'Surreal': Mob Victim's Body Found—23 Years Later

Former mob boss eyed in Steven DiSarro's 1993 murder
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 10, 2016 6:29 AM CDT
Updated Jun 10, 2016 6:39 AM CDT
'Surreal': Mob Victim's Body Found—23 Years Later
DiSarro's body was found here, behind a mill complex in Providence, RI.   (Glenn Osmundson/Providence Journal via AP)

Nick DiSarro's father disappeared in 1993 when he was only 7. "We've waited 23 years for somebody from the FBI to call us and say we found him," he says. That call came Thursday when the FBI said it had identified a body unearthed in March behind a mill complex in Providence, RI, as Steven DiSarro. The South Boston nightclub manager was 43 when he was killed. "It was surreal," his son says of Thursday's call. But while he's focused on giving his father a proper burial, police are looking for those responsible. Authorities are concentrating on former mob boss Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme, sources tell the Boston Globe. Stephen Flemmi—who is serving a life sentence in connection with 10 murders—told police in 2003 that he walked in on DiSarro's murder at the home of Salemme's ex-wife on May 10, 1993, according to a DEA report.

Flemmi said Salemme watched as his son Francis Jr.—an assistant manager at DiSarro's nightclub, per the AP—strangled DiSarro, who reportedly borrowed money from the mob to reopen the Channel Nightclub, per the Boston Herald and WCVB. Flemmi said Salemme later told him he helped hide DiSarro's body at a Rhode Island construction site and that mobster Robert DeLuca "was present during the burial." DeLuca was reportedly close to alleged mob associate William Ricci, who owns the complex behind which DiSarro's body was found. Francis Jr. died in 1995. A lawyer for Francis Sr.—who is in the Witness Protection Program for aiding the prosecution of James "Whitey" Bulger—says his client "absolutely denies any involvement in Steve DiSarro's murder" and Flemmi's version of events "never happened, pure and simple." (Cops have a lead in another old murder case out of Kansas.)

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