The “Paddy Mac Flu” – Mob Housecleaning in Queens, NY

On March 29, 1974, the bullet-riddled body of reputed Genovese Family enforcer Thomas (Red) Delio was discovered in the trunk of his girlfriend’s automobile a few blocks away from her Maspeth home.

He dropped out of sight back on February 21 and was officially reported as missing two weeks later on March 4 by Delio’s brother and girlfriend, Elaine Noto.

Delio was reported to have been driving Noto’s car when he disappeared. On March 29, an unidentified elderly neighbor went to Ms. Noto’s home and notified her that he spotted Noto’s car parked in the same exact spot for several weeks, at the corner of 57th Avenue and Van Horn Street in nearby Elmhurst.

Thomas (Red) Delio

After weeks of looking at the apparently abandoned automobile, which was unlocked, he told her that his curiosity finally got the best of him. He looked inside and found an insurance card with her name and address, which led him to her home.

Noto immediately alerted the Missing Persons Bureau which, in turn, notified the NYPD Organized Crime Squad.

Several police officers were dispatched to the car’s location where they inspected the vehicle. When they opened the trunk, they found a decomposing male corpse clad in burgundy-colored trousers and a multicolored sports shirt.

A subsequent police fingerprint check of the corpse confirmed that the dead man was, indeed, mobster Thomas Delio.

Organized crime experts noted that the 30-year-old victim was a nephew of Pasquale (Paddy Mack) Macchiarole , whom they identified as a top capodecina within the Genovese crime Family.

An autopsy report stated that Delio had been shot once behind the right ear. Authorities said it was a typical “gangland-style” execution. NYPD Detective Lt. Joseph Pirello told the press that Delio "had long been considered a worker in the organized crime structure.”

According to Lt. Pirello, Delio had been among several persons indicted in the 1972 gangland-style slaying of nightclub owner Conrad Greaves , the owner-operator of Conrad’s Cloud Room, a popular nightclub located in the Elmhurst section of Queens, across from La Guardia Airport.

Delio and the others had been accused of repeated attempts to extort strong-arm “protection” money from the stubborn bar owner. When these attempts failed, and after learning Greaves had gone to the Queens County District Attorney's Office to file a criminal complaint against them, they decided their best course of action was to kill him to "kill" the criminal investigation.

So one evening shortly thereafter, in the wee morning hours just before closing time, they lured Greaves from inside his club out into the parking lot where a gunman hidden behind a wall emerged and pumped the unsuspecting Greaves full of lead. The killers then fled the scene, leaving their mortally wounded victim on the pavement. Greaves died within minutes of the shooting.

But the murder indictment against Delio was eventually dismissed after Delio produced an ironclad witness to back up his alibi that he was not involved in Greaves’ death and wasn’t even on the scene at the time of his murder. Delio’s girlfriend provided testimony that he was with her the entire night in question.

Authorities described “Red” Delio as an enforcer for his uncle, who was also active in gambling, cigarette smuggling, strong-arm extortion, and business infiltration.

They said that Delio’s involvement in the Greaves murder was an outgrowth of Macchiarole’s repeated attempts to strong-arm his way into control of various Queens County restaurant and bar businesses.

Initially, homicide detectives thought Delio’s killing was a result of a “power play” amid a fight for leadership within the underworld. But more knowledgeable law enforcement authorities later determined that Delio’s uncle, Pasquale Macchiarole, had most likely ordered his own nephew’s murder.

The “Paddy Mac Flu” – Mob Housecleaning in Queens, NY

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