Murder Machine

Mustain and Capeci, reporters for the New York Daily News , here present a feature expose of Roy DeMeo, leader of a pack of especially gruesome hit men known as the Murder Machine. DeMeo's crew was so ``scary,'' according to an FBI agent quoted here, that even then-Mafia don John Gotti was wary of them. By the FBI's estimate, the Murder Machine killed at least 200 people before it was dismantled during the 1980s in what proved to be the longest federal serial murder investigation in history. Mustain and Capeci's main informant about the case was Dominick Montiglio, nephew of a top aide in the Gambino family. DeMeo, in his turn, was killed by a volley of shots fired at close range; his body, stuffed into the trunk of his Cadillac, was found in Brooklyn in January 1983, a week after this devoted father failed to show up for his daughter's birthday party. No one was ever convicted of the murder. In a masterpiece of crime reporting, the authors re-create the DeMeo underworld in gripping detail. Photos not seen by PW . (Aug.)