Rats Replace the Men of Honor

With the high amount of money collected in the heist, the police wasted no time in moving into action. Soon, at least, informants fingered two of the gang members and the police began their search to make arrests. Jimmy Burke was concerned that it would only be a short time before the police paid him a visit, unless he could find a way to make sure people could keep their mouth shut. Only one sure plan came to mind, if all the gang members were eliminated Burke's concerns could be laid to rest.

Within two months one of the gang was arrested and Burke felt it was time to put his plan into operation. Since Jimmy never had any contact with the man arrested he knew that there was no fear of a direct link to him.

The first to go was Stax Edwards; He was to have taken care of the van used in the heist. Instead of following instructions he left the van where it could be found and a link could be traced to him and possibly to Burke if Stax could not keep his mouth shut. Stax was one of the weaker links and realizing that a chain is only as strong as the weakest link he had to be taken care of. He was found shot in mid-December and the effort to cover all tracks leading to Burke was begun. A month later, Marty Krugman the bookie disappeared. No one seemed to know what happened, but some of the other gang members were becoming concerned about the connections between Stax and Krugman. A few weeks later, Tommy DeSimone vanished. The word on the street was that he was killed he was killed as a reaction to an unrelated killing involving a made man in the Gambino family. But this had happened years before and it was a mystery why it would take so long for revenge to be carried out. Word was also floating on the street that his connection to Theresa Ferrara who had been close to many of the men involved in the airport robbery. By this time gang members were becoming more and more concerned as to their own safety.

In March, Louis Cafora and his wife disappeared. Cafora had made some remarks about being involved in the robbery and expressed a concern about his own safety. It was also a well-known fact that he shared a great deal about his activities with his wife. By this point most of the members of the robbery team began to feel, it would be in their own self-interest not to be alone any more than necessary. Perhaps in the face of all the other accidents and disappearances there could be safety in numbers. While this seemed to be one way to deal with the situation, it did create a problem about who you could trust to spend your time with. How could you be so sure that the one you chose to provide protection wasn't the one who was carrying out the killing? Oh well the idea didn't work out too well anyway because in May, Joe Manri and Robert McMahon were found shot dead in a Buick sedan in the Mill Hill section of Brooklyn. It soon became clear that not even those who were only close to the members of the gang were safe. Because a few weeks later a female headless torso was found in a trunk washed ashore in New Jersey. It was identified as that of Theresa Ferrara. It seemed she was getting to gain a little bit too much knowledge about the actual robbery and those involved in it. The threat of an informant could not be ignored and the decision was made to eliminate the threat. By this time it was apparent that Henry Hill's turn would soon be next. Searching for a way out, he agreed to work with the FBI and enter the Witness Protection Program. Burke along with Paulie would be fingered by Hill and spend the remainder of their life in prison.

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