"Buckwheats" - A Sadistic Way To Die

The term "Buckwheats" is used to describe how in organised crime circles a victim is made to die.  The death is slow and gruesome.  Torture is an essential ingredient, applied for either a specific "crime" or the torturer is simply sadistic.  One of the most well known buckwheats killing, was that of a man called Leo Foreman.  He suffered at the hands of psychotic Chicago loan shark "Mad "Sam DeStefano, who had a cellar converted into a soundproof torture chamber.  He ordered his men to shoot Foreman in certain parts of his body, to cause severe pain but not to kill him.  Pieces of his flesh were torn from his body.  DeStefano loved to extend the suffering as must as possible before the victim mercifully died.  Two of his torturers were Charles "Chuckie" Ctrimaldi, who later turned on DeStefano and became a federal witness and Tony Spilotro, portrayed in the film "Casino" by Joe Pesci.  In the film "Casino" a guy is tortured over a shooting up of a mob run bar, and had his head crushed in a vice.  In reality, it happened to two criminals in Chicago in the early 60`s.  Their bodies were found in the boot of a car.  The reason for their gruesome deaths, was thought to be failure to pay the "street tax," a levy extracted from all villains to be kicked back to the Outfit.

    Various mobsters have suffered this treatment over the years but it was given to a woman, simply as a warning to her boyfriend.  Nick Circella was serving a sentence and it was feared that he may turn to authorities to make a deal for an early release.  Allegedly on the orders of Chicago mob boss "Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo, an example had to be made to dissuade him of any such thoughts.  His girlfriend, Estelle Carey, a croupier, was seized in her own apartment and tied to a chair.  One of the men there, allegedly, was a violent and greatly feared gangster named Marshall Caifano.  Miss Carey was given a beating resulting in a broken nose, then tortured, she was stabbed a number of times, had her throat cut, and then if things could not get worse, she had petrol poured on her and set ablaze.  it was thought that she would have revealed details about where Circella had hidden money extorted from unions working in the film industry.

    Tales in books and films speak about victims being suspended from meat hooks.  This has happened.  One recipient was a Chicago loan shark named Willie Jackson.  He put his life on the line when he turned informer.  For years, he carried on with his loan sharking, indulged in other areas of crime but eventually, things turned extremely grim for him.  He was taken a meat factory where his 21 stone body was suspended from a meat hook.  Over time, he was stabbed, wounded, beaten with bats and had a cattle prod rammed up his anus.  The torturers were Fiore Buccieri & Jack Cerone.  Details of what happened emerged after phone taps caught the killers bragging and joking about what occurred.  It really makes a nonsense of claims frequently made that women "are left alone" - a load of crap beloved of the London Underworld of the 1950`s to 1970`s.