Salvatore Ruggiero
Encyclopedia
Salvatore Frank Ruggiero Sr. pronounced (roo-JEH-roh) (July 20, 1945 – May 1982), also known as "Sal the Sphinx
", "Sal Quack Quack" and "Sally", was a Gambino crime family
mob associate and drug trafficker who was the older brother of Angelo Ruggiero
and ringleader of "The Pleasant Avenue Connection" which was a precursor to the Pizza Connection Trial
drug smuggling operation. He became a fugitive in the late 1970s. He was a passenger on an aircraft that crashed on May 6, 1982; his body was recovered on May 14.
, to a first generation Italian immigrant John Ruggiero Jr. from Torre de Ruggiero in Catanzaro, Calabria
, Italy
and an Italian-American woman named Mary Dellacroce who lived in Howard Beach, Queens
. Mary was the biological sister of Gambino crime family underboss
Aniello Dellacroce
. It is unknown if his father John Jr. was a member of organized crime and served under Albert Anastasia
or Carlo Gambino
. Salvatore became involved in criminal activity at a young age and joined the powerful Fulton-Rockaway Boys gang member like his younger brother Angelo Ruggiero and John Gotti
. He was a sphinx compared to his brother Angelo. It is suggested by John Volkman and Ernest Cummings that Salvatore remained quiet and subdued because he had no hope of ever getting a word in with his brother Angelo around. He preferred to invest his energies in a mad quest for speed. Despite two serious injuries suffered in accidents on stolen motorcycles, Salvatore loved anything that he could propel at great velocity. Said to be a maniac behind the wheel of an automobile, he taught himself to drive at the age of thirteen, and like to roar around deserted areas of Brooklyn in stolen cars.
Angelo looked up towards his brother in awe at his skill of criminal enterprising, who tried in vain to emulate him. Unlike his brother Angelo, Salvatore exercised regularly and maintained a muscular physique while his brother chain smoked and had eating binges often. Salvatore later married an airline stewardess named Stephanie who bore him a son, Salvatore Ruggiero Jr., on January 8, 1972 who lives in Marlboro, New Jersey. The son followed his father and uncle into organized crime. Salvatore is the paternal uncle of Gambino crime family mob associates Angelo Ruggiero Jr. and John Ruggiero Jr.
His uncle Aniello Dellacroce
had an affair with the wife of the Gambino crime family capo Ernest Grillo Jr.. She bore Dellacroce two illegitimate children, Shannon Connelly and Sean Connelly.
, Salvatore was cured of his impulse control disorder
that was the root cause of his addiction to high speed. Then, too, he had very little time for such pursuits, for Salvatore was a very busy millionaire "businessman" (as he preferred to call himself). He was dealing in heroin that made him one of the largest and wealthiest dealers in New York
that included Gerlando Sciascia
, Alphonse Indelicato, Cesare Bonventre
and others who would later be indicted in the Pizza Connection Trial
.
Salvatore was not close to his uncle and remained distant to his younger brother, and strived to be more than a street-level hood which Angelo would later become. Despite his long friendship with John Gotti, Salvatore did not seem consumed with the ambition to become a major Mafia powerhouse as did his brother, Angelo, and their mutual friend. He built criminal business relationships with Gene Gotti
, John Carneglia
, mob criminal attorney Michael Coiro, Joseph Guagliano, Anthony Moscatiello, Oscar Ansourian, Edward Lino, Mark Reiter, William Robert Cestaro, Salvatore Greco, Joseph Lo Presti, Vincent Lore, Anthony Gurino and Caesar Gurino, Instead, he appeared content to stay on the fringes of the Gambino crime family organization and the Bergin crew as some sort of vague associate, although no one seemed quite certain what he did. He had graduated from street thuggery and became a multimillionaire, selling a range of drugs, from major shipments of marijuana, to heroin and cocaine.
