40 years ago, bodies of Chicago Outfit mobster Tony Spilotro and brother Michael were found in Indiana cornfield
Forty years ago this week, the battered body of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro — the Chicago mob's man in Las Vegas — was found buried in a shallow grave in an Indiana cornfield, along with that of his brother, Michael.
Tony Spilotro grew up on Chicago's Northwest Side. He once boasted to a federal agent that he would someday rule the mob.
Spilotro got started in a life of crime early. As documented by the Mob Museum, he dropped out of high school, and got busted the first time at the age of 17 for shoplifting in Chicago. He had been arrested 13 times by the time he turned 21.
Spilotro went on to be nicknamed "The Ant" because of his short stature — he stood 5 feet 2 inches tall. But he was brutal and feared, and had a way of escaping trouble, even as he drew attention to himself to the embarrassment of Mafia leaders.
Tony Spilotro and the mob in Vegas
Mobsters began flocking to Las Vegas and entering the casino industry in the 1940s. The first wave of organized crime figures in Vegas came from Southern California, followed by New Yorkers and Mafia collaborators Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, who bought the El Cortez Casino in 1945 and later developed the Flamingo Hotel, the Mob Museum recalled.
The Chicago Outfit entered the fray in 1955, taking control of the Riviera hotel and casino. The Outfit later lost control of the Riviera, but went on to take control of four other casinos: the Stardust, the Fremont, the Hacienda, and the Marina. Real estate investor Allen Glick and his Argent Corporation bought the casinos using a loan from the Teamsters in 1974, while sports bettor Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal managed the casinos and ensured that the Outfit skimmed millions from their profits, reports noted.
Tony Spilotro was dispatched to Vegas as the guy in charge of protecting the Chicago Outfit's Vegas interests in 1971. He attracted attention while serving in that role, and not in a way the Outfit was pleased with.
Spilotro and his wife, Nancy, settled into a nice neighborhood in Las Vegas, and joined the prestigious Las Vegas Country Club.
But did Spilotro go about life as an upstanding model citizen who rubbed elbows with the Vegas elite, while quietly and stealthily protecting the Mafia's financial interests in Vegas casinos? Not exactly.
Spilotro was indicted in 1972, but in an old case — specifically the murder of Chicago real estate broker Leo Foreman nine years earlier. Foreman had infamously had chunks of his body cut and carved out before he was killed. Spilotro was acquitted at trial.
Meanwhile, the Mob Museum reported, Mafia violence was also on the rise in Vegas during the 70s. The Los Angeles Times reported that in 1974, there were more gangland-style killings in Vegas than there had been in all the prior 25 years combined.
Also in 1974, Spilotro was indicted on charges of stealing from the Teamsters Union Central States Pension Fund, but the principal witness died from a shotgun blast, and Spilotro beat the rap, the Mob Museum reported.
As a side hustle from his casino skimming oversight role, Spilotro started a burglary crew known as the Hole in the Wall Gang — which included his childhood friend and crime compatriot Frank Cullotta. The gang stole pricey items worth millions altogether, and Spilotro opened a pawn shop called the Gold Rush to fence the goods, the Mob Museum reported.
The Gold Rush was raided by Las Vegas Metropolitan Police in 1978, but Spilotro beat that rap too, the Mob Museum reported. However, some members of the Hole in the Wall Gang got busted in 1981 for stealing from a home furnishings store, and Cullotta — one of those busted — became an informant.
Spilotro also went on trial for the M&M murders in 1983, 21 years after the fact, and was acquitted on the grounds that the prosecution's key witness, the aforementioned Cullotta, wasn't credible, according to a contemporary New York Times report. The judge who acquitted Spilotro, Cook County Criminal Court Judge Thomas Maloney, was later convicted of accepting bribes and fixing criminal cases — though Spilotro's conviction was not part of the case against Maloney.
On top of all that, Spilotro was also suspected of having an affair with Lefty Rosenthal's wife, Geri, and of being involved in a car bombing that targeted Rosenthal. Rosenthal survived the bombing.
But as John Drummond reported for Channel 2 News, despite Spiltro being in the crosshairs of the U.S. Department of Justice for years and facing all kinds of charges, the most severe penalty he ever received was a $1 fine for making a false loan application.
Still, investigators said Spilotro was attracting too much attention in Vegas and was bringing heat on the mob.
The heat had grown intense. As a result of federal agents infiltrating mob activities in Vegas — Spilotro's territory — Chicago mob boss Joey "Doves" Aiuppa, chief lieutenant Jack Cerone, and capos Angelo LaPietra and Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, as well as Cleveland mobster Milton Rockman, were all convicted in Kansas City in January 1986 of conspiring to skim $2 million from Vegas casinos.
