer. The Westies would handle contract killings for the Gambinos. They would provide muscle and control Hell's Kitchen, keeping it clean for Gambino operations. In return, the Gambinos would give them protection, connections, and a cut of bigger scores.
Castellano agreed. But there was a middleman: Roy DeMeo, the same man who had killed Spillane. DeMeo became Coonan's direct contact with the Gambino family, and he taught Coonan something crucial: how to make bodies disappear completely.
DeMeo had dismemberment down to a science. Cut the body into six pieces, remove the teeth and fingertips, wrap everything in plastic, and dump it in different locations. The Westies learned fast, and they improved the method.
When someone needed to die, they were lured to one of the Westie bars, usually with a fake meeting or a drink. Once inside, they were shot. Plastic sheets were laid out in the back room, and the body was placed on the plastic. Then came the dismemberment, saws, knives, methodical work: arms, legs, torso, head. Each piece was wrapped separately, then dumped in the Hudson River, the East River, or dumpsters across the city. Some pieces were never found.
One of the first victims was Ruby Stein in 1977. Stein was a loan shark with money, and the Westies owed him. Coonan did not want to pay, so Stein was invited to the bar, shot in the head, and dismembered. His body parts were scattered across Manhattan. The head was never recovered. Stein's disappearance sent a message: do not press the Westies for money, or you will not live to collect.
Another victim was Edward Kuminski, one of their own. Kuminski was a Westy who talked too much, and Coonan heard he was cooperating with police. On September 21, 1976, Kuminski was called to a meeting. He was shot multiple times, dismembered, and dumped. His murder proved that loyalty meant nothing if you became a liability. The Westies would kill their own without hesitation.
But the signature Westy murder happened in 1980. A man named Michael Holly, a construction worker, got into a bar fight with a Westy associate. Holly won the fight, which was a bad move. Kevin Kelly and Kenny Shannon were sent to kill him. Holly was shot and killed outside a building in Manhattan.
Mickey Featherstone did not commit this murder. He was not even there. But he got blamed for it. Featherstone was arrested and charged with Holly's murder. He went to trial, and the evidence was thin, mostly witness testimony from other Westies. Featherstone maintained his innocence. It did not matter. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life.
Featherstone sat in prison knowing he had been set up. He knew who really killed Holly: Kelly and Shannon. And he knew Coonan had allowed it to happen. That betrayal changed everything.
While Featherstone was locked up, the Westies kept working. They expanded into labor racketeering at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum, the massive aircraft carrier turned museum on the Hudson River. The Westies infiltrated the operation, controlled the workers, skimmed ticket sales, and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars. Museum officials did not even realize it was happening until federal investigators uncovered the scheme years later.
They also ran loan-sharking operations that stretched from Hell's Kitchen to Wall Street, serving garment district manufacturers, stockbrokers, and small business owners. Everyone needed money, and the Westies provided it at 25 percent interest per week. Miss a payment, and Featherstone or Kelly showed up. Sometimes they broke bones. Sometimes they burned down businesses. Sometimes people just disappeared.
The money was massive. Coonan was pulling in hundreds of thousands annually. He bought property and lived well. But he made mistakes, big ones. He trusted the wrong people. He left witnesses alive. And he underestimated law enforcement.
The FBI had been watching the Westies since the early 1980s. Surveillance, wiretaps, and informants gave them knowledge of the murders and the loan sharking, but they needed proof. They needed someone on the inside.
Then, in 1985, they got their break: Mickey Featherstone.
Featherstone had been in prison for four years, wrongfully convicted, angry, and betrayed. Then his lawyer found new evidence, including witnesses who could prove Featherstone was not at the Holly murder and testimony that pointed to Kelly and Shannon. Featherstone's conviction was overturned. He was released, but he was not grateful. He was furious.
Featherstone reached out to the FBI. He had information, names, dates, and murder details. He knew where bodies were buried, literally. But he wanted something in return: witness protection, a new identity, and safety for his wife and kids. The FBI agreed.