Wanted on several charges, he had become a fugitive, hiding out with his wife, Stephanie under various aliases in New Jersey
, Florida
, Pennsylvania
and Ohio
. Salvatore could afford life on the run. He secretly owned hideouts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
and the Poconos and traded heavily in stocks and bonds under other names. He also owned a diner, a greeting card store, and other investment property purchased through a company called Ozone Holding, named after Ozone Park, Queens
. He owned four cars including a Mercedes Benz and ten watches worth $12,000 each. He was living in a leased home in New Jersey
while another mansion on Tortoise Lane in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
was being built for him through a company run by Anthony and Caesar Gurino, owners of Arc Plumbing Corporation, the mobsters who gave John Gotti and Angelo Ruggiero no-show jobs. His prime heroin supplier was Gerlando Sciascia
. He secretly controlled a Liberia
based corporation, Vimi Steamship Limited in 1981. The vagueness was deliberate, for Salvatore by 1970 was deeply involved in heroin trafficking, and by La Cosa Nostra regulations, that was strictly forbidden. So the fiction had to be maintained: Ruggiero moved heroin while officially neither his capo Carmine Fatico, nor John Gotti, nor Carlo Gambino knew anything about it. All the while, Fatico accepted a share of the heroin sales' proceeds from Sal, with the facade further maintained by both men's bland insistence that the money was the result of some successful transport truck hijackings from John F. Kennedy International Airport
.
, at 10:28 a.m., which was a good day for flying. The pilot, George Morton had been told, when he checked conditions earlier in the day, that there was no hazardous weather on the horizon and it looked like clear flying through to Orlando, Florida
. On board the Learjet, which was owned by IBEX Corporation, Morton was joined by a stand-in pilot, Sherri Day and two passengers- a husband and wife who were described by IBEX management as business associates being flown to a meeting in Orlando. Salvatore was interested in purchasing a McDonald's
franchise chain restaurant in Magic Kingdom
, Disney World. Morton flew the jet while Day handled the radio communications. For more than an hour, the flight was uneventful. Then, from over the Atlantic Ocean, Day radioed the Jacksonville, Florida air traffic control center requesting landing status. An air traffic controller instructed the pilot to lower its altitude from Flight Level 410 to Flight Level 390. The Learjet however, did not immediately starts its descent. A minute and a half later, Day made another brief transmission, which was unintelligible. At noon, the crew of a fishing boat spotted a huge water geyser on the surface of the Atlantic, twelve miles southeast of Savannah, Georgia
. The captain sped to the scene and found debris scattered across the surface finding bits of skin from the fuselage and pieces of the Learjet's interior, but no survivors. Ninety minutes after the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board
was notified.
That same day, a team of three investigators was dispatched from Washington, D.C.
On May 13, a search team, using sonar
equipment, began an underwater scan of the crash site. Visibility underwater was poor and it was not until late in the afternoon the next day that the main wreckage was found, fifty-five feet below the surface, scattered over seventy-five feet of the ocean floor. George Morton's body and those of the two passengers were recovered from the wreckage. All had suffered multiple traumatic injuries. Day's body was never found. After examining the debris, the NTSB was unable to determine the cause of the crash. The weather was almost ideal for flying, for another pilot said he had encountered no difficulties in the area at about the same time. An explosion was eliminated as a possible cause, as was an onboard fire. The pilot and co-pilot were both certified and the jet had been well maintained.
"The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause for the accident was an uncontrolled descent from cruise altitude for undetermined reasons from which a recovery was not, or could not be, effected", the official Aircraft Accident report concluded. The NTSB investigation could not help solve the mystery of why the Learjet plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, but it did end the longstanding fugitive from justice, Ruggiero.
Until his body was identified in a morgue, Ruggiero had been listed as a fugitive from justice, a member of the Gambino crime family, a large scale heroin trafficker and a key customer of Vito Rizzuto
's drug operation. When the Learjet carrying Salvatore nose dived into the Atlantic Ocean, Salvatore had been on the run for six years. Being a fugitive had not slowed his drug-dealing activities; at the time of his death, he had yet another shipment of heroin, taken on credit from George Sciascia, stored in his house awaiting resale.
, searching for a yet-to-be-sold shipment of heroin and cash. A few months earlier however, hoping to catch up with his elusive brother and to gain evidence to indict John Gotti, the FBI's Gambino Squad had thoroughly wired Angelo's home. Not only was his telephone line bugged, but microphones were placed in his kitchen, den and dining room. Federal agents were able to record Angelo's attorney Micheal Coiro, offering condolences to Angelo on the death of his brother, and then saying, "Gene found the heroin."
