Billy Cutolo Whispered: 'Three for My Father...'

"Wild Bill" was feared and respected --

and he was considered the real deal.

The Discovery channel certainly did not go out of its way to promote “Mobster Confessions,” its new Mafia-related series, the first episode of which detailed the story of Bill Cutolo Jr.’s efforts to nail the Colombo family members who had whacked his father.

I have written repeatedly that I am not in any way connected, but if my father were killed and I happened to have access to a pistol, like Billy did, and if I actually knew who was behind my father’s murder, I’d say I would get in my car, find them and kill them all until they stopped me by putting one or two in my head.

But that’s easy for me to say, sitting here typing this, knowing full well my father would never be killed by mobsters because he is in no way connected, either.

Apparently Billy’s first sentiment upon learning his father had been “disappeared” mirrored my own.

“Three for my father,” he says he told Colombo mobster Jackie DeRoss after learning his father’s fate. DeRoss, in response, apparently dropped by after giving Billy some time to cool off to see how the Cutolos were holding up (and probably to try to steal Wild Bill’s book). According to Billy, DeRoss offered with his condolences a veiled threat to the family, which had been acting quite “emotionally” over the death of the family patriarch, reminding them there were “young kids” in the Cutolo mix.

For background on why “Wild Bill” Cutolo was killed, there is ample coverage online and on this site. Suffice it to say, he had chosen the wrong side in the Colombo civil war (of the early 1990s) and let’s just say the winning side had a long memory.




Looking fit, albeit a little too thin, with silvery gray hair and a deep brown tan, Billy Cutolo Jr. sat for Discovery and relayed how he was first bent on executing the men he fathomed were responsible for hitting his father. Only a small photo of his wife and young son hanging from his rear-view mirror stopped him dead in his tracks. That and a maxim that his father had told him years earlier: You kill two of them, four will come after you; you kill four, eight will come after you…

He chose the “legal” way, handing over Wild Bill’s book and wearing a wire. To get close to the Colombos, he pretended that he accepted his father’s death as natural causes for the line of work they were all in. He got close enough to be able to record them on the wire, saying bad things.

“Let them burn through all the money they stole paying for lawyers,” Cutolo said.

The rest is history: Alphonse “Allie Boy” Persico Jr. and Jackie DeRoss went away for life for Cutolo Sr.’s murder.

Billy and family went into WitPro, only the family wasn’t too thrilled about it. I even remember reading newspaper articles about it at the time, marveling that his own relatives were berating him in print for being a rat, saying stuff like “His father would roll over in his grave.”

From what I have heard about Wild Bill, he probably would.


SEE ALSO:

Wild Bill's Devotion to His Faith Was His Doom
Billy Cutolo Jr. Sure Can Talk the Talk...: