The Butcher (3 page)

M
echanized, organized, as succinct as a well-run military operation, the Pitera task force gathered at eight
A.M.
the following morning.

Again, the skies were clear. The birds that dwelt in the sanctuary made a racket. They were used to peace and quiet. They did not like the hurly-burly gathering around their homes. Above, a pair of red-tailed hawks circled over the sanctuary, hunting for prey, hunting the abundance of food they knew lived below.

It was decided that the first thing the strike force would do was bring in cadaver dogs. Given the circumstances, this seemed logical. When the dogs arrived, unremarkable mutts anxious to please, anxious to find the rotting bodies they would receive rewards for, they made their way into the sanctuary. They moved north and south and east and west in prearranged grids. This went on all that day to no avail. Everyone there was sure that if there were bodies, these dogs would find them; they had proven themselves in the past.

Nothing.

Not willing to accept defeat, the task force brought the dogs in a second day. They worked slower but still found nothing.

How, the task force members wondered, could the dogs miss the
scent? Some of the victims here were buried several months ago. Some of the victims one year, some two or even three years ago. Surely, the stench of death, the stench of putrid meat, organs, should still have been real and tangible—outright offensive—but the cadaver dogs seemed oblivious.

Later, at a meeting back in Manhattan at the DEA's office on West Fifty-seventh Street, the task force members sat down and brainstormed some more. They questioned the informer's validity. They discussed the probability of his being mistaken about the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge. They consulted maps to see if there were other bird sanctuaries nearby, to see if there was another logical explanation. There wasn't.

One of the task force members talked about a machine a man in California had developed that could find bodies. His name was George Reynolds. They kicked the idea around of bringing him out, and then contacted Reynolds. He assured them seven ways from Sunday that the machine worked. It had proven itself over and over again, he said. Colleagues attested to the machine's working. At great expense, Reynolds and his machine were brought to New York and driven out to the bird sanctuary. There was excitement in the air. Finally they'd have the proof, finally they'd have the sorrowful remnants of Pitera's handiwork. As some thirty members of the Pitera task force looked on, the man and his machine searched for bodies. It was hot and humid. Everyone was sweating. The crows were back and they made an awful racket. All that day, the man diligently searched and he, too, found nothing. Jim Hunt soon gave him the boot and sent him back to California.

This, combined with the heat, combined with the failure of the informer and the dogs, was discouraging. Was the informer pulling their legs; would he try to cut himself a deal for crimes he committed that they, at this point, knew nothing about?

These were not, however, the type of people who gave up easily. They were all alpha males and females, tenacious investigators, the type that would not let go. They were experienced—the best of the best.

Often with police work, it's more than facts and figures, names and places, the who, what, when, where, and why. Often it's just a gut feeling, something deep inside, that points the way, that has voice and direction of its own. And almost all of them there, working the sanctuary, the Pitera case, felt in their gut that they were on the right trail; felt in their gut that they had discovered the Jeffrey Dahmer of the Mafia—that they had discovered a serial killer who was a capo in a Mafia family, and they would work this case tirelessly, to the very end, wherever it took them.

 

The following day, each of the task force members, wearing a white jumpsuit, was back at the sanctuary. They were now doing it the old-fashioned way, the way their fathers and grandfathers had looked for bodies. They secured four-foot-long metal probes pointed at one end and with a five-inch handle at the other that would enable the task force to literally probe the ground.

Again, going back to basics, they drew precise, neat grids on different sections of the sanctuary, and working two and a half feet from one another's shoulders, they began to walk in a straight line, every foot or so jabbing the probes into the ground. Luckily for them the dirt was soft and readily accepted the probes. For all that day, back and forth, quiet and solemn, a joke now and then—mostly macabre ones—the strike force moved. Toward the end of the day, as the fiery June sun began to set, the strike force prepared to break for the night. They had come across rabbits and raccoons, skunks and weasels, but no bodies.

An NYPD detective out of the Brooklyn Racket Squad named Bobby Pavone made his way away from the group, sat down on a rock, and lit up a cigarette. He, like most of the law enforcement there that day, believed that there were bodies buried here. He had been hearing for years rumors about the Mafia burying victims out on Staten Island. Why not here? It seemed the perfect place. There wasn't a house or human being anywhere nearby. It struck him as ironic that the federal
government had created, in a very real sense, a place where the Mafia was able to hide bodies, bodies that would never be found because the EPA—Environmental Protection Agency—wouldn't allow the birds to be disturbed.

