Boston Mob Murder Solved, DNA Links Slain Patriarca Hit Man As Doer In ’91 Howard Ferrini Hit

March 11, 2021 – A cold-case squad in suburban Boston has identified mob associate Howard Ferrini’s killer. The problem is, he was murdered, too.

The killer’s murder is also getting a fresh look from authorities in recent years.  And so it goes in the brutal New England mafia known locally as the Patriarca crime family.

The 53 year-old Ferrini was bludgeoned and asphyxiated to death in the early 1990s amidst rising tensions and an ongoing power struggle being engaged in by warring factions of the Patriarca clan. At the time, boss Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme was fighting a group of rouges from East Boston, exacting revenge for an assassination attempt aimed at him carried out at a Saugus, Massachusetts International House of Pancakes in June 1989. Salemme’s tear of bloodshed resulted in at least a half-dozen gangland slayings and retribution executions.

The District Attorneys Office in Bristol, Massachusetts reopened the Ferrini case last year. State police lab techs matched DNA from infamous slain Irish mob enforcer Kevin Hanrahan to the crime scene.

Ferrini disappeared on his way to Raynham Dog Track on August 16, 1991. A week later, on August 21, Boston Police found Ferrini’s decomposing body in the trunk of his blue-colored Cadillac in the long-term parking section at Logan International Airport. His head had been crushed by a hammer and his head was covered by a blue plastic bag. He had $6,000 in cash and jewelry on him when police discovered his body. Police found Hanrahan’s DNA on the plastic bag.

A bookie and professional gambler, Ferrini was aligned against Cadillac Frank Salemme’s regime, siding with North End capo Vinnie (The Animal) Ferrara, who was in prison at the time of Ferrini’s murder, in the Beantown mob war. Ferrara’s North End crew joined forces with the East Boston contingent to oppose Salemme’s reign.

Salemme became a government informant in 1999 and was convicted of a 1993 cold-case murder almost three years ago. The 88-year old Cadillac Frank is serving life in prison.

Hanrahan, 39, was murdered on Salemme’s orders in September 1992 in Providence. Salemme believed Hanrahan was plotting to murder him and caught him extorting protected bookmakers in Massachusetts. When he died, Hanrahan was a suspect in multiple Patriarca crime family-connected murders.

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