Loan-sharking, trucks & fencing, extortion, protection rackets, and infamous Mafia-run union scams. Unions controlled everything from construction to garbage. So the Mafia took over the unions. They plundered the pension plans. ibid.
He realised what attracted the FBI and police to him was his wealth without any visible source of income. ibid.
What a lifestyle it was. The money flooded in from his numerous rackets. ibid.
Colombo would stand up for rights of ordinary Italian Americans ... picketing the very heart of law enforcement in New York. The crowds grew, and media attention followed. Colombo revelled in it ... It was in marked contrast to his silence at the Grand Jury years before. ibid.
In 1970 Colombo shifted his protest movement up a gear – he created the Italian American Civil Rights League. ibid.
Producers of The Godfather movie started to have trouble filming in New York. Production was threatened by walkouts, obstructions and delays. The League came to the rescue. Offering to smooth the process if the producers agreed to remove all references to the Mafia or Cosa Nostra from the script. ibid.
In December 1970 he was arrested ... Colombo was immediately called before a Grand Jury to explain himself. ibid.
Colombo headed to the podium to speak ... The newsman moved forward. [shoots Colombo] Then something even more remarkable happened – the man who hit him was dead before he hit the floor. Colombo was immediately rushed to hospital. ibid.
It began to tear itself apart in the decades that followed. ibid.
He died a maverick godfather. ibid.
New York City, 28th June 1971 ... A celebration of ethnic pride ... It was led by Mafia don Joe Colombo ... As Colombo approached the podium to speak shots rang out. Colombo collapsed to the ground. Mobsters: Joey Gallo, AHC 2018
Joe Colombo was a mixture of old world and new ... A master of murder and corruption. Inside the American Mob I: Stayin’ Alive in the 70s, National Geographic 2013
Colombo loves the attention and doesn’t seem to know when to stop. ibid.
Mob boss Joe Colombo was shot at his own rally in 1971. ibid.
COLON, CARMEN & WANDA WALKOWICZ & MICHELLE MAENZA murders: Dark Minds: Double Initial Murder TV - Associated Press -
Between 1971 and ’73 in Rochester New York ... three little girls were abducted, raped and strangled to death ... Carmen Colon, Wanda Walkowicz and Michelle Maenza. Dark Minds: Double Initial Murder
After the fireman killed himself, the double initial murders stopped. ibid.
Is Kenneth Bianchi, the Hillside Strangler, also the Double Initial Killer? ibid.
April 2011: a man has been arrested ... police allege he killed four young women with double-initial names in California between 1977 and 1994 ... The suspect lived in Rochester in the 1960s and ’70s. ibid.
This forty-year mystery has taken its toll. ibid.
Wanda Walkowicz was found dead in Webster. Michelle Maenzas body was dumped in Macedon. And Carmen Colon’s was discovered near Churchville.
More than 22 years later, acting on a tip from a prison informant, investigators are revisiting the so-called ‘double-initial’ murders.
All three girls Wanda and Michelle were 11, Carmen was 10 had first and last names with the same initial and were abducted not far from their homes while running late-afternoon errands for their mothers.
They were raped and strangled and their bodies dumped in plain view in or near Rochester-area villages that bore the same first initial as their names.
A convicted murderer at a maximum-security prison now claims to know who killed them, and the suspect is believed to be still living in this region on Lake Ontario's southern shore, Sheriff Richard Pisciotti said.
The informant passed on ‘interesting things’ about one of the crime scenes that ‘we consider worthy of further investigation,’ Pisciotti said.
Carmen was killed in 1971, Wanda and Michelle in 1973. Police questioned more than 800 suspects, but no one was ever arrested. Associated Press article Ben Dobbin, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 15th December 1995
COLONIAL PARKWAY murders: Dark Minds TV -
Four young couples brutally murdered. The most notorious serial killings in Virginia history. And whoever is responsible could still be out there. Dark Minds s2e7: Colonial Parkway murders, Discovery 2013
COLOSIO-MURRIETA, LUIS DONALDO murder: viz Assassinations: COLOSIO-MURRIETA, LUIS DONALDO
COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL MASSACRE: see HARRIS, ERIC & DYLAN KLEBOLD
COLVER, STEVEN & TYLAR WITT: Killer Kids TV - People Magazine Investigates TV -
19-year-old Steven Colver grew up just outside El Dorado Hills. Steven met 14-year-old Tylar Witt through a friend and they immediately clicked … Living under the same roof as Tylar and Joanne, Steven soon realised that Tylar’s relationship was somewhat strained with her mom. Killer Kids s3e3: Mommie Dearest & Forbidden Love, LMN 2014
They were going to deal with Tylar’s mother once and for all. ibid.
‘She threw Steven under the bus.’ ibid.
June 15th 2009: Joanne [Witt] still hasn’t shown up for work … ‘Deputies were able to gain entry on the side of the house and they made their way up the stairs to the master bedroom. And immediately discovered a female laying partially on a bed. She had been covered with a blanket. There was no movement but there was a lot of blood.’ People Magazine Investigates s7e10: Star-Crossed Killers, rozzer, QuestRed 2023
‘Joanne had reported statutory rape of her 14-year-old daughter Tylar. So we knew a young girl should have been at the house but wasn’t there.’ ibid.
Detectives have learned that the day before her brutal murder, 47-year-old Joanne Witt was trying to file a statutory rape charge against 19-year-old Steven Colver for having sex with her 14-year-old daughter Tylar. They learned Steven had been renting a room from Joanne for the past six months. ibid.
When Steven learned that Tyler was going to testify against him he did feel betrayed. ibid.
Steven says he took the blame because they had every intention of killing themselves. ibid.