https://mafiasome.blogspot.com/2015/05/women-as-mafia-victims.html?m=1Clearly, the mob tolerates the murder of women, many of whom are innocently under the gun in gangland affairs. All it takes is the feeling that she knows too much about criminal activities and is likely to cave in under scrutiny by prosecutors.
Such was the fate of Cherie Golden, a 19-year-old brown-haired beauty with brown eyes and a cherubic smile who had won a Twiggy look-alike contest. She was wooed by John Quinn, a married mobster with six kids on Long Island, who showed Cherie off in Little Italy restaurants.
Unfortunately, he also took Cherie along while negotiating the purchase of hot cars and to a number of chop shops he ran. His superiors in the mob did not like that and warned Quinn to dump Cherie. He refused and then got in severe legal trouble. Suddenly he looked like a prime candidate for becoming a turncoat, and that made Quinn an obvious hit candidate.
Quinn was invited to a mob meeting in a Brooklyn tavern with Roy DeMeo, his boss in the car racket and the Gambino family's ace killer. Quinn brought Cherie along and left her outside in his car. He went inside and was promptly put to sleep with a silencer equipped gun.
Cherie did not hear the shot. Two of the mob's members came to the car and started flirting with her, one on each side of the vehicle. As one of the men distracted the young girl, she turned her head toward him and the other one drew a gun and shot her in the brain. As her head whipped around, she took another bullet in the face. The killers disposed of her body, removing her halter top just to give the police a possible sexual angle to investigate.
DeMeo made the hit on his own without getting higher approval, which upset the recently installed new boss, Paul Castellano. Big Paul recognized the murder as one that could produce very bad press. He wanted to know why the girl was killed.
DeMeo's direct superior, capo Nino Gaggi, was also angered but had to put the best face on the situation and explained she knew too much about the stolen car operations. Castellano was not convinced but could do nothing. He ordered that DeMeo not do any hits without prior approval. "Just talk to Roy," Castellano said. "Make sure people just don't start going who don't have to go."
No punishment was exacted for Cherie's murder, and none seemed to have ever been meted out for other Mafia killings of women. Often a woman is killed simply as an object lesson to her husband or boyfriend to keep his silence.
