Boston Gang Wars- Waterfront Murders II

Happy New Year!

WILLIAM CAMERON,  continued

William Cameron, 49, a long-time criminal with a record going back to when he was fifteen years old secured the hideout for two of the alleged Brinks robbers, Richardson and Faherty. Cameron’s record included about 25 arrests and some time in prison. Described as a “strapping six-footer,” he worked as a longshoreman. Earlier in the day that Faherty and Richardson were arrested, Cameron got into a brawl with a waterfront longshoreman. The longshoreman had accused Cameron of talking to FBI agents.

A month and three days later on June 19, 1956, at 1:40 a.m. Boston police received a call telling them there was a guy bleeding in a car behind the Fargo Building in South Boston. Arriving there they found Cameron “slumped on the floor, his head and shoulders resting on the right front seat and against the front door of his 1964 Cadillac sedan.” They believed he was slain while in the driver’s seat. He had two bullets in his head from a .38 caliber.  The bullets were fired at close range. Cameron’s car was registered to Frank J. Sciarappa. Later, when interviewed by police, Sciarappa said he did Cameron a favor by registering the car in his own name because of Cameron’s criminal record. Sciarappa was a roommate of Leo Lowry who was found murdered on September 1964 but otherwise was not involved.

Cameron’s wife said the Cemeron received a call about midnight. Cameron then told her he was going to the Fargo Building to give a guy whose car was stuck there a push. The Fargo building was a little over four miles or around ten minutes from where they lived on Geneva Avenue in Dorchester. A few minutes later his wife said a stranger arrived at the door. Her husband left with him.  That would be the last time she saw her husband alive.

Cameron got into his own car and drove off. His car was seen arriving at the Fargo Building. He was not driving it. Somewhere between getting into his car outside his house and the Fargo Building he was shot in the head. The Boston police immediately were convinced he was shot somewhere else. They assumed he was killed elsewhere because two Navy security guards were on duty 100 feet from where the car was found. The Navy guards said they heard no shots. A silencer also would have prevented them from hearing. Fortunately, better evidence helps put together the crime.

Boston police found two witnesses who saw Cameron’s car being driven to the spot where the police discovered it. When it arrived, the car did not have its headlights on. They said the car was driven by a man who got out as soon as it stopped and ran from it. A moment later, a two-toned car came onto the scene. A man got out of the car. He walked over to Cameron’s car, peered in, and returned to his car. He then jumped back into his car and drove off in the direction that the first driver had fled.

This matter presented a real mystery. Why did his car end up at the Fargo Building? He said he was going there to give a person a push. Before he got there, he was murdered. Why then, was his car then driven on to the Fargo Building rather than parking the car some other place?

Here’s what I suggest happened. The plan was for Cameron to be ambushed at the Fargo by the guys in the two-toned car. On the way to the Fargo building, Camerson learned or said something that made the other pause.  Best guess. The call Cameron received had nothing to do with giving a guy a push. He was asked to come along to assist in some criminal plan. Cameron got into the driver’s seat of his car, the stranger in the passenger seat. We will see later that Fats Buccelli died pretty much the same way.

Whoever called him and came to his house under these circumstances had to be a guy Cameron trusted. Was it his good friend Johnny Earle? Johnny Earle was the narcotics runner between the New York City waterfront gangsters and Boston. He was believed to be the narcotics pick up man. He and Cameron were considered “great friends.”

Cameron knew he had been accused of being an FBI informant and some people were unhappy with him. He would not have left with a someone he did not know well. His murder was never solved. It would be natural to assume it had something to do with the arrest of Richardson and Faherty and the belief that he gave up their location. Whatever it was, Cameron should have known his days were numbered having been fingered as an FBI informant.

In June 1958, two years after Cameron’s death it was disclosed that a 20-million dollar narcotics ring operating out of New York City was using the coal wharf in Boston to drop off their narcotics. If true, Cameron would have known Earle’s business. How likely is it that the New York City gangsters running this operation would let a guy live who knew about it and had been identified as an FBI informant? Not very.