The talk of heroin in the wake of Salvatore's death and the connection to a Gotti family relative seized the attention of the investigating FBI agents. The investigation into Angelo suddenly held promise in leading to indictments of major family operatives. Angelo was known as a constant chatter-box, providing a running commentary on everything going on around him. Everyone who visited him had to endure endless gossip, complaints and general indiscretions. The death of his brother Salvatore, hit Angelo hard and he was often overheard on FBI wiretaps in his Cedarhurst, New York home wistfully speaking of his brother to Gerlando Sciascia and Joseph LoPresti, his two drug trafficking partners.
Unlike his brother Salvatore who became a multi-millionaire from his successful large scale drug trafficking operation, Angelo would never rise above a wealthy street-level mobster.
He later told Joseph LoPresti, "You know I lost my brother. I said to myself: "I'll have to get drunk". I had two vodkas... I went in my room, I closed the door and I cried...." The bugs also overheard Angelo saying how difficult it was accepting his brother's death because the body was in "fuckin pieces." He added: "If he would have been shot in the head and [they] found him in the streets- that's part of our life, I could accept that."
A memorial service was held in Howard Beach at Mary Dellacroce's house. Afterward Angelo said his late younger brother, "... had a pretty good, nice sendoff. I mean my whole fucking family [and]... all the wiseguys in the family (Gambino crime family) were there." Angelo who had scheduled a secret rendezvous with Salvatore for that day made arrangements for the welfare of his brother's child Salvatore Ruggiero Jr.
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
", "Sal Quack Quack" and "Sally", was a Gambino crime family
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
mob associate and drug trafficker who was the older brother of Angelo Ruggiero
Angelo Ruggiero
Angelo Salvatore Ruggiero Sr. pronounced was a caporegime of the Gambino crime family and close friend of John Gotti.-Mob family roots:...
and ringleader of "The Pleasant Avenue Connection" which was a precursor to the Pizza Connection Trial
Pizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
drug smuggling operation. He became a fugitive in the late 1970s. He was a passenger on an aircraft that crashed on May 6, 1982; his body was recovered on May 14.
Biography
Salvatore Frank Ruggiero was born in East New York, BrooklynEast New York, Brooklyn
East New York is a residential neighborhood located in the Eastern section of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, United States. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 5...
, to a first generation Italian immigrant John Ruggiero Jr. from Torre de Ruggiero in Catanzaro, Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and an Italian-American woman named Mary Dellacroce who lived in Howard Beach, Queens
Howard Beach, Queens
Howard Beach is a suburban neighborhood in the southwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. It is bordered in the north by the Belt Parkway and South Conduit Avenue in Ozone Park, the south by Jamaica Bay in Broad Channel, the east by 102nd-104th streets, and the west by 78th...
. Mary was the biological sister of Gambino crime family underboss
Underboss
Underboss is a position within the leadership structure of Sicilian and American Mafia crime families. The underboss is second in command to the boss...
Aniello Dellacroce
Aniello Dellacroce
Aniello John "Mr. Neil" Dellacroce , also known as "Father O'Neil" and "The Tall Guy", was an Italian-American gangster and underboss of the Gambino crime family. A capo of his own crew for many years he rose to the position of underboss when Carlo Gambino moved Joseph Biondo aside.-Early...
. It is unknown if his father John Jr. was a member of organized crime and served under Albert Anastasia
Albert Anastasia
Albert Anastasia was boss of what is now called the Gambino crime family, one of New York City's Five Families, from 1951-1957. He also ran a gang of contract killers called Murder Inc. which enforced the decisions of the Commission, the ruling council of the American Mafia...
or Carlo Gambino
Carlo Gambino
"Don" Carlo Gambino, was a Sicilian mafioso who became Boss of the Gambino crime family, that still bears his name today. After the 1957 Apalachin Convention he unexpectedly seized control of the Commission of the American Mafia. Gambino was known for being low-key and secretive...
. Salvatore became involved in criminal activity at a young age and joined the powerful Fulton-Rockaway Boys gang member like his younger brother Angelo Ruggiero and John Gotti
John Gotti
John Joseph Gotti, Jr was an American mobster who became the Boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. Gotti grew up in poverty. He and his brothers turned to a life of crime at an early age...
