MILWAUKEE — What began as a family warning blossomed into the project of a lifetime for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Investigative Reporter Mary Spicuzza, whose cousin, Augie Palmisano was killed in a car bombing, likely at the request of a relentless Milwaukee mafia leader, at the Juneau Village Garden Apartments on June 30, 1978.
Spicuzza joined Greg Matzek and Jessica Tighe on Wisconsin’s Afternoon News to discuss her landmark project entitled ‘My cousin was killed by a car bomb in Milwaukee. A mob boss was the top suspect. Now, I’m looking for answers.’
From when she was a young girl, Spicuzza’s family members warned her — ‘You don’t want to end up like Cousin Augie.’ But why? What did he do that was so wrong, and how did he get there? These are the questions that she sought out decades later despite feeling nervous about the dangerous subject of the topic, what she might find about her cousin, or how her family felt about this story resurfacing.
“There’s always been a lot of fear and a lot of silence around organized crime, certainly in the Sicilian community where I grew up, and I think people were afraid,” Spicuzza said. “I think people knew more, and probably some people still do know more, than they let on, than they wanted to tell the police or FBI, and didn’t want anything bad to happen to them or their families.”
As she started digging into her cousin, Augie’s life, it became increasingly clear that he was not a hero nor a villain, but just a man who grew increasingly prominent in the Milwaukee community. Although it was clear he was known and loved by many, there was also reason to believe he was a ‘substantial figure in organized crime.’
Other rumors that she investigated suggested her cousin might’ve given up information about the lesser-known but still prominent Milwaukee mafia scene. She questioned to herself — “Was he some terrible person? Was he this villain?” Neither of those fears proved to be the case, based on her investigation.
“It was actually kind of a relief for me to hear really heartwarming stories about who he was — everything from some of the FBI Agents who investigated him said ‘You know, I was trying to put him in prison, but he was a really nice guy, and he was gambling, but like, he wasn’t doing anything [nefarious],” Spicuzza told WTMJ.
WAN EXCLUSIVE: “An Absolute Trailblazer” — Wisconsin physicist broke barriers in Manhattan Project research & its fallout
Even now, nearly 50 years after her cousin was killed, people are still not willing to tell the full story. Some asked to withhold their names out of fear it could come back to harm them. Others refused to be involved in the story, telling Spicuzza it wasn’t worth the risk of them providing information.
While she says this was the most difficult time she’s ever had trying to investigate a story, she felt compelled to drive forward nonetheless.
“Some of the people who are alive to tell these stories might not be alive for that much longer, and so I kind of thought, like, ‘If I don’t start asking questions soon and getting people on tape and recording, these stories are going to be lost forever,’ so it just felt like ‘If I’m not going to do it now, I’m never going to do it,'” Spicuzza said.
While combing through hundreds of pages of police and FBI reports, much of which included redacted information, Spicuzza learned that Joseph Pistone a.k.a. Donnie Brasco was sent to Wisconsin to investigate the Milwaukee mafia scene. He told Spicuzza that another prominent American mob figure, Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero, warned others against Milwaukee, saying ‘They’re crazy out there, they’ll blow you up!’
That was the imprint left by Frank Balistrieri and his Milwaukee mafia empire. Balistrieri, one of the most ruthless crime bosses of that era in U.S. history, was on the FBI’s ‘Top Hoodlum’ watchlist dating back to the 1950s. Ultimately, all roads led back to Balistrieri in Spicuzza’s investigation, she told WTMJ:
“The people I talked to who investigated Frank Balistrieri for a very long time said that they believe that Frank Balistrieri ordered my cousin’s murder for several reasons, and they believe the bomb-builder was a man named Nick Montos, who was the first person on the FBI’s Most-Wanted List twice.”
Montos, who was linked more closely to Chicago-area mob activity, died of natural causes at age 92 in a Massachusetts prison. However, Spicuzza believes his karma came earlier when Montos allegedly tried to rob an elderly Jewish woman who beat him with a baseball bat.
“There was a quote from the prosecutor — I believe it was something like ‘Hell hath no fury like a Holocaust survivor with a Louisville Slugger.,'” Spicuzza recalled.
TOP STORIES FROM THE 620 WTMJ NEWS TEAM:
- U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to visit Milwaukee
- Mark Tauscher: Packers future is bright, but loss is a ‘huge gut-punch’
- Wisconsin high school athletes showcase skills at Dallas Cowboys’ stadium
- Milwaukee police officer charged with child abuse, facing 12 years in prison
- Former HS Coach: Jordan Love is a ‘genuine person’ who happens to be a ‘really good football player’
READ: U.S. Labor Secretary visits Wauwatosa to discuss EV charger development grant
