For a moment, the old man thought he was seeing things. It was Ozone Park, his own neighborhood, a place where faces were remembered and movements were watched, and here was a face he knew from the card table, a face that had looked up at him from the wrong end of a submachine gun. He walked up to Thomas Uva on the street and spoke quietly, the way men spoke when they carried news that could get a person killed. “You know they are coming for you,” he said.

“The families want you dead. You cannot run from this. ”

Thomas shrugged. He said four words.

“Everybody dies. ”

The man walked away, and Thomas went home to Rosemary and told her what had been said. They talked about leaving New York, maybe Florida, maybe California. They did not leave.

They stayed in Ozone Park, in the same apartment, and they kept driving the same maroon Mercury Topaz with the rusted edges, the car that every soldier and associate in two crime families had been told to look for. The open contract had gone out through the network weeks earlier. Any made man from either family could kill the couple. Whoever found them first would get the credit.

The Gambinos wanted them dead because they had hit Gambino clubs first. The Bonanos wanted them dead because of the robbery at Anthony Sparrow’s place on Bath Avenue. For weeks the families had argued over who held the right to the hit, a dispute that nearly came to blows before they settled it the way such matters were always settled: they agreed that both families could act. It was November 1992, and Thomas and Rosemary Uva were the most hunted two people in Queens.

They kept robbing. It had all started in May of that year, when Thomas walked out of prison on a Tuesday morning into the sunlight of Ozone Park. He was twenty-eight, an ex-con with a robbery conviction and nearly three years inside. Waiting at the gate was his wife Rosemary, thirty-one, who had served time herself for attempted robbery, a year and change behind bars.

They were married, and they were broke, and they returned to the apartment in the neighborhood where John Gotti had once walked the streets, where made men drank espresso and played cards in social clubs with no signs on the doors. Thomas was obsessed with the mafia. He watched the trials on television. He attended Gotti’s court appearances.

He knew the names, the families, the territories. He knew something else, a detail mentioned in testimony and repeated in the papers: social clubs run by the mob had a rule. No guns allowed inside. The bosses wanted their own men disarmed when they gathered, to keep arguments from turning into massacres.

Thomas and Rosemary sat in their maroon Mercury Topaz and parked outside a building on Mulberry Street, a social club with no name on the door, just a basement entrance. Old men went in and out. Thomas watched for three days and took notes. Rosemary drove.

Together they mapped the entrances, the exits, the timing. One week later they returned. Thomas carried an Uzi submachine gun. Rosemary stayed in the car with the engine running.

Thomas walked to the door. He did not knock. The door was unlocked; social clubs always left the door unlocked for members. Six men were inside, a card game in progress, espresso cups on the table, cash stacked in the center.

The men looked up. Thomas raised the Uzi. He did not shout. He spoke in a calm voice.

“Empty your pockets. Put everything on the table. ”

The men froze. One of them started to stand.

Thomas pointed the gun at his chest, and the man sat back down. Thomas repeated the order. Watches, rings, cash, chains, everything on the table. The men complied.

They were in their fifties and sixties, made men, soldiers, associates, and they placed their valuables on the table. Thomas collected the items in a bag. He did not count. He backed toward the door, still facing them, still holding the Uzi, reached the door, and exited.

He ran to the Mercury Topaz. Rosemary accelerated before he had the door closed. They drove six blocks, pulled over, and counted the take: jewelry and cash. They returned to Queens.

Thomas told no one. Rosemary told no one. They waited one week, and Thomas hit a second social club with the same method. Uzi.

Calm voice. Rosemary in the car. Eight men inside this time, same result. Valuables on the table, Thomas out the door, no sirens, no chase.

The men inside never called the police. They could not. Calling the police meant explaining the money, the gambling, the club itself, and mafia law forbade speaking to authorities. Thomas understood this.

He had built his entire plan around this single fact: the victims could not report the crime. In August 1992 he hit a club in Brooklyn on Bath Avenue, run by Bonanno captain Anthony Sparrow. Nine men inside. Thomas emptied their pockets, took rings, watches, thousands in cash from the card game, and walked out.

Rosemary drove. The Bonanno family heard about the robbery within hours. Sparrow was humiliated. He was a captain.

His club had been violated. He put word on the street: find the couple, bring them in. Thomas and Rosemary continued. They hit a club on 86th Street in Brooklyn, a Gambino location.

They hit the Hawaiian Moonlighters in Little Italy, another Gambino spot. They hit locations in Queens. In the Bronx they targeted both the Gambino family and the Bonanno family. They did not discriminate.

Then came the robbery that changed everything. Thomas entered one club and found twelve men inside, more than usual. He did not retreat. He ordered them to the floor.

They complied. Then he added a new element. “Strip to your underwear. ”

The men hesitated.

Thomas raised the Uzi. The men stripped, elderly Italian men in their underwear on the floor of their own social club. Thomas collected the valuables and left them there. Rosemary drove away.

Taking money was one thing. Humiliation was another. The men stripped to their underwear could not hide what had happened. Other members saw them.

Word spread through the families. The couple was not just stealing; they were disrespecting, mocking. One of the men on the floor that day was connected to Dominic Pizzonia, a Gambino capo they called Skinny Dom, who ran a crew in Queens. He heard about the underwear.

