Joseph E. Brocchini, known as Joe Bikini, was 43 when he was shot dead inside a used-car dealership he ran in Woodside, Queens. Brocchini, a White man from Queens, had been an enforcer and loanshark who moved into gambling and pornography distribution tied to Times Square peep-show operations. By the mid-1970s his dealership served as the visible front for those rackets.

On May 20, 1976, gunmen entered Brocchini’s office. Later accounts say two employees were handcuffed and blindfolded while the office was ransacked to stage a robbery, and Brocchini was shot five times in the head. For years the slaying was treated ambiguously, with motive and attribution disputed; some suspected internal skimming or disputes rather than a classic mob vendetta.

After the DeMeo crew began to unravel, a 1983 witness named Dominick Montiglio reportedly identified who took part in the killing and tied it to Roy DeMeo’s circle. Did anyone who knew Brocchini or worked in Woodside at the time see something that sheds light on what happened that day?