Johnny Papalia

Johnny "Pops" Papalia (1924 – May 31, 1997) was an Italian-Canadian Mafia figure based in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He was a capo of the Papalia crime family, one of three major crime families in Hamilton.

Papalia was born in 1924; his father, Antonio, was a bootlegger.

Papalia was wounded in a shootout in Montreal in June 1955. By the 1960s Papalia was a made man, earning his reputation from the French Connection, a smuggling operation that supplied over 80 percent of America’s heroin market between the 1960s and 1970s – having strong connections with the Buffalo crime family. At his trial in 1962 for his role in the French Connection heroin smuggling ring, he was coughing up blood due to tuberculosis. He was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years despite his condition. In 1968, after serving less than half the sentence, he was released from a United States prison and sent back to Canada.

Papalia was shot fatally in the head on May 31, 1997, at the age of 73 in a Railway Street parking lot in Hamilton by hitman Kenneth Murdock ordered by Angelo and Pat Musitano of the Musitano crime family. Murdock also killed Papalia's right-hand man Carman Barillaro two months later; Murdock served a 10 year sentence for the deaths. The Musitano's pleaded guilty to conspiracy of Barillaro's death, but not Papalia's, receiving a 10 year sentence in 2000, but were released in October 2007. Papalia was not given a full funeral mass by the Catholic Church due to his criminal history.

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