In 1986, Mickey Featherstone became a cooperating witness, the most valuable mob informant in New York. He told investigators everything. He detailed murders going back a decade. He explained the loan-sharking operations, the labor racketeering, and the partnership with the Gambinos. He named names: Coonan, Kelly, Shannon, McElroy, Bogan, all the major Westies. He gave up everything.
The FBI moved fast. On March 19, 1988, coordinated raids swept across Manhattan. Federal agents stormed into homes and businesses. Jimmy Coonan was arrested at his apartment. Kevin Kelly was picked up on the street. Kenneth Shannon and James McElroy were taken into custody. One by one, the Westies were arrested.
The indictments were devastating: racketeering, murder, conspiracy, loan sharking, and labor racketeering. The entire organization was being dismantled.
The trial started in 1988 in Federal Court in the Southern District of New York. The prosecution's star witness was Mickey Featherstone. For weeks, Featherstone sat on the stand and testified in excruciating detail. He described murders, explained how bodies were dismembered, named who pulled triggers, and showed where money came from.
Defense attorneys tried to break him, calling him a liar, a murderer, and a traitor. Featherstone did not flinch. He answered every question.
The jury heard about Ruby Stein, Edward Kuminski, and Michael Holly. They heard wiretap recordings, saw financial records, and listened to testimony from other witnesses. The evidence was overwhelming. The Westies were not just violent criminals. They were a sophisticated racketeering enterprise that had operated for 20 years.
The verdicts came down in 1988. Jimmy Coonan was found guilty and sentenced to 75 years in federal prison. Kevin Kelly was found guilty and sentenced to 50 years without parole. Kenneth Shannon was found guilty and sentenced to 40 years. James McElroy was found guilty and sentenced to 60 years. One by one, the Westies leadership was sentenced to life behind bars.
Edna Coonan was convicted separately and received 15 years for racketeering, along with a $200,000 fine.
Mickey Featherstone walked free. He entered witness protection with his family, with new names, a new city, and a new life. He had admitted to participating in murders, being an enforcer, and collecting debts through violence, but his cooperation earned him immunity. As of 2026, Featherstone is still alive, still in witness protection, still looking over his shoulder.
Jimmy Coonan is 79 years old. He is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona. His projected release date is June 2030, when he will be 83. He has appealed multiple times and requested compassionate release, arguing his age and health issues. Every appeal has been denied. Coonan will likely die in prison.
Kevin Kelly is also still incarcerated. He is 68 years old, serving his 50-year sentence with no parole and no early release. He will not get out until 2037, if he lives that long.
The Westies as an organization died in 1988. Some younger members tried to keep it going. They failed. Law enforcement kept the pressure on, and the neighborhood changed. Hell's Kitchen gentrified. Luxury apartments replaced tenements. Restaurants replaced mob-run bars. The old Irish working-class neighborhood became Clinton, a trendy, expensive Manhattan address. The Westies territory does not exist anymore.
But their legacy does. The Westies proved something important about organized crime: violence alone is not enough. You need discipline, structure, and loyalty. The Westies had violence. They had brutality. But they lacked the one thing that keeps crime families alive for generations: omerta, the code of silence. When Featherstone flipped, the entire organization collapsed. One cooperating witness destroyed 20 years of criminal enterprise.
The Westies were more sophisticated than people realized. They were not just street thugs who happened to kill people. They ran legitimate businesses. They had political connections. They bribed cops and union officials. They laundered money through real estate and construction companies. They built a criminal empire worth tens of millions of dollars, and they did it in one of the most heavily policed cities in America.
The partnership with the Gambino family was genius. It gave the Westies legitimacy in the mob world, access to bigger operations, and protection from rival gangs. The Italians got something too: deniability. When the Gambinos needed someone killed, they called the Westies. Irish guys killing Italian targets was harder to trace and harder to prosecute. It was a perfect arrangement, until it was not.
Paul Castellano was murdered outside Sparks Steak House in December 1985. John Gotti took over the Gambino family. Gotti did not trust the Westies and did not like them. The partnership weakened. By the time the Westies were indicted, they had lost their most powerful ally. They were on their own, and they could not survive.
