Thomas Pitera
| Thomas E. Pitera | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 2, 1954 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
Thomas "Tommy Karate" Pitera (born December 10, 1954) is a former Mafia hitman in the Bonanno crime family. Pitera earned a reputation as a vicious and sadistic killer who enjoyed murdering people. He was suspected by law enforcement of as many as 60 murders. He was well known for his use of karate and other martial arts when fighting which is a skill he had learned at a young age. It earned Pitera his nickname "Tommy Karate".
Born in New York City, Pitera grew up in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn to parents Joe (Joseph) Pitera and Catherine. His father was a wholesale candy distributor salesman. Thomas had thick, jet-black hair with piercing blue-gray eyes and high cheekbones. He allegedly had a particularly high pitched effeminate falsetto voice that was compared by biographer Philip Carlo to Michael Jackson's but having even more falsetto. Mob associate turned informant Frank Gangi thought Pitera sounded more like Mickey Mouse or Minnie Mouse. This however is somewhat contradicted by DEA Agents who hunted Pitera, and likened his voice and mannerisms to Richard Widmark's character Tommy Udo, in the 1947 film Kiss of Death. Pitera was a quiet child who was bullied in school. He attended David A. Boody Junior High School in Gravesend, Brooklyn and left little impression with his teachers.
As a child, Pitera was a huge fan of the 1966 The Green Hornet television show and actor Bruce Lee; this began his lifelong interest in martial arts. Pitera was highly skilled in martial arts, having spent 27 months training assiduously in Tokyo, Japan where he studied under the revered Hiroshi Masumi after winning an arduous kumite competition in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He was trained to use the tonfa, nunchucks and katanas. While in Japan, he grew his hair down to his shoulders to adopt the Bruce Lee image.
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