Nicholas Nicky Black Grancio, a 62-year-old Colombo family captain aligned with acting boss Victor Little Vic Orena, was gunned down on a Brooklyn street corner on January 7, 1992. He was sitting in his Toyota Land Cruiser at Avenue U and McDonald Avenue in Gravesend when members of the rival Persico faction carried out the assassination.

The hit was attributed to a crew led by Gregory Scarpa Sr.; Larry Mazza later said he fired the fatal shotgun blasts. The attack was reportedly retaliation for an earlier attempt on Scarpa that Scarpa believed Grancio had helped arrange. An NYPD and FBI task force had been surveilling Grancio that day after receiving a tip his life was in danger, but the surveillance was pulled away shortly before the killing. Allegations followed that Scarpa used his connection to an FBI handler, agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, to have the surveillance removed.

Scarpa later pleaded guilty to Grancio’s murder, and prosecutors say Mazza and James Delmasto also pleaded guilty to conspiring with and assisting in the hit. Grancio’s widow filed a lawsuit against FBI agents R. Lindley DeVecchio and Christopher Favo claiming a conspiracy with Scarpa; that suit was dismissed for lack of sufficient admissible evidence.

Did anyone in Gravesend at the time remember seeing Grancio’s Land Cruiser or the men involved around Avenue U and McDonald Avenue?