John Martorano said he first met former convict Bobby Palladino in 1962 at Jules’ Pool Room which had an ongoing, never-ending crap game. Palladino was one of the few white men who went to Jules’. Palladino had been in trouble since he was 17 when he was arrested for an armed robbery. His last time in prison had been for unarmed robbery of of a little over seven thousand dollars from the bookkeeper of the Sidney Hill Country Club in the parking lot of the club. He was sentenced to a 5–7-year term in state prison in January 1962. He was released in September 1964.
John said Wimpy Bennett and Stevie Flemmi told him that they had information that Palladino was “saying bad things” relative to the murder of Margaret Sylvester. John wrote: “I still don’t know who killed Margie. . .. So I have to believe that when Stevie was basically telling me I had to kill this guy, Palladino, to protect my family, the reality was, I was killing to protect his family, his brother [Jimmy the Bear].”
This is pure nonsense. Jimmie Flemmi was quite capable of protecting himself. He had a long history of committing serious crimes starting in December 1956 when he robbed a credit union at South Station. In 1961, he was charged with the murder of Raymond Gabriel while doing time in Walpole State prison. He beat that rap. He got out of prison in 1963. As mentioned, the FBI reported Jimmy wanted to become the number one hit man in New England. If a witness had to be murdered, Jimmy would have done himself. He did not need John.
John said Jimmy lived a life that “was tumultuous” and that, “[m]eeting Jimmy Flemmi was my downfall. I never had done anything really serious until I met the Bear. I mean, I killed people later on, but I always needed a reason, unlike those other guys I was hooked up with, Jimmy chopped people’s heads off.” This is the same Jimmy Flemmi that John would have you believe needed John Martorano to murder Palladino because Jimmy “the Bear” Flemmi was incapable of killing witnesses against him.
What makes the statement more ridiculous is that Steve Flemmi, who will much later testify he might have killed over forty people and who liked nothing more than murdering people, was unable to murder Palladino. Truth is that neither Flemmi brother needed John to murder a person for them. Once you realize it’s not because the Flemmi’s needed him, then the reason Palladino is killed comes down to one person, John Martorano. It was John Martorano who had something to fear from Palladino.
Obviously, John Martorano does not see how absurd it is to suggest that two stone killers would ask him kill a witness against one of them. Why did he lie? Obviously John lied to shift the blame away from the suspicion that he murdered Margaret Sylvester.
John wrote that he went and got a friend. They caught up with Bobby. John said he wanted to find out what he had to say about the Sylvester murder. Bobby got in the front passenger seat of the car. John said that his friend was driving and that he took his position behind the Palladino.
Normally you would not sit behind a person if you just want to talk to someone. John, as he did on other occasions, put a bullet into Bobby’s head shooting the unarmed man from behind. After John and his unnamed friend murdered him, they drove to a location under Interstate 93, the elevated roadway that once cut Boston off from its waterfront. They dropped the body next to an iron post that supported the highway. A photograph of it, along with the photographs of 40 gangsters murdered up to that time in Boston, was featured in the February 24, 1967 issue of Life Magazine.
The discovery of Palladino’s body made news earlier that day. The murder of two people at the Mickey Mouse Lounge in Revere by Joe Barboza and Jimmy Flemmi pushed Palladino’s murder off the front pages. I suggest if Jimmy Flemmi, who hung out in Roxbury, could go to Revere to murder someone, he could have easily murdered Palladino to prevent him from being a witness against him. He would not need John Martorano, as John suggests. John named Jimmy Flemmi after he was dead as a convenient scapegoat to shift the blame for the Sylvester murder from himself.