. He was a sphinx compared to his brother Angelo. It is suggested by John Volkman and Ernest Cummings that Salvatore remained quiet and subdued because he had no hope of ever getting a word in with his brother Angelo around. He preferred to invest his energies in a mad quest for speed. Despite two serious injuries suffered in accidents on stolen motorcycles, Salvatore loved anything that he could propel at great velocity. Said to be a maniac behind the wheel of an automobile, he taught himself to drive at the age of thirteen, and like to roar around deserted areas of Brooklyn in stolen cars.
Angelo looked up towards his brother in awe at his skill of criminal enterprising, who tried in vain to emulate him. Unlike his brother Angelo, Salvatore exercised regularly and maintained a muscular physique while his brother chain smoked and had eating binges often. Salvatore later married an airline stewardess named Stephanie who bore him a son, Salvatore Ruggiero Jr., on January 8, 1972 who lives in Marlboro, New Jersey. The son followed his father and uncle into organized crime. Salvatore is the paternal uncle of Gambino crime family mob associates Angelo Ruggiero Jr. and John Ruggiero Jr.
His uncle Aniello Dellacroce
Aniello Dellacroce
Aniello John "Mr. Neil" Dellacroce , also known as "Father O'Neil" and "The Tall Guy", was an Italian-American gangster and underboss of the Gambino crime family. A capo of his own crew for many years he rose to the position of underboss when Carlo Gambino moved Joseph Biondo aside.-Early...
had an affair with the wife of the Gambino crime family capo Ernest Grillo Jr.. She bore Dellacroce two illegitimate children, Shannon Connelly and Sean Connelly.
Ending his obsession with speed
By 1975, resulting from several serious injuries that led to hospitalization in the intensive care unitIntensive Care Unit
thumb|220px|ICU roomAn intensive-care unit , critical-care unit , intensive-therapy unit/intensive-treatment unit is a specialized department in a hospital that provides intensive-care medicine...
, Salvatore was cured of his impulse control disorder
Impulse control disorder
Impulse control disorder is a set of psychiatric disorders including intermittent explosive disorder, kleptomania, pathological gambling, pyromania , and three body-focused repetitive or compulsive behaviors of trichotillomania , onychophagia and dermatillomania...
that was the root cause of his addiction to high speed. Then, too, he had very little time for such pursuits, for Salvatore was a very busy millionaire "businessman" (as he preferred to call himself). He was dealing in heroin that made him one of the largest and wealthiest dealers in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
that included Gerlando Sciascia
Gerlando Sciascia
Gerlando Sciascia , also known as "George from Canada", was a New York mobster and a caporegime for the Bonanno crime family, also the Sixth family's Rep for New York, who was a major narcotics trafficker in Canada.-Background:...
, Alphonse Indelicato, Cesare Bonventre
Cesare Bonventre
Cesare "The Tall Guy" Bonventre was a Sicilian mobster and caporegime for the New York Bonanno crime family.-Early life:...
and others who would later be indicted in the Pizza Connection Trial
Pizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
.
Salvatore was not close to his uncle and remained distant to his younger brother, and strived to be more than a street-level hood which Angelo would later become. Despite his long friendship with John Gotti, Salvatore did not seem consumed with the ambition to become a major Mafia powerhouse as did his brother, Angelo, and their mutual friend. He built criminal business relationships with Gene Gotti
Gene Gotti
Eugene Gotti is a New York mobster with the Gambino crime family who was a major drug trafficker.-Background:Born to John and Fannie Gotti, Gene has four brothers: deceased Gambino boss John Gotti, Peter Gotti, capo Richard V. Gotti, and soldier Vincent Gotti...
, John Carneglia
John Carneglia
John 'Johnny Carnegs' Carneglia is a New York criminal with the Gambino crime family who was convicted of running a heroin distribution ring...
, mob criminal attorney Michael Coiro, Joseph Guagliano, Anthony Moscatiello, Oscar Ansourian, Edward Lino, Mark Reiter, William Robert Cestaro, Salvatore Greco, Joseph Lo Presti, Vincent Lore, Anthony Gurino and Caesar Gurino, Instead, he appeared content to stay on the fringes of the Gambino crime family organization and the Bergin crew as some sort of vague associate, although no one seemed quite certain what he did. He had graduated from street thuggery and became a multimillionaire, selling a range of drugs, from major shipments of marijuana, to heroin and cocaine.
