The warm summer air of the open market protruded the smell of old garbage and rotten food as the darkness blanketed the closed buildings in that early morning hour. It was just past midnight, and the Fulton Market would not be open for a couple more hours that day. The street lights and brightness of the full moon would be the only illumination on that closed boulevard. Soon, the wholesale produce trucks and food purveyors would buy and sell their products to those customers who ventured out to the open market at five o’clock in the morning.
A late model Cadillac drove slowly down the street, its bright lights shattering the blackness of that closed street. Four men were sitting inside the car, their shadows illuminated by the glow of someone’s cigarette in the back seat. The vehicle parked alongside the curb in front of one of the buildings, suddenly shutting off its lights and turning off the ignition.
The A.J. Francomini Wholesale Grocery at 832 Fulton Market was closed at that late hour, with only one of its four parking lot street lamps working. They had a meeting at 12:30 am, and the four men had instructed their party to meet them there in front of the building’s owner.
Albert Francomini, age 68, was scheduled to meet the four men, who were prominent members of the Lucatelli Family. They were mainly in charge of the Randolph Street crew, who ran the bookmaking, juice loans, and some prostitution houses in and around the market and Chicago Loop. Brothers Vito and Gianni Lucatelli were sitting in the front seat of the Cadillac, while the family underboss and its consiglieri, Vincenzo Leopardi and Ottavio Barbanente, were sitting in the back. The older man was in deep debt with the family for over one hundred fifty thousand dollars. The accumulating interest or ‘the vig’ was already in over ninety thousand dollars and accrued thirty-five percent interest, compounded daily.
The four men sat in the car and waited almost twenty minutes in the darkness. At 12:50, a Chicago P.D. patrol car pulled up behind the black Cadillac, shining its bright beams and flashing red and blue lights on the back. Two patrolmen exited the vehicle and approached the occupants seated in the front seat.
The policeman took out his flashlight and shined it brightly on the eyes of the driver.
“Your license and registration, please,” one of the patrolmen demanded from the vehicle’s driver. Vito Lucatelli pulled out his wallet and surrendered his license and registration while the other policeman stood on the passenger side of the Cadillac, carefully observing the other occupants.
“What did we do wrong, officer? We’re only sitting here, having a meeting.”
Both patrolmen remained silent as they continued to shine their flashlights on the eyes of the occupants.
Then, the officers demanded that the four occupants exit the vehicle.
“Please step out of the car and place your hands on the hood,” one of the police officers shouted.
“For what? We’re only sitting here. We didn’t do nothin’,” said Barbanente loudly in the back seat.
All four doors of the Cadillac were opened, and the four passengers got out of the vehicle, their hands placed on the front hood of the car. Both Lucatelli brothers were standing in front of the Cadillac, their hands in front of the vehicle. Leopardi and Barbanente placed their hands on the hood alongside the other Lucatelli family members. Each member was frisked, and the patrolmen confiscated their guns.
Suddenly, both police officers withdrew an AK-47 and pointed it at the four Lucatelli outfit members.
“This is compliments of Little Tony,” one of the officers shouted.
Suddenly, the officers unleashed a barrage of gunfire aimed at the four men. All four men were instantly killed as the volley of bullets splattered blood and flesh all over the front hood of the Cadillac. Within several seconds, all four members of the Lucatelli family crew were dead.
Minutes later, a flatbed tow truck pulled up alongside the black Cadillac. Two other men jumped out of the tow truck. The trunk of the Cadillac was opened, and the two tow truck drivers and the two police officers loaded the bullet-riddled bodies into the long, deep trunk of the car. The chains from the tow truck were attached to the front axle of the vehicle. The black Cadillac was loaded onto the flatbed tow truck and exited quickly from the Fulton Street Market.
The restaurant on the corner of Milwaukee and Grand Avenues was closed that evening. A large Komatsu excavator was parked in the back of the parking lot, along with an Atlas bobcat parked near the rear entrance. The restaurant was undergoing basement renovations, expanding the ground floor from a crawl space to a full, seven-foot-high basement. Coolers were scheduled to be installed in the basement later that week, and the concrete floor was waiting to be poured by the contractor the next day.
At two o'clock that morning, the tow truck with the loaded Cadillac pulled into the parking lot of Tony Napoli’s Restaurant. The four bodies were unloaded from the Cadillac trunk. They were placed in black body bags and brought to the restaurant’s basement. The basement floor was still black dirt and soil, and the four men had previously dug large graves for each of their victims. The bodies were adequately covered with dirt, and the mud floor was leveled.
By four o’clock that morning, the Lotus Company tow truck pulled along one of the banks of the Des Plaines River along North River Road. The black Cadillac was unchained, and the four men pushed the vehicle into the deepest portion of the waterway. The truck then pulled out and went southbound on North River Road.
At seven that morning, a Redi-Mix Company cement truck pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. A concrete crew of several laborers awaited the cement truck’s arrival. The concrete shoots were extended, and twenty-five yards of five-bag mixed concrete were poured onto the basement floor of the restaurant.
The concrete floor was smoothed out by ten that morning, leveled, and dried. Within several more days, the restaurant’s basement would have the new coolers installed and storage racks fitted and ready for use.
The Chicago Police Department opened up an investigation into the disappearance of the four Chicago Outfit members but to no avail. Two weeks later, a black, four-door 1992 Cadillac was eventually found and pulled out of the Des Plaines River. There was no evidence, witnesses, or sign of the four missing ‘wise guys.’
The murder and burial of the four members of the Lucatelli crew had been successfully accomplished.
