Joe Campanella was a soldier in the Colombo crime family who became a government informant in 2003 after surviving a murder plot orchestrated by his former mob colleagues. Before turning cooperator, he served as a bodyguard for captain William “Wild Bill” Cutolo during the brutal Colombo family civil war of 1991 to 1993. Campanella testified that Cutolo ordered him to kill Greg “the Grim Reaper” Scarpa, a feared soldier loyal to imprisoned boss Carmine Persico. Campanella and a crew of associates waited outside Scarpa’s house one morning in a stolen van, planning to open fire as Scarpa got into his car.
The plan failed before a single shot was fired at the target. One of the would-be shooters, Frankie Notch, accidentally discharged his gun, alerting Scarpa, who jumped into his car and sped away with his associates. When asked why Cutolo wanted Scarpa killed, Campanella testified that Cutolo simply said it was “family business. ”
Scarpa’s daughter, Linda, later described the incident in her memoir, *The Mafia Hitman’s Daughter*.
She had been driving with her eight-month-old son and pulled up behind her father’s car when the van stopped behind them. She heard popping noises that sounded like fireworks and saw men dressed head to toe in black, wearing ski masks and carrying long black guns with silencers. They surrounded the cars and opened fire on her father’s vehicle. She saw her father go down as the first shots rang out.
A friend of Scarpa’s, Joseph “Joe Fish” Mara, jumped out of his car and returned fire, narrowly missing being shot in the head. The gunfire was so intense that Scarpa’s car was left looking like Swiss cheese. Scarpa’s car managed to escape by wedging through a gap between a stop sign and a truck. Linda was left on the road with her baby, surrounded by the armed men.
One gunman with pale blue eyes ran over to her car, looked in, and then turned and ran away. Linda raced back to the house and told her mother that Scarpa had been killed. Moments later, Scarpa walked through the door, pale as a ghost. He grabbed his grandson, hugged him, and told Linda she had saved his life.
He then promised retaliation, telling her mother that the attackers were all dead men and that they would start dying that night. Campanella’s testimony also detailed other violent attempts during the war. He admitted trying to kill two or three of Scarpa’s men in Brooklyn, but the attempt was aborted after Joey Telino’s gun accidentally went off in a basement while the group was waiting. He also described shooting and wounding Ronald Calvo near Bruno’s hair cutting shop on 86th Street and 21st Avenue in Brooklyn in 1991.
Campanella said about 15 men were present when they were taking Cutolo for a haircut. Although he was not charged for that shooting until later, he pleaded guilty to it as part of his cooperation agreement with the federal government, telling prosecutors about all of his crimes. The Colombo family civil war ended in 1993, shortly after the murder of Orena faction member Joey Scopo. Many members from both factions, including acting boss Vic Orena, ended up incarcerated.
The conflict is often regarded as the last open mob war in American history, where mobsters were gunned down in the streets while civilians were present.