Wanted on several charges, he had become a fugitive, hiding out with his wife, Stephanie under various aliases in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
and Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
. Salvatore could afford life on the run. He secretly owned hideouts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, on the Atlantic coast. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,521. It is a principal city of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010...
and the Poconos and traded heavily in stocks and bonds under other names. He also owned a diner, a greeting card store, and other investment property purchased through a company called Ozone Holding, named after Ozone Park, Queens
Ozone Park, Queens
Ozone Park is a working class neighborhood located in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Queens bordering Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, South Ozone Park, Howard Beach, and City Line, Brooklyn....
. He owned four cars including a Mercedes Benz and ten watches worth $12,000 each. He was living in a leased home in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
while another mansion on Tortoise Lane in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
Franklin Lakes is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 census, the borough population was 10,590. As of the 2000 Census, Franklin Lakes had the 18th-highest per-capita income of all 566 municipalities in the state. Nationwide, Franklin Lakes ranked 17th among the...
was being built for him through a company run by Anthony and Caesar Gurino, owners of Arc Plumbing Corporation, the mobsters who gave John Gotti and Angelo Ruggiero no-show jobs. His prime heroin supplier was Gerlando Sciascia
Gerlando Sciascia
Gerlando Sciascia , also known as "George from Canada", was a New York mobster and a caporegime for the Bonanno crime family, also the Sixth family's Rep for New York, who was a major narcotics trafficker in Canada.-Background:...
. He secretly controlled a Liberia
Liberia
Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...
based corporation, Vimi Steamship Limited in 1981. The vagueness was deliberate, for Salvatore by 1970 was deeply involved in heroin trafficking, and by La Cosa Nostra regulations, that was strictly forbidden. So the fiction had to be maintained: Ruggiero moved heroin while officially neither his capo Carmine Fatico, nor John Gotti, nor Carlo Gambino knew anything about it. All the while, Fatico accepted a share of the heroin sales' proceeds from Sal, with the facade further maintained by both men's bland insistence that the money was the result of some successful transport truck hijackings from John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport is an international airport located in the borough of Queens in New York City, about southeast of Lower Manhattan. It is the busiest international air passenger gateway to the United States, handling more international traffic than any other airport in North...
.
Death
On May 6, 1982 a Gates Learjet 23 N100TA took off from Teterboro, New JerseyTeterboro, New Jersey
Teterboro is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 67, making it the fourth smallest municipality, by population, in New Jersey....
, at 10:28 a.m., which was a good day for flying. The pilot, George Morton had been told, when he checked conditions earlier in the day, that there was no hazardous weather on the horizon and it looked like clear flying through to Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...
. On board the Learjet, which was owned by IBEX Corporation, Morton was joined by a stand-in pilot, Sherri Day and two passengers- a husband and wife who were described by IBEX management as business associates being flown to a meeting in Orlando. Salvatore was interested in purchasing a McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
franchise chain restaurant in Magic Kingdom
Magic Kingdom
Magic Kingdom Park is one of four theme parks at the Walt Disney World Resort located near Orlando, Florida. The first park built at the resort, Magic Kingdom opened Oct. 1, 1971. Designed and built by WED Enterprises, the park's layout and attractions are similar to Disneyland in Anaheim, California...
, Disney World. Morton flew the jet while Day handled the radio communications. For more than an hour, the flight was uneventful. Then, from over the Atlantic Ocean, Day radioed the Jacksonville, Florida air traffic control center requesting landing status. An air traffic controller instructed the pilot to lower its altitude from Flight Level 410 to Flight Level 390. The Learjet however, did not immediately starts its descent. A minute and a half later, Day made another brief transmission, which was unintelligible. At noon, the crew of a fishing boat spotted a huge water geyser on the surface of the Atlantic, twelve miles southeast of Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
. The captain sped to the scene and found debris scattered across the surface finding bits of skin from the fuselage and pieces of the Learjet's interior, but no survivors. Ninety minutes after the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board
National Transportation Safety Board
The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incidents, certain types of highway crashes, ship and marine...
was notified.
