59 Facts About Roy DeMeo

Roy Albert DeMeo was an American mobster in the Gambino crime family in New York City.

Roy DeMeo headed a group known as the "DeMeo crew", which consisted of approximately twenty associates involved in murder, car theft, drug dealing, prostitution and pornography.

The DeMeo crew became notorious for the large number of murders they committed and for the grisly way they disposed of the bodies, which became known as "the Gemini Method".

Roy DeMeo was born on September 7,1940, in the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City into a working-class Italian immigrant family originating from Formia in the region of Lazio.

The fourth of five children of Antonio Joseph "Anthony" DeMeo, a laundry company deliveryman, and Eleanor DeMeo, a housewife, Roy graduated from James Madison High School in 1959, during which time he began earning money as a loanshark.

Economist Walter Block and future presidential candidate Bernie Sanders were among Roy DeMeo's graduating year classmates.

Between the ages of 15 and 22, Roy DeMeo worked at a local grocery store, where he trained as an apprentice butcher.

Roy DeMeo was initially an associate of the Brooklyn faction of the Lucchese crime family, which controlled towing companies, junkyards and car theft operations in Flatlands and Canarsie.

The first member of the Roy DeMeo crew was 16-year-old Harvey "Chris" Rosenberg, who met Roy DeMeo in 1966 when he was dealing marijuana at a Canarsie gas station.

Roy DeMeo helped Rosenberg increase his business and profits by loaning him money so that he could deal in larger amounts.

Roy DeMeo joined a Brooklyn credit union in 1972, gaining a position on the board of directors shortly afterward.

Roy DeMeo utilized his position to launder money earned through his illegal ventures.

Roy DeMeo introduced colleagues at the credit union to a lucrative side-business, laundering the money of drug dealers he had become acquainted with.

Roy DeMeo built up his loansharking business with funds stolen from credit union reserves.

Roy DeMeo learned about the meeting immediately afterward from an NYPD auto crimes detective on his payroll.

Roy DeMeo ordered Borelli to contact a female acquaintance, Babette Judith Questel, about being used as bait.

Roy DeMeo was then taken to the meat department of a supermarket in Rockaway Beach, Queens, where he was stabbed multiple times in the heart and then in the back with a butcher knife.

At this point, a crew member, almost always Roy DeMeo according to crew member-turned-government witness Frederick DiNome, would approach with a silenced pistol in one hand and a towel in the other, shooting the victim in the head then wrapping the towel around the victim's head wound like a turban to stanch the blood flow.

Roy DeMeo began dealing in bestiality and child pornography, which he sold to his New Jersey establishment as well as connections in Rhode Island.

Gaggi did not retaliate, and, according to his nephew Dominick Montiglio, the subject was never mentioned again as long as Roy DeMeo continued making payments to Gaggi.

Roy DeMeo dealt in narcotics despite the Gambino family strictly forbidding such activity; he financed a major operation importing Colombian marijuana, which was unloaded from an offshore freighter and sold at various auto shops in Canarsie, and sold cocaine out of the Gemini Lounge.

Roy DeMeo allegedly opposed the idea of DeMeo being "made", looking down on street-level members and instead involving himself in white-collar crime.

Gaggi's attempts at persuading Castellano to make Roy DeMeo were continually rejected.

Roy DeMeo secured his induction into the Gambino family by forming an alliance with an Irish-American gang known as the Westies, based in Hell's Kitchen.

Roy DeMeo, sensing an opportunity to create a vast source of income for the Gambino family, persuaded Gaggi to consider a partnership with the Westies.

Roy DeMeo was made in mid-1977 and put in charge of handling all family business with the Westies.

Roy DeMeo was ordered to get permission before committing any murders and to avoid drug dealing.

Roy DeMeo's crew continued to sell large amounts of cocaine, marijuana and a variety of narcotic pills.

Roy DeMeo continued to commit unsanctioned killings, such as the 1977 double homicide of Johnathan Quinn, a car thief suspected of cooperating with law enforcement, and Cherie Golden, Quinn's 19-year-old girlfriend.

The Roy DeMeo crew dumped the bodies in locations where they would be discovered to serve as a warning against cooperation with authorities.

In 1978, Frederick DiNome, previously Roy DeMeo's chauffeur, joined the crew.

Roy DeMeo was ordered to kill Rosenberg but stalled for weeks.

Roy DeMeo saw Ragucci parked outside his house in Massapequa Park, Long Island, and assumed he was a Cuban assassin.

Gaggi was infuriated by the murder of Ragucci, and ordered Roy DeMeo to kill Rosenberg before there were any other innocent victims.

Shortly after his arrival, Roy DeMeo fired a single bullet into the unsuspecting Rosenberg's head.

The usually ice-cold Roy DeMeo hesitated when the still-living Rosenberg managed to rise off the floor and onto one knee, but Senter then moved in and finished him off with four shots to the head.

Roy DeMeo's men placed Rosenberg's body in his car and left it on the side of Cross Bay Boulevard, near the Gateway National Wildlife Refuge in Broad Channel, Queens, to be found.

Albert later recounted that Rosenberg's murder affected his father deeply, and that when Roy DeMeo came home after the killing, he went into his study room and didn't emerge for two days.

Roy DeMeo put together a group of five active partners in the operation, all of whom earned approximately $30,000 a week each in profit.

Roy DeMeo was murdered along with an uninvolved acquaintance before he could provide authorities with information.

Since Roy DeMeo had split up with Gaggi as they left the scene, he was not arrested or identified by the witness.

Roy DeMeo murdered the witness shortly after Gaggi's sentencing in March 1980.

Roy DeMeo ordered Borelli and DiNome to plead guilty to the charges in hopes that it would stop any further investigations into his activities.

Roy DeMeo eventually emerged from hiding to consult with lawyers as he anticipated an indictment stemming from the Southern District of New York's investigation into his crew's activities.

Gene Gotti mentioned that John was wary of taking the contract, as Roy DeMeo had an "army of killers" around him.

Roy DeMeo considered faking his own death by having his son shoot him and laying low.

On January 10,1983, Roy DeMeo went to crew member Patty Testa's house for a meeting with his men.

Roy DeMeo had been shot multiple times in the head and had a bullet wound in his hand, assumed by law enforcement to be a defensive wound caused when his killers opened fire on him.

The task force investigating the Roy DeMeo crew theorized that Roy DeMeo was set up in a similar manner to how he set up Rosenberg, and that Gaggi, Testa and Senter were present when he was killed.

Albert Roy DeMeo believed that his father was killed by members of his own crew.

Casso ordered them to kill Roy DeMeo, assuring them that there would be no retribution and that afterwards they would join him in the Lucchese family.

Roy DeMeo visited the home of Patty Testa to collect some money he was owed.

Ironically, according to Casso, Castellano ordering Roy DeMeo's execution sealed Castellano's own fate, as Gotti and DeCicco were planning to kill him, and would do so on December 16,1985.

Casso said they would never have dared to move against Castellano while Roy DeMeo was still alive.

In March 1986, six members of the Roy DeMeo crew were convicted, with Borelli and one other defendant found guilty of two counts of murder.

Roy DeMeo is the subject of the 1992 book Murder Machine by Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustaine.

Roy DeMeo was raised Catholic but stopped practicing the religion in later life.

Roy DeMeo's children were raised in his wife's Lutheran faith.

One of Roy DeMeo's daughters became a clothing designer, and the other a medical doctor.