Downfall and Death
Mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo was starting to begin a violent genocide of his associates and every member of the family. An estimated total of 30 outsiders and made men were dead by the end of his reign, largely due to the Scarfo-Riccobene War and his own paranoia of disloyal and dishonest people. Scarfo ordered him to take out Bobby Riccobene. Spirito was reluctant, and Scarfo sent Nicholas Caramandi and Charles Iannece Jr. to kill him.
On April 29, 1983, Pasquale "Pat the Cat" Spirito was shot two times in the back of the head while sitting in his car in South Philadelphia. Spirito was killed for failing to carry out the contract to kill Robert Riccobene, the brother of Harry Riccobene. Nick Caramandi, during an interview commented,
"We tried for months to kill him, and for a while that's all we used to talk about. We used to get sick when we'd see him. We'd want to throw up. Pat had bad vibes and knew what was coming. This guy tried to work my head for hours the day before. He had me in a booth in a luncheonette drinking coffee for four hours, making me tell him how much I love him, and it's already set up to kill him the next night. I said, "Pat, what are you talking like this for? I'd do anything for you. Hey! I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you. Buddy, my life is yours. Jesus Christ, I love you." He was relieved.
Caramandi also said:
"Spirito was not cut out for the Scarfo mob. He had come out of Trenton and moved to South Philadelphia at a time when mob members were low-key operators concentrating on gambling, loan-sharking, and bookmaking. He was greedy and ambitious, attributes that Scarfo could appreciate, but he lacked the killer instinct. He thought he could slide by generating enough money to keep the Little Guy down the shore satisfied. But he underestimated Scarfo's bloodlust. Spirito was a money-maker, but he was also a whiner and complainer." After we killed him, "everybody was happy. Everybody hated him. I never seen a guy hated so much."
Read more about this topic: Pat Spirito
Famous quotes containing the words downfall and/or death:
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)