On the evening of May 20, 1992, James 'Jimmy Brooms' DiAddorio, a 55-year-old male of Italian ethnicity, was at the Vulpine Athletic Club in Philadelphia, engaged in a telephone conversation. In a sudden burst of violence, two gunmen entered the club, opened fire on DiAddorio, and quickly fled the scene. A stray bullet from the assault struck and wounded a bystander, who was subsequently treated at a local hospital.
For DiAddorio, however, the attack was fatal.
A former chief of the Delaware River Port Authority, DiAddorio had a past that was not without controversy. In 1986, he resigned from his position following an indictment on charges of attempting to defraud an insurance company, which resulted in a sentence of probation. He was also known to be a friend of mob figure Felix Bocchino, who had been slain earlier that same year. Initially, law enforcement did not immediately connect DiAddorio's murder to organized crime.
As the investigation progressed, a clearer picture of the motive behind the killing began to emerge. It was revealed that DiAddorio's murder was linked to his refusal to pay street taxes on his bookmaking and drug operations. Furthermore, he had been openly speaking ill of prominent local mob figures in various bars. This defiance was believed to have sealed his fate in the violent underworld of Philadelphia's mob scene at the time. His death was part of a series of mob-related killings that plagued the city during the early 1990s.
In the course of the investigation, two suspects were arrested in connection with DiAddorio's murder. The FBI considered Thomas 'Tommy Horsehead' Scafidi and Martin 'Marty' Angelina to be suspects in the slaying. Despite these arrests and suspicions, no one was ever convicted for the crime, and the case eventually went cold. While it is believed that mob figure Joey Merlino participated in the murder, he was never convicted for this specific act. The murder of James 'Jimmy Brooms' DiAddorio remains an unsolved chapter in Philadelphia's history of organized crime.
