Joseph Paruta - Mercy Killing

Mercy Killing

In 1984, during one of Gravano's bedside visits to Paruta, he asked him to kill him. He told Sammy, "Kill me, Sammy. Kill me, please." He tried to get Gravano to understand that a swift bullet was the best gift a true friend could give him. He couldn't stand the pain any more. But like every murder of a made man (which Paruta was), even a mercy killing, he had to get permission. He sent a message through Gene Gotti to John Gotti. He tried to prepare Gene and explain the situation as best as he could. Although Gravano never found out what Gene told John when they discussed Paruta, Gotti denied the mercy killing. He said that there was no way he would authorize a murder contract on a made man under the circumstances they were facing. Sammy brought Gotti's discussion to Paruta who did not accept the answer. He begged Sammy and prevailed on him that the friendship between them was above everything and that the only way he could prove his friendship was by carrying out the murder. Sammy ordered his brother-in-law Edward Garofalo to get a gun with a silencer. Sammy gave Paruta one day's notice to have his family away from the house on the day he was to be murdered. Thomas Carbonaro would be stationed outside the house in a car ready for a swift getaway. Edward and Gravano would go through a back door that would be left open by Paruta. The two of them would go up to the bedroom where Joseph was confined to having fallen very ill at this point. Edward would sit him in a comfortable position and then join Carbonaro in the car outside when Gravano would shoot him. Sammy later said,

It was all set. I was home waiting to be picked up by Huck and Eddie. My wife was there. The night before I had been real irritable. When Debbie mentioned this, I put her off. I said I had things on my mind. Now I stepped outside for a second, and when I came back, she said she had sad news. Eddie had just called. He said that Old Man Paruta suddenly took a turn for the worst. He was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, but died on the way. He was only fifty-nine. My man of loyalty, of heart and soul, a man of honor, were gone.

His friend and family consigliere Frank DeCicco would later be murdered a year later. The deaths of D'Angelo, Paruta and Frank DeCicco would all play a heavy toll on Sammy Gravano. With DeCicco's murder, Gravano would no longer have any of his original close friends or crew left having all met their demise either by his hand or at hands of others. The deaths of his criminal associates would later play a factor in deciding to testify against the Gambino crime family and his former boss and friend John Gotti. After Paruta died, he would help support his wife and children financially over the years. He was the only member of Gravano's crew not to meet their fate by being murdered.

He was the last member of Gravano's original Bensonhurst, Brooklyn crew that he had inherited from Salvatore Aurello after Frank DeCicco was murdered by a car bomb in 1985, two years earlier.