That same day, a team of three investigators was dispatched from Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
On May 13, a search team, using sonar
Sonar
Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigate, communicate with or detect other vessels...
equipment, began an underwater scan of the crash site. Visibility underwater was poor and it was not until late in the afternoon the next day that the main wreckage was found, fifty-five feet below the surface, scattered over seventy-five feet of the ocean floor. George Morton's body and those of the two passengers were recovered from the wreckage. All had suffered multiple traumatic injuries. Day's body was never found. After examining the debris, the NTSB was unable to determine the cause of the crash. The weather was almost ideal for flying, for another pilot said he had encountered no difficulties in the area at about the same time. An explosion was eliminated as a possible cause, as was an onboard fire. The pilot and co-pilot were both certified and the jet had been well maintained.
"The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause for the accident was an uncontrolled descent from cruise altitude for undetermined reasons from which a recovery was not, or could not be, effected", the official Aircraft Accident report concluded. The NTSB investigation could not help solve the mystery of why the Learjet plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, but it did end the longstanding fugitive from justice, Ruggiero.
Until his body was identified in a morgue, Ruggiero had been listed as a fugitive from justice, a member of the Gambino crime family, a large scale heroin trafficker and a key customer of Vito Rizzuto
Vito Rizzuto
Vito Rizzuto , known as Montreal's Teflon Don, was alleged to be the leading Mafia boss of the Sicilian Mafia in Canada and heads the Rizzuto crime family.-Family:...
's drug operation. When the Learjet carrying Salvatore nose dived into the Atlantic Ocean, Salvatore had been on the run for six years. Being a fugitive had not slowed his drug-dealing activities; at the time of his death, he had yet another shipment of heroin, taken on credit from George Sciascia, stored in his house awaiting resale.
Personal toll on Angelo
After Angelo was notified of his brother's death, he, along with Gene Gotti and John Carneglia, went to Salvatore's hideout in Franklin Lakes, New JerseyFranklin Lakes, New Jersey
Franklin Lakes is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 census, the borough population was 10,590. As of the 2000 Census, Franklin Lakes had the 18th-highest per-capita income of all 566 municipalities in the state. Nationwide, Franklin Lakes ranked 17th among the...
, searching for a yet-to-be-sold shipment of heroin and cash. A few months earlier however, hoping to catch up with his elusive brother and to gain evidence to indict John Gotti, the FBI's Gambino Squad had thoroughly wired Angelo's home. Not only was his telephone line bugged, but microphones were placed in his kitchen, den and dining room. Federal agents were able to record Angelo's attorney Micheal Coiro, offering condolences to Angelo on the death of his brother, and then saying, "Gene found the heroin."
The talk of heroin in the wake of Salvatore's death and the connection to a Gotti family relative seized the attention of the investigating FBI agents. The investigation into Angelo suddenly held promise in leading to indictments of major family operatives. Angelo was known as a constant chatter-box, providing a running commentary on everything going on around him. Everyone who visited him had to endure endless gossip, complaints and general indiscretions. The death of his brother Salvatore, hit Angelo hard and he was often overheard on FBI wiretaps in his Cedarhurst, New York home wistfully speaking of his brother to Gerlando Sciascia and Joseph LoPresti, his two drug trafficking partners.
Unlike his brother Salvatore who became a multi-millionaire from his successful large scale drug trafficking operation, Angelo would never rise above a wealthy street-level mobster.
He later told Joseph LoPresti, "You know I lost my brother. I said to myself: "I'll have to get drunk". I had two vodkas... I went in my room, I closed the door and I cried...." The bugs also overheard Angelo saying how difficult it was accepting his brother's death because the body was in "fuckin pieces." He added: "If he would have been shot in the head and [they] found him in the streets- that's part of our life, I could accept that."
A memorial service was held in Howard Beach at Mary Dellacroce's house. Afterward Angelo said his late younger brother, "... had a pretty good, nice sendoff. I mean my whole fucking family [and]... all the wiseguys in the family (Gambino crime family) were there." Angelo who had scheduled a secret rendezvous with Salvatore for that day made arrangements for the welfare of his brother's child Salvatore Ruggiero Jr.