The Butcher

9 July 1990: the DEA makes the gruesome discovery of nine bodies, dismembered, stuffed into cheap suitcases and buried in a secluded bird sanctuary near Gravesend, Brooklyn. It was Tommy Pitera's personal cemetery.

When John Gotti put out a contract on informer Willie Boy Johnson, Pitera took it—he shot him fourteen times in broad daylight outside his home. Pitera not only murdered for the mob, he took pleasure in killing and did so at whim—the slightest insult could provoke him and he killed friends, associates, anyone who got in his way.

A cold-blooded, homicidal maniac with a fascination for the macabre, he had an autopsy table in his basement and regularly dismembered his victims, expertly cutting them into six pieces: the arms, legs, torso, and head. Convicted for six murders, he is believed to be responsible for over sixty.

The Butcher by Philip Carlo, author of the bestseller The Iceman, reveals the horrendous crimes of drug kingpin and merciless mob killer Thomas Pitera and the New York DEA's three-year battle to bring him to justice.