Mobster slain on street

where he always felt safe
Murder of Johnny Pops like 'an earthquake' in underworld

By Peter Edwards / The Toronto Star

HAMILTON - If there's any real surprise about the
execution-style slaying of mobster Johnny (Pops) Papalia in broad
daylight in this city's downtown on Saturday, it's that he survived
this long.
With his hooked nose and scarred cheeks, Papalia, 73, had become as
much a local fixture as doughnut shops and steel mills.
"For 40 years, he was on the top,'' said Antonio Nicaso, an
Italian Mafia expert, who has written widely on organized crime.
"It's now a new chapter in history,'' Nicaso said. "In the
underworld, the murder of Johnny Pops has the intensity of an
earthquake.''
Young children were playing on Railway St. when a man with a
handgun wearing a Nike cap shot Papalia in the back of the head in
the parking lot of his Galaxy Vending company.
Police said yesterday they're sifting through mounds of background
on Papalia, who was considered Ontario's top representative of the
Buffalo mob.
"I know there's a vast amount of information that we have to go
through,'' said Detective Sergeant Mike Holk of Hamilton-Wentworth
police.
Few people were more paranoid than Johnny Pops, who saw scores of
friends and rivals murdered, a veteran Metro police investigator
said shortly before Papalia's death.
"He won't even go on holidays,'' the police officer said. "He's
afraid somebody will take over and it's all going to fall apart.''
Papalia was considered big enough in the underworld that the late
U.S. senator Bobby Kennedy mentioned him during his organized crime
probe of the early 1960s, and in the late 1980s, a police
intelligence report ranked him as Ontario's top mobster.
The spot where Papalia was killed is remarkable to locals.
Railway St. was supposed to be the one place in his violent world
where Johnny Pops could feel secure.
It's a one-block dead-end street in an old Italian immigrant ghetto
where the mobster grew up and continued to visit on a daily basis.
He lived in a nearby penthouse apartment.
Houses on Railway St. are largely owned by family members, making
the murder site all the more brazen.
All the eyes and ears on Railway St. are supposed to be sympathetic
to Papalia.
But gangland murders aren't foreign to the street.
In 1924, the year Papalia was born in Hamilton, there were two
murders on the tiny street as bootleggers fought for control of the
illegal business.
One of the top bootleggers then was Papalia's father, Anthony, who
worked for Rocco Perri, the top Canadian lieutenant for Chicago's Al
Capone.
Years later, Perri disappeared and his wife Bessie was murdered,
and suspicious fingers pointed toward Railway St. and Anthony
Papalia.
Ella Lautenbach, who moved to Railway St. a week ago, plans to move
out as quickly as possible.
Lautenbach, Papalia's tenant, was one of the first people to see
him as he lay bleeding, and she held him and checked his failing
pulse as she waited for an ambulance to arrive.
Lautenbach and a friend were inside their home while their children
played outdoors around 1:30 p.m. She heard what sounded like
gunfire, and then a woman screaming, "Keep your kids in the house!
Someone was just shot!''
Just last week, Papalia was giving Popsicles to neighborhood kids,
Lautenbach said.
"He was really nice with all of the kids on the street,'' she
said. "He always asked how they were doing and was always watching
out for them.''
Papalia probably knew his killer, police say, since the two men
were seen talking in the parking lot when the killer suddenly pulled
a handgun and shot him in the head.
The gunman is described as white about 35, 5 feet 9 inches and 160
pounds. He fled in a late-model green pickup truck.
Possible motives for Papalia's murder vary widely, author Nicaso
said.
He could have been killed by a crackpot, with the need for killing
someone famous.
Or it might have been someone within his crime group, who had grown
impatient with waiting for his turn at power.
It could also have been a Sicilian crime family that has just moved
to Toronto.
"It's very difficult to understand,'' Nicaso said.

June 2, 1997