Gregory Scarpa Sr.
| Gregory Scarpa Sr. | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
May 8, 1928 Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Died | June 4, 1994 (aged 66) Rochester, Minnesota, United States |
| Known for | American capo and hitman for the Colombo crime family, FBI Informant |
Gregory Scarpa Sr. (May 8, 1928 – June 4, 1994) nicknamed The Grim Reaper and also The Mad Hatter, was an American capo and hitman for the Colombo crime family and an informant for the FBI. During the 1970s and 80s, Scarpa was the chief enforcer and a veteran hitman for Colombo boss Carmine Persico. Scarpa was responsible for committing three murders in 1991 and is suspected to have committed a minimum of 80 murders from the early 1950s through 1992. Scarpa is believed by the FBI to have murdered 100 to 120 people.
Scarpa was born to first-generation immigrants, Salvatore and Mary, from the town of Lorenzaga of Motta di Livenza near Venice, Italy. He was raised in the working-class neighborhood of Bensonhurst in Brooklyn. As a child living in the Great Depression, Scarpa helped his father deliver coal throughout New York City. His older brother, Salvatore Scarpa, may have introduced Gregory to the Colombo crime family which he reportedly joined in the 1950s.
In the 1950s, Scarpa married Connie Forrest; she and Scarpa had one daughter and three sons, including Gregory Scarpa Jr. Greg Jr., who would follow his father into the Colombo family, eventually becoming a capo. Scarpa and Forrest separated in 1973. Scarpa also maintained a 30-year relationship with girlfriend Linda Schiro that resulted in two children, Joseph and Linda.
Scarpa was a stylish dresser who routinely carried $5,000 in for purchases and bribes. He had use of an apartment on Manhattan's Sutton Place and owned homes in Brooklyn and Staten Island, as well as Las Vegas, Nevada, and Singer Island, Florida. His power, guile and brutality earned him the nickname "the Grim Reaper" and helped him escape prosecution for many years. Schiro later said that Scarpa would sometimes leave the numbers "666", the biblical Number of the Beast, on his victims' pagers.
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