Charles Padnick, 50, was killed in Brooklyn on March 17, 1979, after traveling there with William Serrano and two other unidentified men to complete a cocaine transaction with members of the DeMeo Crew, a faction of the Gambino crime family. Instead of a sale, Padnick and his companions were shot and later dismembered, a method associated with the crew’s tactics at that time.

Two days later, James Padnick traveled to New York seeking information about his father’s disappearance and was also murdered and dismembered on March 19, 1979. The killings prompted a large law enforcement investigation into the DeMeo Crew’s activities, which included drug trafficking, loan sharking, and multiple murders, and led to indictments and prosecutions of several crew members, including charges brought against the crew’s leader Roy DeMeo.

Does anyone have additional information about Charles or James Padnick, or recollections of these cases in Brooklyn in March 1979?