On July 12, 1979, a celebratory lunch on the shaded back patio of Joe and Mary’s Italian-American Restaurant in Brooklyn ended in a deadly ambush. The owner, 48-year-old Giuseppe Turano, was hosting the meal — reportedly to wish him well before a trip to Sicily — when five ski-masked gunmen stormed the patio and opened fire with shotguns and semi-automatic rifles. Turano, Mafia boss Carmine The Cigar Galante, and Galante’s bodyguard Leonardo Coppola were killed instantly; Turano suffered a point-blank shotgun blast to the head and shoulder.

Turano’s 17-year-old son John was wounded while trying to flee. Two of Galante’s bodyguards who had been present, Caesar Bonventre and Baldassare Amato, were unharmed and disappeared immediately after the shooting, a fact that prompted suspicion they aided the attackers. FBI informants later tied several mob figures to the hit; Anthony Bruno Indelicato was eventually convicted and, in 1987, received a 40-year sentence in connection with the triple homicide.

Was anyone who knew Giuseppe or who worked at Joe and Mary’s willing to come forward with more about that afternoon?