One of the most powerful Cosa Nostra Families to ever operate within the Mafia’s national orbit was the Upstate New York clan headed by boss Stefano Magaddino. Born in the infamous Mafia-dominated fishing village of Castellammare del Golfo in the northwestern tip of Sicily, Magaddino came from a well-known and notorious family of mafiosi dating back several centuries.
After immigrating to America in the 1910s, he was quickly assimilated into a growing Castellammarese community developing in the Williamsburg-Ridgewood section of Brooklyn, and another along Elizabeth Street up through First Avenue in Manhattan’s Little Italy.
During this time Magaddino and his uncles the Bonventre brothers were fighting a rival Castellammarese faction who had immigrated as well. It was an old-world vendetta originally started back in Sicily that had raged in Trapani province and now continued to America.
Note: For more interesting historical information on this family, please see A Siclian “Blood Vendetta” Amongst Mafiiosi: Chapter 1, A Siclian “Blood Vendetta” Amongst Mafiiosi: Chapter 2, and A Siclian “Blood Vendetta” Amongst Mafiiosi: Chapter 3 and the comprehensive pictorial membership chart, The Magaddino Family Leadership Chart.
The Buccellato clan was a powerful mafia group who also maneuvered for control of the town’s rackets and were at constant odds with the Magaddino and Bonventre families.
During this protracted conflict in Sicily back in 1916, Stefano’s brother Pietro Magaddino was shotgunned off his horse one day while riding in the mountains of Castellammare. His assassination was thought to have been the work of capo Francesco Buccellato and soldier Camillo Caiozzo. Many killings between the factions took place in Castellammare.
Once they settled in America both mafia factions maintained the vendetta in this country as they had back in the “old country.” As the years passed Magaddino got word from his allies back in Sicily that one his brother’s suspected killers Camillo Caiozzo had sailed to New York City.
In time he was able to track Caiozzo down and in 1921 Magaddino orchestrated Caiozzo’s murder in South Jersey to avenge the longstanding vendetta and his brother Pietro’s murder.
Authorities soon uncovered the facts of the homicide which lead to the arrests of Magaddino, Bonventre, and a group of their associates for the Caiozzo murder after a coconspirator named Bartolomeo Fontana confessed to Caiozzo’s murder and named Magaddino and other higher-ups in the Castellammarese hierarchy as having ordered him to do it.
Side Note: Over the course of a decade or so over 125 murders committed across the country were attributed to this group who called themselves “The Good Killers.” Most of these murders took place in New York, New Jersey, and Detroit. Many Buccellato’s were killed in both New York City and Detroit, as well as others on both sides of the conflict.
