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Dec 31,2006 - Jan7,2006 |
For the love of Bessie
Part 7 - The end of Rocco Perri’s reign as boss of Hamilton
By Antonio Nicaso
Originally Published: 2001-06-24
With the end of Prohibition in Ontario, Rocco Perri turned his strength and his men towards the United States following his intuition concerning the drug business. Troubles, real troubles, began in 1930. Four Perri men were convicted of manslaughter in relation to their deaths by alcoholism, and he was forbidden from entering Toronto harbour, the strategic centre of his operations. But something was already happening in Canada's underworld. He figured that out on August 13, 1930.
That night he had gone with his wife to visit a cousin of his who lived north of Hamilton, Joe Sergi. He did so frequently, especially in the summertime. He came home at 11pm. While he was parking his car, a rainfall of bullets hit his wife. During those terrible moments, the Hamilton boss ran for his life. Once he realized the danger was over, he went back to see Bessie, the woman who had been by his side for years, lying dead in a pool of blood. Not far from there the police found a license plate and nine rifle buckshots. A clear message: the Mafia, which would dominate the following years, was taking its first steps.
Rocco Perri foamed at the mouth for several days: he even promised a $5,000 reward for the head of the person responsible for Bessie's murder, but nobody could give useful information and the murder went unpunished. Some suspicion fell on Tony Papalia, long-time friend and fellow townsman of the Calabrian boss, but nothing more. He was detained by the police and released after several hours of intense, but fruitless, interrogation.
Several hypotheses were made on that act of violence. Somebody said that the killers had missed their target that was to be Rocco Perri and that the murder would settle some scores within the Calabrian boss' clan. Others said that the killers had not failed at all, and that the "contract" bore Bessie's name.
The story of this woman, who silently conquered the love of a rough man, testifies how much this theory could be right.
Bessie was, in a sense, the natural counter-attraction of her husband, an "alter ego" who gave a decisive contribution to Perri's fortune. It was not by chance that her death marked the beginning of his descending parable that nobody had foreseen.
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