By
Chuck Goudie and Barbara Markoff and Christine Tressel
Friday, June 24, 2016
CHICAGO (WLS) -- On June 23, 30 years ago, the mob's
powerhouse brothers were discovered buried in an Indiana cornfield. The
"last family secret" is how they got there.
The I-Team looks into Tony and Michael Spilotro's last road
trip, where it began and who was behind it.
"Do you have any fears at all for your life?"
The question to Tony "Ant" Spilotro was finally
answered on June 23, 1986, when he and his brother Michael were found six feet
under by a Northwest Indiana corn farmer.
"This don't look like any animal skin I've ever
seen," the farmer said at the time.
The Spilotro's temporary resting place is still eerily
visible thirty years later. How they ended up here is not nearly as obvious.
The movie "Casino," Hollywood's version of the
brother's death, shows outfit bosses beating them in the Indiana cornfield,
something mob insiders say never happened.
We do know from authorities and underworld informants the
Spilotros were rubbed out because Tony had angered Chicago crime bosses by an
affair with the wife of Lefty Rosenthal, a Chicago native and Vegas casino exec
who was an outfit operative.
And former FBI supervisor John Mallul says Spilotro was a
loose cannon.
"He was essentially operating on his own. Keeping the
proceeds to himself and not looking for authority to do anything," says
Mallul.
"He did a lot of things he was not supposed to do that
were really bad for business and for the Outfit," says John Binder, author
of "The Chicago Outfit."
And we know the Spilotros had been invited to a meeting with
the bosses, under the belief it was to be a mob promotion ceremony. But they
had been summoned to their deaths in a suburban basement. Details came years
later by mob informant Nick Calabrese.
"He dove at Michael's legs, he grabbed Michael, he held
Michael and Louie Eboli cut his throat," says Joe "the Shark"
Lopez, mob attorney.
Top hoodlums Louie "The Mooch" Eboli and all the
bosses were there, according to authorities, along with several mystery
murderers, not known to this day.
"The plan was simply to tackle them, hold them down and
strangle them," Mullul says.
"The top guys made a point of being there and getting
their whacks in on them before they were dead," says Binder.
And the last Family secret? The exact location of where they
were jumped and beaten by that gaggle of hoodlums, narrowed down only to a
subdivision in northwest suburban Bensenville,
"It was my understanding that there was a couple of
members, alleged members, that lived in that subdivision," says Lopez.
One of the murderers was Nick Calabrese, an FBI informant
since 2002, and numerous times he tried to lead agents to the site of the
basement beat-down.
"We couldn't locate the home and Nick couldn't confirm
it. That's why that still remains a mystery," says Mallul.
For the family of Tony Spilotro, a ruthless career criminal
who once put a victim's head in a vice until his eyeball popped out, 30 years
has softened the memories.
"Ya know, he just- he was just a man, and got caught up
in some things that maybe he shouldn't have but he lived it the way he lived
it," says Vincent Spilotro, his son.
Mobwatcher websites display several Bensenville homes
purported to be the location of the Spilotro killings. Investigators say all
were all looked at and cleared. The I-Team examined property records for those
and other possible locations and spoke with current and former homeowners and
found no outfit connection. So that last family secret remains intact.