Informer: Create source-calibrated article on early Castellammarese or Palermitan networks and blood families

2026-08-25T16:47:06Z

Create source-calibrated article on early Castellammarese or Palermitan networks and blood families

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{{SHORTDESC:1921 case label for a Castellammarese vendetta crew}}
{{Infobox criminal organization
| name = Good Killers Gang
| image = Good Killers case lineup 1921.jpg
| image_alt = Police lineup published during the 1921 Good Killers case
| caption = A lineup published during the 1921 case; the source identifies Stefano Magaddino, Vito Bonventre, Bartolo Fontana and Giuseppe Lombardi, while two other figures are detectives
| founding_location = Brooklyn, New York City
| territory = Brooklyn Connections to Detroit, Buffalo and Castellammare del Golfo
| parent_organization = [[Castellammaresi network (New York City)|Castellammaresi network]] {{small|(hometown and kinship milieu, not a formal parent corporation)}}
| structure = Case-defined crew or overlapping vendetta network; enforcement-arm status disputed
| activities = Vendetta killings and murder conspiracies Intimidation and coerced violence Arson allegations
| notable_members = Stefano Magaddino {{small|(identified in the case)}} Vito Bonventre {{small|(identified in the case)}} Bartolo DiGregorio {{small|(identified in the case)}} Giuseppe Lombardi {{small|(identified in the case)}} Mariano Galante {{small|(identified in the case)}} Francesco Puma {{small|(identified in the case)}}
| status = Case-era network disrupted by arrests and flight
| years_active = c. 1916–1921 {{small|(vendetta and case period; not a proven permanent gang)}}
}}

The '''Good Killers Gang''', usually called the '''Good Killers''' in historical accounts, was a label applied during a 1921 investigation into Castellammarese vendetta killings connecting Sicily, Brooklyn and Detroit. It operated within the wider [[Castellammaresi network (New York City)|Castellammaresi hometown and kinship milieu]], but the evidence does not establish a formally chartered “Good Killers Gang” under a permanent parent organization.

==1921 case and membership==
The case developed after Bartolo Fontana confessed to the killing of Camillo Caiozzo and described a series of murders tied to conflict between the Bonventre–Magaddino and Buccellato sides of Castellammare del Golfo. Thomas Hunt and Michael A. Tona describe the accused circle as immigrant mafiosi of the [[Bonventre family|Bonventre]] and [[Magaddino family|Magaddino]] families and their allies.<ref name="Hunt">Thomas Hunt and Michael A. Tona, [https://mafiahistory.us/a014/f_goodkillers.html “The Good Killers: 1921's Glimpse of the Mafia”], revised from ''On the Spot Journal of Crime and Law Enforcement History'', Spring 2007.</ref>

Fontana identified Stefano Magaddino, Bartolo DiGregorio, Vito Bonventre, Giuseppe Lombardi, Mariano Galante and Francesco Puma as figures who compelled or authorized the Caiozzo killing.<ref name="Hunt" /> These were confession and prosecution allegations; the list should not be converted automatically into a complete membership roll or formal rank chart.

==Organizational status==
Hunt and Tona interpret the Good Killers as one crew or an enforcement arm within a wider Castellammarese syndicate. David Critchley expressly cautions that there was no evidence establishing the Killers as the enforcement arm of one unified syndicate that later evolved directly into the Brooklyn, Buffalo and Detroit crime families.<ref name="Critchley">David Critchley, [https://books.google.com/books?id=2eCPAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA218 ''The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931''] (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 218–223.</ref>

The safest description is a case-defined, kin-connected vendetta crew overlapping with the existing [[Schiro crime family|Williamsburg Mafia organization]]. It was not a separate organization that later merged wholesale with a “Schiro Gang.” The Schiro family already existed before the 1921 case, and Magaddino and Bonventre were blood-family names rather than corporate gangs.

==Relationship to the Schiro family==
Several people identified in the Good Killers investigation belonged to or associated with the Castellammarese milieu from which Schiro's borgata recruited. Shared personnel and kinship support overlap and assistance in particular crimes; they do not prove that every Good Killers defendant was inducted into Schiro's family or that the Schiro family was created by a 1921 merger.

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Former gangs in New York City]]
[[Category:Gangs in Brooklyn]]
[[Category:Mafia groups in the United States]]
[[Category:Italian-American organized crime groups]]
[[Category:Organizations disestablished in 1921]]

Good Killers Gang - Revision history

Informer: Create source-calibrated article on early Castellammarese or Palermitan networks and blood families