Salvatore Naturile - Early Life

Early Life

Little is known about Naturile's background except for criminal acts he committed and that he lived in Manhattan, in the same neighborhood as John Wojtowicz. As a kid, growing up in Keansburg, New Jersey for two years in his early years as an adolescent, he had been picked up and arrested on countless charges of truancy, grand larceny, burglary and dangerous drugs. He spent most of his teen years in and out of state reform schools, and within the three months before the fatal robbery attempt, Salvatore had been charged with possession of burglary tools and possession of narcotics. As a youth while incarcerated in prison he was victim to numerous acts of sodomy from older, stronger inmates.

In the novelization of the crime by Patrick Mann, it is suggested that Naturile had connections with the Italian mafia in New York City, but he in fact had no known associations with organized crime. He sported a faint blond mustache and crude tattoos on his arms and thighs and lived mostly as a drifter, but a The New York Times article stated that he remained in contact with and occasionally lived with his mother. A middle-aged man named Wallace Hamilton, who told reporters that he was a friend of Naturile's, identified Naturile's corpse at the city morgue following the robbery.