The Castro plot over and done with, Giancana returned to Chicago. “Was summoned” would be a better phrase. Ac-cardo was getting a little tired of Giancana’s absurd involvements with one thing and another and bringing continued heat on the Syndicate. In all the years that Accardo was boss of the Syndicate there was little heat. He ran things smoothly and saw to it that the hundreds of hoods under him followed his dictums of staying clear of anything not concerning Syndicate business.
The Fall
The government at this time began efforts to deport Roselli to Italy, where he was born in 1905. Mob money and lawyers went to his aid and appeal after appeal was filed on his behalf to stall the deportation proceedings. In order to enchance his position against deportation, Roselli sued to have his service discharge changed from undesirable to honorable. Both cases are still pending at this writing.
When Giancana returned to Chicago, Roselli told him he would have to “lay low” and avoid any complicity in Syndicate affairs that would jeopardize his stay in the United States.
Giancana argued that the Syndicate had too much money and too much power in official circles to worry about deportation.
“Like hell!” Roselli exploded. “They deported Luciano, Adonis and a dozen others — twenty, fifty. I’m staying clean so you can forget about me.”
“I need you,” Giancana argued.
“That’s just too damn bad. I’ve had it!”
Roselli did stay out of any involvement with Giancana and the Syndicate but was convicted in 1969 of a card cheating scandal at the Friar’s Club in Los Angeles and sentenced to five years in prison. He is out of prison but not out of trouble. His police record includes sixteen arrests on charges of carrying a concealed weapon while he was a member of the Capone gang.
He is very sharp in many areas of crime but certainly lacking in the kind of intelligence that tells him he’s a mark for arrest any time an honest detective can get something on him. Contrary to popular belief, there are some honest and dedicated police officers in Chicago. They are often handicapped and stymied by district attorneys and judges on mob payrolls but manage somehow to keep local hoods in line.
Accardo finally got fed up with Giancana and, at a meeting of the Council, Sam was removed as head of the mob. He went to Mexico, where he stayed for a protracted period, but finally the Mexican authorities expelled him as undesirable and he returned to his home in Oak Park.
He was summoned before a Federal grand jury in February 1975 and questioned about Syndicate activities in Latin America. He denied, according to informed sources, any knowledge of mob infiltration in any Latin American country.
Sometime later he went to Houston, Texas, and checked into the Methodist Hospital there, where he underwent surgery for a gall bladder condition. He returned to his home and lived quietly but the storm clouds were gathering about him. Somewhere in the vast labyrinth of the mobs and the CIA, by someone with authority to speak, he was marked for death.
There was no appeal.
It was June 19, 1975. The bright orange sun that had filled the sky had long ago disappeared. Now there was night, dark, starless, somehow sinister. Inside his Oak Park house, Salvatore “Sam” Giancana, nicknamed Momo, was saying good-night to the last of the guests who had gathered there for a welcome home party.
He was hungry. He had eaten none of the food spread out on tables for his guests, nor had he had a glass of wine in the many traditional toasts to his health. He went downstairs to the basement, where there was a large kitchen, and began to prepare a pan of Italian sausages and peppers.
He stood over the stove, stirring the contents and inhaling the flavor of the herbs and spices he had mixed together with the sausages and peppers, savoring the aroma as he anticipated the meal with a relish.
He was at peace with the world. His operation had been successful. He was feeling good. He was glad for the first time in his life to be out of the rackets. Age had mellowed him despite the fact his entire life had been devoid of balance, evaluation or judgment, barren in the atmosphere of luxury blood money had bought.
Outside the house, two police officers in a patrol car had sat and watched everyone who went into the house and came out of it that evening. They waited another ten minutes and drove away.
Minutes later, two men entered the basement where Giancana stood over the stove. They were strangers to him. A wave of panic swept over him as he saw the guns in their hands, then came a fierce reaction born of his days as a hoodlum, gangster, an animal who had killed without compassion.
He reached for a large knife on a nearby table. The guns were leveled with deliberate aim. The first shot tore into his head. His eyes still reflected the anger and fury of his rebelliousness at this effrontery to him.
He was a Don. Who the hell were these two nobodies who dared to take his life? Another shot ripped into his skull. The knife fell from his hand. There were more shots, four, five. They tore what had been Giancana’s brain to shreds.
A sudden stillness prevailed then as Giancana lay on the floor, a puddle of blood flowing freely from his head, mouth and ears. The sausages and peppers burned and what had once been aromatic scent had been reduced to ashes.
Joseph DiPersio, the caretaker, and his wife were in their apartment on the upper floor of the one-and-a-half story bungalow. Their window air-conditioner was running and they were watching television.
According to detectives, Mr. DiPersio went downstairs and called to Giancana, asking if he was all right. This was at 10:30 P.M. Giancana replied that he was. DiPersio said he went down again at 11:00 o’clock. This time Giancana did not answer. When DiPersio went to the basement, he found Giancana lying face up in a pool of blood on the floor of the kitchen. Six .22 caliber shell cases were found near the body. Giancana had been shot seven times in the head and neck.
Oak Park detectives said later that DiPersio’s call for help didn’t come until 11:53 P.M. They assumed that DiPersio, who was once questioned about an earlier gang slaying, had first phoned Giancana’s two married daughters, who live in Oak Park. DiPersio told police neither he nor his wife heard the shots, nor had they heard anyone entering the bungalow.
Oak Park Chief of Detectives, Harold Fitzsimmons, said that it would have been simple for someone to enter the basement from an outside stairway without the caretaker hearing the noise above that of the air-conditioner and the television.
A Justice Department source in Washington said that while Giancana had slipped to a low level in the crime syndicate’s hierarchy since his return from Mexico, there were enough old scores to settle that “one of his own” could have shot him.
He noted that one bullet had struck Giancana in the mouth. This was often the gangsters’ way of showing that their people who talked to grand juries did not live long afterward.
Who killed Salvatore “Sam” Giancana?
Chicago and Oak Park police speculate that Giancana was ordered killed by syndicate leaders who were concerned lest he trade underworld information sought by federal prosecutors in exchange for the dropping of a possible perjury indictment.
Peter F. Vaira, head of the Justice Department’s Strike Force on Crime in Chicago, revealed that the Federal Government had been developing a perjury case against Giancana in connection with his replies about his activities in Mexico.
Oak Park police discount robbery as a motive since $1458 was found on Giancana’s body although his wallet was empty. Detectives express doubt that the killing was syndicate-ordered because of the small-caliber pistol. Most gangland slayings have involved larger-caliber handguns, shotguns, or machineguns.