The dismemberment method the Westies perfected became infamous. Law enforcement started calling it the Gemini method, named after Roy DeMeo's Gemini Lounge in Brooklyn, where he had first used it. But the Westies took it further. They made it faster, more efficient, and more terrifying. The psychological impact was enormous. People knew that if the Westies came for you, there would not be a body. There would not be a funeral. You would just vanish. That fear kept people in line for years.
Mickey Featherstone's testimony did not just destroy the Westies. It helped prosecutors go after the Gambino family. Featherstone testified at John Gotti's trial, explained the partnership between the two organizations, and described meetings with Gambino captains. His testimony was part of the evidence that eventually sent Gotti to prison for life. One cooperating witness damaged multiple crime families. That is the power of turning an insider.
Today, Hell's Kitchen is unrecognizable. Luxury high-rises line 10th Avenue. Michelin-star restaurants occupy spaces where mob social clubs once stood. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is over $4,000 a month. The neighborhood the Westies controlled through fear and violence is now one of the most desirable areas in Manhattan.
But talk to long-time residents, the ones who lived through the 1970s and 1980s. They remember. They remember when you did not walk certain blocks after dark, when bar fights ended with bodies in the river, and when everyone knew someone who disappeared. The Westies were not folklore. They were real, and they made Hell's Kitchen genuinely hellish for 20 years.
The final truth about the Westies is that they were victims of their own brutality. The dismemberments, the casual violence, and the complete disregard for human life made them feared. But it also made them targets. Law enforcement could not ignore them. The media could not ignore them. Bodies kept turning up in pieces. Eventually, that level of violence demands a response. And when Mickey Featherstone gave prosecutors the ammunition they needed, the response was total.
Jimmy Coonan thought he was building an empire. He thought partnering with the Gambinos made him untouchable. He thought loyalty and fear would keep his crew together. He was wrong on all counts. The empire lasted 20 years. The partnership ended in betrayal. And loyalty evaporated the moment Mickey Featherstone realized he had been set up for a murder he did not commit.
Coonan's biggest mistake was not the violence. It was leaving a witness alive, a witness with a photographic memory and a burning grudge.
The Westies are gone. Their leaders are in prison or dead. Their territory has been gentrified beyond recognition. But their story remains, a cautionary tale about the limits of violence, the inevitability of betrayal in organized crime, and what happens when fear is your only currency.
The Gambino family feared them. The neighborhood feared them. Even other Westies feared each other. And in the end, fear was not enough. It never is.
To understand the modern history of organized crime in New York, you have to understand the Westies. They represented the last gasp of the Irish mob in Manhattan, the end of an era that stretched back to the Dead Rabbits in the 1800s. After the Westies fell, there were no more major Irish gangs in New York. The Italians consolidated power, then they fell too. Now organized crime in the city is fragmented among Russian, Albanian, Chinese, and Dominican groups. The old ethnic territories do not exist anymore.
But for one brief, bloody stretch, Hell's Kitchen belonged to Jimmy Coonan and the Westies. They held it with a level of violence that shocked even the Mafia. That is their legacy. Not the money. Not the power. The brutality. The bodies cut into pieces and thrown into the river. The absolute terror they inspired in everyone who crossed their path.
That is what the Westies will be remembered for, and that is why their story still matters.
Violence without structure fails. Power without loyalty crumbles. And fear without respect is temporary. The Westies had all the wrong ingredients. They built something that looked like an empire, but it was actually a house of cards. One good push and it collapsed. Mickey Featherstone was that push. And when the Westies fell, they fell completely. No second generation, no comeback, just prison sentences and graveyards.
Jimmy Coonan sits in a cell in Arizona. He is an old man now, sick and tired, forgotten by everyone except law enforcement and crime historians. He once controlled 50 square blocks of Manhattan. He partnered with the most powerful crime family in America. He inspired genuine terror in thousands of people. Now he is prisoner number 04054-054.
That is the real story of the Westies. Not the violence. Not the power. The inevitable grinding price of choosing that life. A lifetime in a cage, watching the world move on without you. That is the cost. And Jimmy Coonan is still paying it.