Slowly, reservedly, Bobby moved back toward the group, a tall, wiry, resolute individual. He kind of haphazardly, though pensively, probed as he went, pushed down, found nothing, withdrew the probe. He moved some twenty feet when the probe suddenly struck something hard but giving. He pulled out the probe, pushed it back down, pulled it out, pushed it back in still again…something was there; something not indigenous to the ground.

“Hey! Hey! Over here!” He signaled to the others. They moved toward him. “Yo! I think I've got one.”

T
homas Pitera was born in Gravesend, Brooklyn, on December 2, 1954. His parents, Joseph and Catherine, were hardworking people of modest means. He had an older sister named Theresa, and a large, close-knit extended family. Joseph Pitera was a candy salesman. With samples of his wares secreted in the trunk of his car, he drove throughout the five boroughs selling Mary Janes, Pixie Sticks, Red Hots, Lemon Drops, and Bazooka gum. The Piteras hailed from southern Italy, the Campagna region. They were good Catholics, and Mrs. Pitera attended church on a regular basis.

Tommy Pitera was an unusual child. He had thick, jet-black hair, piercing, blue-gray eyes, a strong jawline, and high cheekbones. Without wanting to, without meaning to, his intense stare and black hair drew attention to him, attention that he didn't want, attention he would grow to disdain. As a boy, he was thin and pale, shy and withdrawn. Tommy had a particularly high-pitched voice that sounded more like a girl's than a boy's. It could readily be likened to Michael Jackson's voice, though it was even more falsetto.

Given his frailty, combined with his small stature and cartoonish voice, Tommy was an ideal target for Gravesend bullies, food for hungry carnivores. This was an extremely rough-and-tumble neigh
borhood—one of the toughest in all of America—filled with thickly muscled laborers and blue-collar workers. The young Tommy Pitera couldn't have been in a worse place. Here, people did not turn the other cheek. Here, if you were abused, you struck back hard with bad intentions. Here, he who struck first was victorious. He who was left standing was the winner. Gravesend, Bensonhurst, and Coney Island were all particularly tough neighborhoods. You could liken these areas to concrete jungles filled with predatory creatures. Those who readily fed on the weak; those who took advantage of the lame; those who took advantage of the unaware.

On a daily basis, often several times a day, neighborhood bullies picked on Tommy. They made fun of his voice, his clothes, his walk. He was slapped or kicked for no reason. He was mocked and spit on for no reason. In short, the young Pitera had no peace, had no solace, had no way to strike back, had no friends. Not wanting to appear like a crybaby, a sissy, he said nothing to his mother and father about the abuse he suffered on a daily basis.

Frequently when he came home from school, he was on the verge of tears. In fact, he often cried alone in his room because of the grave injustices he regularly suffered at the hands of the neighborhood miscreants. Like most who are mistreated, Tommy fantasized about striking back, hurting those who abused him—getting even. As he got older, those fantasies became tangible realities, and, unbridled, they grew to monstrous proportions. The abuse and ostracism caused in the young Pitera an antisocial mind-set, a feeling of being alone in the world, cornered—a feeling he could not shake. It was him against them; he felt as though he was on an island, alone and unloved. Whenever possible, he would readily express his feelings of anger via the only way he could—striking back and taking revenge in diabolical ways. He stole, as an example, Little League baseball equipment and sold it on the street. He did this not only for the money he was able to make, but more importantly, it was his way of getting back at the establishment, it was his way of undermining, setting fire to, what he could not
become a part of. In a very real sense, it was Pitera's way of saying, “Fuck you, world.”

Tommy attended Boody Junior High School on Avenue S. When recently queried, teachers there had very little recollection of him. He was so quiet, so shy, so put upon, that he seemed to disappear into the woodwork. It wasn't unusual for Tommy to sit at his desk and stare out the windows, imagining himself a valiant, badass fighter, a champion of the downtrodden. Because of his unusually high-pitched voice, it was difficult for him to make friends. In this rough-and-tumble, macho world, boys who spoke like girls didn't have a chance. Even girls in his classes made fun of him, mocked him, imitated his voice. As days melted into weeks and weeks into months, the young Tommy's inner turmoil, animosity, and hatred grew and grew. What was in him could readily be likened to a bubbling cauldron, a witch's brew, getting hotter and hotter still.

