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Aniello John "Mr. Neil" Dellacroce (March 15, 1914 – December 2, 1985), also known as "Father O'Neil" and "The Tall Guy", was an Italian-American gangster and underboss of the Gambino crime family. He rose to the position of underboss when Carlo Gambino moved Joseph Biondo aside. Dellacroce was a mentor to Gambino crime family boss John Gotti. ==Early life== Dellacroce was born in New York to Francesco and Antoinette Dellacroce, first generation immigrants from Italy.〔 He grew up in the Little Italy section of Manhattan. Dellacroce was a tall, broad-shouldered man who was usually chomping on a cigar. His nickname was "Neil", an Americanization of "Aniello". Due to his square-shaped face, some Gambino members nicknamed him "the Polack", a nickname never used within his earshot. Dellacroce had one brother, Carmine, and married Lucille Riccardi.〔 The couple had a son, Armand, and a daughter, Nanny. He had a grandson, AJ, whom he raised. He had a son Ronald from a relationship with Elizabeth Main, and later married Rosemary Connelly, who had two sons, Skipper and Seann Connelly, and a daughter, Shannon. Dellacroce was also the great uncle of John Ruggiero Jr., Angelo Ruggiero Jr. and Salvatore Ruggiero Jr. Dellacroce and his family originally lived in an apartment across the street from his social club in Little Italy. In later years, they lived in Grasmere, Staten Island. As a teenager, Dellacroce became a butcher's assistant, but work was scarce and he took to crime. He was jailed once for petty theft. Dellacroce sometimes walked around Manhattan dressed as a priest and called himself "Father O'Neil" to confuse both the police and rival mobsters. Dellacroce allegedly committed a murder dressed as a priest. He also allegedly used a body double for some public events.〔("Aniello 'Mr. Neil' Dellacroce" ) Seize the Night〕 Dellacroce preferred to keep a low profile and was said to have a menacing stare. Once described as 'the archangel of death', a federal agent said of Dellacroce, “He likes to peer into a victim’s face, like some kind of dark angel, at the moment of death.” "His eyes had no color... as if his soul was transparent", is how a news reporter characterized Dellacroce. Joseph Coffey, a former New York mob investigator, reflected: "Dellacroce was one of the scariest individuals I've ever met in my life. Dellacroce's eyes were, like, he didn't have any eyes. Did you ever see 'Children of the Damned'? His eyes were so blue that they weren't even there. It was like looking right through him." Ralph Salerno, a former New York Police Department detective, said of Dellacroce: "When Carlo Gambino died, If I'd been asked to place a ten-dollar wager as to who would be his successor, I would've put the ten dollars on the man who was his under-boss, Aniello Dellacroce, a tough man. Of all the gangsters that I've met personally, and I've met dozens of them in all of my years, there were only two who, when I looked them straight in the eye, I decided I wouldn't want them to be really personally mad at me. Aniello Dellacroce was one and Carmine Galante was the other. They had bad eyes, I mean, they had the eyes of killers. You looked at Dellacroce's eyes and you could see how frightening they were, the frigid glare of a killer." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aniello Dellacroce」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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