Luchesse Crime Family
James Burke's
Luthansa Heist Fallout
All those involved with the robbery who knew where the stolen money went are believed to have taken that knowledge to the grave, because they’ve either been found brutally murdered or been reported missing.

Parnell “Stacks” Edwards, who was supposed to get rid of the van but instead went to his girlfriend’s house, was the first to turn up dead. Edward Eaton, who was depicted in the movie Goodfellas as dying in a refrigerator truck, was actually discovered in Brooklyn.

His body had been lying in the truck for several days. Because it was so cold, it took days to defrost.

Frank Vincent, aka Billy Batts, was murdered twice. He was shot in a bar and put in the trunk of a car. When his killers got upstate, they saw he was still alive, so they killed him again.

Tommy DeSimone was cut in half with a chainsaw and dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. After buying an expensive car with proceeds from the heist, Louis Cafora and his wife, Joanna, were never seen again. Teresa Ferrara, the alleged mistress of Tommy Desimone, was last seen hurrying from her beauty shop in Bellmore. Later she was found murdered, her body dismembered.

In total, at least 16 members of the original crew who both planned and executed the theft were reported missing or turned up dead.

Westside Crips
Stanley Tookie Williams

In 1979 Williams was convicted of murder in two separate incidents. Williams always maintained his innocence, though subsequent court reviews concluded that there was no compelling reason to grant a retrial.
Court transcripts state that Williams met with a man who is only identified in court documents as "Darryl" late on Tuesday evening, February 28, 1979.[3] Williams introduced Darryl to a friend of his, Alfred Coward, a.k.a. "Blackie," a reference to his dark colored skin and Bernard Trudeau a.k.a. "Whitie," his Caucasian friend.
A short time after the initial meeting, Darryl, driving a brown station wagon and accompanied by Williams, drove to the home of James Garret. Williams frequently stayed with Garret, and kept some of his personal effects at that location, including a 12-gauge shotgun. Williams went into the Garret residence and returned in about ten minutes with the shotgun.
The three men then went to the home of Tony Sims in Pomona, California, where they discussed where they could go to make some money. Afterward, they went to another residence, where Williams left the others for a period of time. Upon returning, Williams produced a .22 caliber pistol, which he placed in the station wagon. Darryl and Williams got into the station wagon, Coward and Sims got into another vehicle, and shortly thereafter they were on the freeway.

Botched robbery

Both vehicles exited the freeway in the vicinity of Whittier Boulevard, where they drove to a nearby Stop-N-Go market. Darryl and Sims, at the request of Williams, entered the store with the apparent intention of robbing it. Darryl was carrying the .22 pistol that Williams had deposited in the station wagon earlier. Darryl also had a WASR-10 rifle in the trunk of the car, along with two semi-automatic handguns.
The clerk at the Stop-N-Go market, Johnny Garcia, had just finished mopping the floor when he observed a station wagon and four black men at the door to the market. Two of the men entered the market. One of the men went down an aisle while the other approached Garcia.
The man that approached Garcia asked for a cigarette. Garcia gave the man a cigarette and lit it for him. After approximately three to four minutes, both men left the market without carrying out the planned robbery.

The 7-Eleven murder

Transcripts show that next Coward and Sims followed Williams and Darryl to the 7-Eleven market located at 10437 Whittier Boulevard, in Whittier, California. The store clerk, 26-year-old Albert Lewis Owens, was sweeping the store's parking lot at 7:42 p.m. When Darryl and Sims entered the 7-Eleven, Owens put the broom and dustpan he was using on the hood of his car and followed them into the store. Williams and Coward then followed Owens into the store. Court records show that as Darryl and Sims walked to the counter area to take money from the register, Williams walked behind Owens, pulled the shotgun from under his jacket and told Owens to "shut up and keep walking."
While pointing the shotgun at Owens’ back, Williams directed him to a back storage room and ordered him to lie down. Coward said that he next heard the sound of a round being chambered into the shotgun. He then heard a shot and glass breaking, followed by two more shots. Records show that he shot at a security monitor and then killed Owens, shooting him twice in the back at point blank range as he lay prone on the storage room floor.

The Brookhaven Motel murders

Yen-Yi Yang, 76, and his wife, Tsai-Shai C. Yang, 63, were immigrants from Taiwan. They ran the Brookhaven Motel located at 10411 South Vermont Avenue in South Central Los Angeles with their daughter, Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, and son Robert. Yu-Chin had recently joined them from Taiwan.
According to court transcripts, at approximately 5:00 a.m. on March 11, 1979, Stanley Williams entered the Brookhaven Motel lobby and then broke down the door that led to the private office. Inside the office, Williams shot and killed Yen-Yi, Tsai-Shai, and Yu-Chin, after which he emptied the cash register and fled the scene.
Robert, asleep with his wife in their bedroom at the motel, was awakened by the sound of somebody breaking down the door to the motel’s office. Shortly thereafter he heard a female scream, followed by gunshots. Robert entered the motel office and found that his mother, his sister, and his father had all been shot; the cash register was empty.
The forensic pathologist testified that Yen-Yi Yang suffered two close range shotgun wounds, one to his left arm and abdomen, and one to the lower left chest. Tsai-Shai also received two close range wounds, one to the tailbone, and the other to the front of the abdomen, entering at the navel. Yu-Chin Yang Lin was shot once in the upper left face area at a distance of a few feet.
Witnesses testified that Williams referred to the victims in conversations with friends as "Buddha-heads".

Volksfront Skinheads,Tacoma Wash
Beating, Curbstomping, murder of homeless man

The hunt began with a trip to a couple of local businesses. They needed more beer, of course, an armload of 22-ounce tallboys and an 18-pack of Budweiser. That would be the fuel. But they didn't forget to buy the baseball bats.

The foursome headed out as the cool of the evening set in. Sucking down beer and carrying their two new bats, they made their way to an area they knew well, a secret world of street people who congregated under a highway bridge in Tacoma, Wash.

They knew what they were looking for, as several of them told police later — a drug dealer, preferably a black one. But the first black man they saw, walking by with a white woman, drew a machete when the menacing group of racist Skinheads approached. The brave young warriors dropped that plan fast.

Then they spotted Randy Townsend.

David Nikos Pillatos, 19, dealt the first blow, smashing the homeless white man with one of the bats as Scotty James Butters, 20, began to punch him. With Pillatos' second swing, the bat splintered across Townsend's face. Then Tristain Lynn Frye, 22 and the only female present, began to kick the fallen man. Pillatos found a 40-pound rock and dropped it on Townsend's head.

It was then, according to statements later given by the three to police, that Kurtis William Monschke, 19, joined in. Noticing that Townsend was breathing, Monschke laid into his victim with the second bat before lifting and smashing his head onto a railroad track. Butters and Pillatos carried Townsend to the train tracks and placed him on his stomach with his head lying face down on the track.   Butters then stomped on the back of Townsend's head.

Randall Mark Townsend, a gentle, 42-year-old man afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia, never opened his eyes again. He lingered in a coma for 20 days after the March 23, 2003, attack, but in the end his battered body succumbed.

The ringleader, prosecutors said, was Monschke. He had recently been named head of the Washington chapter of Volksfront, a Portland-based neo-Nazi group whose Web site describes drug dealers as "the lowest form of vermin." The same site ran a 2002 essay calling for capital punishment for dealers.

Prosecutors said the attack was meant to lift Monschke's status in the white supremacist movement and to earn Frye a pair of red shoelaces, with the red signifying the drawing of blood.