The young Pitera particularly liked a popular television show that would end up playing a large part in his life. It was called the
Green Hornet
and featured the brilliant martial artist Bruce Lee as Kato, the Green Hornet's sidekick. Fascinated, fixated, Tommy watched Bruce Lee fly through the air, slide down poles, beat bad guys into submission before they knew what hit them. He threw amazing kicks. His punches were lightning speed. Yet he was always respectful, particularly toward women; he was a gentleman. This, too, appealed to the young Pitera's sense of fair play.

Naturally enough, Tommy became interested in martial arts. He viewed it as a way for him to be left alone and, if need be, strike back with great force. It was no secret now to Tommy's parents that he was regularly bullied, and when Tommy told his mother and father he'd like to take karate classes, they acquiesced; they thought it would be a good thing for the boy. They understood the obvious—if the bullying continued, it might have a long-term negative effect on their son.

With great enthusiasm, Tommy began going to karate school in Sheepshead Bay, practicing kicks and punches, turns and jumps, with the dedication of a cloistered monk. He quickly moved to the head of
his class. What was motivating the boy, what was driving him, was that karate gave him strength—an almost religious calling. When, in 1969, Bruce Lee's first major feature film—
Marlowe
—came out, Tommy Pitera was hooked on martial arts for life. He became a zealous devotee of throwing accurate punches and kicks. He accepted all the constraints placed around martial arts: you were never to pick a fight; you were always supposed to avoid trouble; to turn the other cheek was the righteous thing to do.

However, when Tommy watched Bruce Lee beat sneering bad guys to a pulp, he felt justice had been done—street justice. Inevitably, Tommy's muscles began to grow, become more defined. His skinny arms were replaced by strong sinew and muscle tissue. His fists flattened out and widened from constantly hitting heavy bags. His knuckles grew to disproportionate size. His stomach became cut up. The leg muscles between his hips and knees thickened and became defined from endless practice kicks.

As Tommy entered high school and moved through the classes, he was a very different individual. He walked with his head high and his shoulders back—defiant and arrogant. He feared no one. In his feet and hands, he felt he had weapons that he could use quickly, discreetly or indiscreetly as he chose. He began to think of himself as a human weapon. He knew, as an example, that professional boxers were not allowed to fight outside of the ring, that the hands of professional boxers were thought of as weapons.

Now, when neighborhood bullies started with him, made fun of him, they were confronted by a completely new person. Suddenly the Tommy they used to abuse without response was kicking and punching them from three directions at the same time. He was tough; he was fearless. It didn't take long for neighborhood punks to walk around Tommy when they saw him coming. Despite the disapproval of his parents, who didn't want their son looking like a “hippie,” Tommy also let his thick, straight, black hair grow down past his ears and to his jawline. His father and mother didn't like the long hair. They wanted
him to get it cut. For the most part, Tommy was a good son, an obedient boy, but in this he would not listen to them. Bruce Lee had long hair and so Tommy wanted it, too.

Still, Tommy Pitera had that awkwardly high falsetto voice. Previously, when in a new classroom, when a question was posed by a teacher, the whole class would look in his direction. Now, though, no one made fun of him, no one mimicked him. This voice would be a curse Tommy had to live with all his life, an imperfection that no amount of martial arts training could alter.

What he did do, almost as a way to balance this feminine voice he'd been cursed with, was train harder and harder. He approached martial arts as though it would be his life's work. Tommy's karate teachers were proud of him. They saw in the boy a ferocious appetite to fight. They saw in the boy a particular acumen when it came to throwing punches and kicks; he was not only very fast, he was hard to hit. Some of his teachers, who were ten, fifteen years Tommy's senior and had a hundred pounds on him, were astonished by how ferocious he was when he fought.

“His punches stung as though you'd been hit by a hammer,” one of his teachers recently explained. The resentment and pain that had been a daily part of Tommy's life had been replaced by animus and anger.

As well as training for hours every day, Tommy lifted weights. His body took on the look of a laborer, of a man who worked carrying heavy crates all day every day. Tommy stood in front of a mirror in his parents' home and marveled at his muscles, moving slowly this way and that, admiring so how his body had changed.

