On March 23, 1978, the life of Patrick Prisinzano, a 31-year-old male, came to a brutal and violent end in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Prisinzano, an associate of the Bonanno crime family and the son of capo Angelo Prisinzano, was the victim of a gruesome murder. He had been severely beaten, shot, and his throat was slit from ear to ear.
The investigation into the homicide identified Roy DeMeo, a notorious and feared member of the Gambino crime family, as the
killer. The motive for this savage act was reportedly Prisinzano's refusal to return stolen jewelry to an associate of DeMeo. This dispute escalated, leading DeMeo to carry out the murder in a manner that was characteristic of the extreme violence for which he and his crew were known.
The murder of Patrick Prisinzano was just one of many violent crimes attributed to Roy DeMeo and his crew, who were responsible for a significant number of murders throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. Law enforcement's investigation into Prisinzano's death was part of a larger effort to dismantle DeMeo's criminal enterprise. While several members of his crew were eventually convicted, Roy DeMeo himself was never brought to justice for this specific crime in a court of law. He was found dead in the trunk of his car in 1983, a victim of the same mob violence he had so often perpetrated.