In June 1986, Tony Spilotro was set to face a new trial on a racketeering charge connected to the Hole in the Wall Gang and its burglaries. The first trial ended in a mistrial that past April after reports that one of the jurors might have been offered a bribe, the New York Times reported at the time.
What about Michael Spilotro?
Drummond reported that like his brother, Michael Spilotro seemed destined for big things — working as a part-time actor while operating Hoagie's Restaurant at North and Sayre avenues on Chicago's West Side.
But Michael Spilotro ran afoul of the law earlier in 1986, and was indicted on extortion and tax charges.
In April 1986, Michael Spilotro and a third brother, Victor, were charged with extorting money from two businesses associated with prostitution and using violence to enforce their demands, UPI reported at the time.
The disappearance and the gruesome discovery
On June 14, 1986, Tony and Michael Spilotro disappeared. They had last been seen leaving Michael's house in Oak Park that Saturday afternoon.
The Lincoln in which they had last been seen was found abandoned in front of a Howard Johnson's motel in Schiller Park, and it was first believed that they had parked the car at the motel and gotten into another one, as reported by the Tribune at the time. But authorities later determined that the Lincoln had not arrived in the motel parking lot until June 15 or 16.
Tony Spilotro was briefly deemed a fugitive from his upcoming retrial in the Hole in the Wall Gang case.
Eight days later, on Sunday, June 22, 1986, Tony and Michael Spilotro's bodies were found buried in a shallow grave in a sandy cornfield in Newton County, Indiana.
As reported by at the time by CBS Chicago's Jim Avila, the grave was over 5 feet deep and 6 feet wide, and was discovered after heavy rains washed away part of the freshly disturbed ground. A farmer checking his crops noticed something wasn't right.
The farmer thought the grave might have been dug by poachers, CBS Chicago's Phil Ponce reported at the time. But authorities soon found two bodies buried on top of each other.
The bodies were taken to Indianapolis for autopsies, and dental records quickly determined the bodies to be those of Tony and Michael Spilotro. A burned-out car stolen from Chicago's South Side was also found nearby.
A hunting lodge once owned by imprisoned mob boss Joey "Doves" Aiuppa also happened to be located nearby.
It later turned out that Tony and Michael Spilotro had been called to a meeting at a house in Bensenville the day they disappeared. They were strangled and beaten to death at the house, and their bodies were then driven off to the Indiana site.
Answers at last in Family Secrets trial
In 1995, the Spilotro saga was dramatized in Martin Scorsese's film "Casino," based on Nicholas Pileggi's nonfiction book about the Chicago Outfit's Las Vegas activities, "Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas."
"Casino" starring Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro, a character based on Tony Spilotro, while Robert De Niro's Sam "Ace Rothstein character is based on Lefty Rosenthal. True to real life, Nicky Santoro and his brother are beaten to death and buried in a cornfield — although in "Casino," they are buried alive, which the real Spilotro brothers were not.
But as to the murders of the real Spilotro brothers, it took nearly 20 years for anyone to be charged specifically with their murders. But in April 2005, following an investigation dubbed Operation Family Secrets, 14 Chicago mobsters were charged with 18 then-as-yet-unsolved murders — including those of the Spilotros.
Five men went on to go to trial in the Family Secrets case in 2007 — capo Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, who was also convicted in the 1986 Kansas City case; boss Jimmy "The Little Guy" Marcello; enforcer Frank "The Breeze" Calabrese Sr., a longtime enforcer of the feared Chinatown crew; recruited mob hitman Paul "The Indian" Schiro; and Anthony "Twan" Dyle, a former Chicago police officer who served as a messenger between imprisoned Outfit leaders.
Frank Calabrese's brother, Nick Calabrese, was the star witness at the trial. As noted in published reports, Nick Calabrese testified that Tony Spilotro had been lured back to Chicago on claims that brother Michael was going to be initiated as a "made" member of the Outfit.
Instead, the men were beaten to death and strangled in a basement. Nick Calabrese testified that it was Marcello who drove him and several other high-profile mobsters to the Bensenville house to kill the brothers, according to published reports.
Another Spilotro brother, Park Ridge dentist Patrick Spilotro, also testified for the prosecution at trial. He told jurors that his brothers' murder had convinced him to become an FBI informant, even wearing a wire while performing dental work on reputed mobsters and their wives.
The five defendants in the Family Secrets trial were convicted in September 2007. A jury also found Frank Calabrese Sr., Marcello, and Lombardo responsible for all 18 murders in which they'd been charged.
Star witness Nick Calabrese was sentenced to 12 years and four months in prison in 2009 for the 14 murders to which he admitted. He died in 2023.
Five other defendants in the Family Secrets case also pleaded guilty, while three died before trial.