Inevitably, Tommy began fighting in martial arts competitions. Here he was pitted against boys his own age and weight and he ate them up. It seemed that there was a full-blown ferocious man inside the teenage boy. He had a pent-up anger, hostility, that, when expressed, was a very difficult obstacle to overcome. It wasn't just a matter of physical strength. It wasn't a matter of larger biceps or thigh muscles,
calf muscles. It was something inside the boy's head that would inexorably grow and become a fearsome entity. The endless taunts, abuse, and beatings he had endured had planted a kind of dragon seed in him that would grow into something horrifying and unspeakable.

Not only did Tommy bury himself in martial arts but he began to read voraciously about war in all of its shapes, strategies, and tactics. He learned how to torture, how to take apart bodies, where to strike for the maximum effect, where to strike to cause death, how to kill. When Tommy read these words, written carefully by learned men from all over the world, he felt that he was becoming part of an underground culture—a sophisticated society that was wiser and more in touch with the truths of life. His daily martial arts workout, his lifting weights, reading, and the watching of violent movies, particularly martial arts films, was filling the boy with a combustible, dangerous recipe for disaster—chaos.

The fact that the young Pitera was growing up on the streets of Gravesend and Bensonhurst added jet fuel to the fire inside him, teeth to the dragon. Here was the largest concentration of Mafia members in the world; this was ground zero for the American La Cosa Nostra. Here was a culture in which the killing of human beings was the norm; here was a culture in which murder was as inevitable as the changing of the seasons. A young boy in this environment could not help but see and know and feel the tangible elements of the Mafia that were as much a part of the place as pizzerias and espresso cafés. Tommy Pitera came to admire the mafiosi he was surrounded by. They were on every other street corner. They drove fancy cars. They sported silk suits and expensive Italian shoes and were always well barbered, cared for. They were a kind of aristocracy for that place and that time, exuding power and a feeling of danger—things Pitera was drawn to.

For the most part, Pitera was a loner; he was ideally suited for what they wanted. Tommy inevitably began fantasizing about going that way, becoming a respected mafioso. He knew that even with his Mickey Mouse voice, nobody would make fun of him anymore, that
people would speak to him respectfully, look the other way when they saw him coming. That if you fucked with Tommy Pitera, you would be dead. To some, this might seem like a fanciful stretch, but when you look at bullied young boys taking up firearms all over the country and attacking their schoolmates and teachers, killing them, killing them without guilt or remorse, killing them in the light of day, you can begin to understand the hateful seed that had been planted and was growing in Tommy Pitera. They say the soul of a man is in his eyes. Well, when you now looked at Tommy Pitera, you saw hooded, bright blue eyes that had the cold, flat depth of ice. One could readily liken his eyes to those of a predatory animal that knows no fear, an animal that would readily tear open your throat—that is its nature.

Martial arts gave Tommy Pitera a calling. It gave him a belief system that would, he was sure, serve him well for life. Naturally competitive, he became so adept at throwing punches and kicks and avoiding being hit that he won contest after contest. When a large martial arts bout was held in Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay, Pitera competed. In order to win his weight class, he had to fight seven different opponents and, ultimately, beat them all. This was no small task. There was not only a substantial cash prize but a large amount of prestige went along with the win. Tommy was also offered a “scholarship” to go live in Japan and study under one of the country's most revered martial arts masters. For the young Pitera, this was an exciting, monumental event.

Initially, Tommy's parents didn't like the idea, but they changed their minds and gave him their blessing. They felt it would be good for the boy; he would further learn discipline and strengthen his character. The trip would give him a rare opportunity to see the world outside of Brooklyn, an opportunity that few boys in that neighborhood were afforded. His winning the tournament and the prospect of traveling to Japan further bolstered Tommy's commitment to martial arts. He not only surrounded himself with, immersed himself in, martial arts but he embraced the Eastern culture's way of thinking, eating, and behaving. Interestingly, he also embraced Eastern cuisine. He began eating
sushi before it was fashionable; he shied away from Italian food with its emphasis on dairy products and pasta.

When finally the day came for his trip, the Piteras drove their only son to Kennedy Airport and, tearfully, said good-bye to him. He was not only going to a foreign country but he was going to a country where they didn't speak English, a country far removed from anything he had known. They were worried for him.