Trick or treat break my feet, turn my face into mince meat

“Because of the diabolical manner in which his features were marred and his body beaten before he was murdered, detectives decided that those who killed him had a more bitter motive – a more personal hatred.” So went the description of the demise of 28-year old white slaver Joe Masella who was rubbed out on Halloween 1929. The press didn’t go into detail about the mutilations Massella suffered before his killers sent a bullet into the back of his head but suffice it to say he could only be identified by his fingerprints. The “bitter motives” the police referred to were that Massella, “a charmer who held sway over more women than any gangster in the Brooklyn underworld” Had been messing around with the women of other mobsters.