THROUGH THE EYES OF A DAUGHTER: THE HIT ON JIMMY VELASCO
“Well, that same night, we went back to our home. And my mother said, well, let’s do the dishes. So here is my mother washing, and I’m drying doing this mundane thing. Then there’s a knock at the door. My mother’s sister came to the house because they heard it on the radio. We were stunned that people found out so quickly. After that, there was a constant procession of people coming in.
My grandmother was in Miami. Her husband had died in October of that year, so she went to live with her sister there. There was a rumor that they waited to kill my Dad until Rojelio died because they feared his retaliation.”
There were events leading up to the murder. My Dad bought this house on 29th Avenue near Lake Avenue in Ybor City. The street was not bricked but filled with oyster shells when we bought it. It had large glass in front. There were three bedrooms and one bathroom. There was another bedroom that my mother turned into a study. It had a window that looked out onto a little porch.
One night there was a knock at the door, and the lady across the street came over. ‘Mr. Velasco, I want to tell you what I just saw. A man on the porch had what looked like a shoe box and was crouching down and trying to look into the window.’ That’s where I was.
Then another night, the dog slept outside. And Arthur made the dog a little doghouse. Well, somebody jumped the fence. The fence had barbed wire along the top. The dog came flying out and was snarling at someone, and you could hear someone kicking the dog. My Dad ran out, and the guy jumped back over the fence.
Once on my birthday, I got this kit where you could develop photos. I was in the garage, and I looked up at the window into the garage and saw this face. So I went back to the kitchen, and my Dad started yelling.
There was a lot of pressure building up. They obviously didn’t care if he was home or not; I mean, ultimately, they took him out in front of the family.”
A little over a month after the shooting, authorities arrested a suspect, Joe Provenzano, a low-level underworld figure with ties to Red Italiano. Sylvia thinks her Dad may have identified Joe during the shooting, “My father was shouting something that sounded like “No, Joe, no.”
Sylvia’s mother was the closest to the killer, and she was positive it was Provenzano. “Joe Provenzano was who we took to court. Joe Provenzano had ties to Red Italiano. The prosecutor was State Attorney Rex Farrior.”
The ties between Provenzano and Salvatore “Red” Italiano also fueled suspicion in the Velasco family. “I felt that knowing what was happening, I’m sure it came from Red Italiano. So it was to grab the business. My father had a business they muscled in and out on when it happened, so he started up his own bolita and was a competitor.”
But Provenzano was acquitted in the case. That only fueled the fire concerning Jimmy’s surviving brothers, especially Arthur. Dennis Velasco recalled his father’s desire for revenge against the mob. “over the years, my Dad would tell stories, and back when Jimmy was killed, my Dad just went bananas, and he wanted revenge. So every Christmas, he went nuts. From that point on, Christmas was not a happy time in my house. He couldn’t get in the spirit. He was on the outskirts of the bolita operation, but he was a player in the sense that he could be relied on to do whatever was necessary to protect the family. He was the go-to guy to get something done.
My Dad was shot three different times. I witnessed one shooting. When Jimmy was killed, I think there was even a list at that point. In his mind, it was a hit list. My Dad had a list of people he felt he needed to remove.
One of them was Charlie Wall, for whatever reason. He had a thing going that he would take out Charlie Wall. The night he was going to do that, Charlie was with Baby Joe Diez, his bodyguard, and driver. It took place on Nebraska Avenue at Palm Avenue, somewhere around there. Charlie was driving home on Nebraska, and Arthur took a couple of shots but missed. Baby Joe Diez recognized Arthur and told the cops. Chief Eddings enters the interrogation room, leans into my Dad, and says, “Art, you shouldn’t have missed.”
The biggest fight my Dad got into was on May 9, 1949, Mother’s Day. My uncle Johnny Velasco had been in Ybor at an Italian picnic, and Gus Friscia and Primo Lazzara were there. They all had a few drinks and argued about Jimmy’s death. Gus and Primo got into an altercation with Johnny. They’re getting into their sedan, and my uncle Johnny had a sawed-off shotgun in his golf bag in the trunk. As he’s getting the gun out, it accidentally goes off and hits the ground. When it goes off, Friscia and Lazzara take off in their car.
Just by coincidence, they were coming down Nebraska Avenue by the Boilermaker Club. My grandmother lived across the street. The house had a large bay window in front. I’m sitting in a rocking chair at about 2 or 3 PM. My Dad had a 42 Oldsmobile 2-door coupe. He comes driving up, and I’m looking out the window. As he parks on the curb, this Chrysler 4-door dark blue with Friscia and Lazzara pulls up. Their wives are in the car in the backseat. They are pissed because Johnny just tried to shoot them. So they hopped out of the car and started shooting toward my father as he was still in his car.
The first shot misses. My Dad laid down on the seat and put his hand up on the dashboard. one of the bullets went through the back of his hand. He lays down on the seat and opens the passenger door next to the curb, and slides off.
Lazzara and Friscia left the car in park and got out of the car. One walked around behind the car and the other one to the front. My Dad drops down and sees their feet. He waited until they got to either end of the car and jumped up like a bird jumping out of a bush. But he doesn’t have a gun- he left his gun on the mantle right behind me- so he goes running down the sidewalk, sidestepping. They started shooting, but they were missing. So he goes down one or two houses and cuts through an alley.
Suddenly, I hear, “get out of the way” he’s behind me and bleeding like hell. He gets his gun on the mantle. And there was a big screen. He unlatched the screen and walked through the large window. They see him coming and take off in their car. He hops in his car and takes off after them. But he never caught back up with them. He went to Tampa General to get bandaged up.
They all met again at the Police station later that day. Johnny took a swing at Primo and hit him. They held Primo and told Art to take a shot.
The bad blood between the Velasco brothers, the mob, and certain officials reached a fever point with the presentation of Jimmy’s payoff list to the grand jury. Here was concrete proof of the mob’s influence on local politics and law enforcement. The names on the list were also the names that Arthur Velasco kept as a list of enemies of the family. “Jimmy’s payoff list was business. My Dad’s list was vengeance.”
But the Velasco’s were getting tired of the back and forth with the mob and realized that this was no life for their children. Dennis Velasco said, “This back and forth went on for a couple of years. Then, finally, my mother insisted we move across the Bay to Pinellas County to escape the environment.”
After Jimmy Velascos’ death, Sylvia and her mother stayed in Tampa for a while. “My mother and I stayed here my freshman year; then we moved to Miami.” Sylvia then moved to California, where she still resides.
Scott M. Deitche is an author specializing in organized crime. He has written seven books and more than 50 articles on organized crime for local and national publications. He has been featured on the History Channel, A&E, Discovery Channel, AHC, C-SPAN and Oxygen Network. In addition, he has appeared on dozens of local and national news shows, as well as more than 40 radio programs. His latest book is Garden State Gangland: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey. For more information about Scott, visit his page at HERE