He heard about the humiliation. He made calls. He spoke to Peter Gotti, John Gotti’s brother, who was acting boss while John sat in prison. Peter listened.

He authorized action. The Bonanno family also wanted the couple dead, and for weeks the two families argued over who had the right to the hit. The Gambinos said the couple had hit their clubs first. The Bonannos said they had hit Sparrow’s location.

The dispute continued, unresolved. In October 1992 Thomas and Rosemary hit another club, their twelfth robbery in five months. They were making thousands per job. They bought food, paid rent.

They bought no flashy items, no new cars, no jewelry. They stayed quiet, told no one. But the mob was closing in. Informants provided descriptions: the couple from Ozone Park, the young Mercury Topaz, the woman driving, the man carrying an Uzi.

The information reached Skinny Dom Pizzonia. He knew Ozone Park. He lived half a mile from where the couple lived. In November the Gambino and Bonanno families finally agreed: open contract, any made man from either family could kill the couple.

Whoever found them first got the credit. The word went out through the network, soldiers and associates, and everyone watched for a maroon Mercury Topaz in Ozone Park. It was after that warning on the street that Thomas and Rosemary talked about leaving. They did not leave.

Instead, in December, they discussed one more job, one final robbery, then they would go. Thomas chose a target: a Gambino club they had already hit. He wanted to rob the same location twice, maximum disrespect. They planned the job for late December, after Christmas.

But they needed money for the holiday first. They had no cash. Both worked at a collection agency in Manhattan, collecting on bad debts for minimum wage. On the morning of December 23, 1992, Thomas and Rosemary left their apartment to do last-minute Christmas shopping.

They got into the Mercury Topaz. Rosemary drove. They headed toward Woodhaven Boulevard. Morning traffic was light; most people were home preparing for the holiday.

They drove east on 103rd Avenue and approached the intersection at Woodhaven Boulevard. The light turned red. Rosemary stopped, first in line, no cars directly in front of them. A car pulled up alongside them, on the driver’s side, close, too close.

Thomas looked over and saw a face he might have recognized, someone from the neighborhood. The window of the other car was down. Gunfire. Three shots through the driver’s window into Rosemary’s head.

She slumped forward, and the wheel turned left. Three more shots through the passenger window into Thomas’s head. He fell against the door. The light turned green.

The Mercury Topaz rolled forward, engine still running, Rosemary’s foot off the brake. The car drifted through the intersection and collided with an oncoming vehicle, a glancing impact, then continued, struck a curb, and came to rest against the front of a residence. Steam rose from the damaged hood. The shooter’s car was gone.

Witnesses saw the Mercury Topaz hit the curb. They approached, saw the blood, saw the two bodies, ran to a pay phone, and called 911. Police arrived at 8:47 a. m.

, officers from the 102nd precinct. They found Thomas and Rosemary Uva dead in the front seats, three gunshot wounds each, all to the head, close-range, execution-style. The car’s windows were shattered. Glass covered the seats.

Blood was on the dashboard and the steering wheel. Detectives photographed the scene and searched the vehicle. No weapons inside. No drugs.

No large amounts of cash. They found identification: Thomas Uva, twenty-eight, and Rosemary Uva, thirty-one, both with criminal records, both from Ozone Park, address less than one mile from the shooting location. The detectives canvassed for witnesses. Several people had seen the Mercury Topaz after it hit the curb.

No one had clearly seen the shooting itself. No one identified the shooter’s vehicle. It was Christmas Eve morning, people focused on the holiday, not on watching the street. The crime scene was processed by noon.

The bodies were removed. The Mercury Topaz was towed. The blood was washed from the street. By one in the afternoon the intersection looked normal again: traffic flowed, shoppers drove past, Christmas Eve continued.

The investigation began immediately. Detectives pulled the couple’s records and interviewed neighbors. They learned about the collection agency job and the apartment. They found no obvious motive, no apparent enemies.

The neighbors described them as quiet, kept to themselves. Then the detectives spoke to organized crime investigators and mentioned the names Thomas and Rosemary Uva. The organized crime unit reacted. They knew those names: the couple who robbed mob social clubs, the ones with the open contract.

The detectives received the full story. The dozen robberies. The Uzi. The humiliation.

The underwear incident. The motive became clear. This was a mob hit, sanctioned by the Gambino family, possibly the Bonanno family, or both. The detectives also knew solving this case would be difficult.

No witnesses, no physical evidence linking a specific shooter. Mob hits rarely got solved; the shooters were professionals and left nothing behind. Weeks passed. The investigation continued.

Detectives interviewed mob informants and heard rumors, heard names: Dominic Pizzonia and Ronnie Trucchio, both Gambino soldiers, both from Ozone Park, both living near the shooting location. The informants said Pizzonia ordered the hit. Trucchio might have been the shooter, or Pizzonia did it himself. The stories varied.

The detectives had no evidence, no gun, no witnesses, no physical proof. They closed the case as unsolved. The Uva murders went into the cold case files. Christmas Eve 1992 became just another date in New York’s history of organized crime.

Years passed. 1993, 1994, 1995. The case remained cold. Then federal investigators launched a major racketeering case against the Gambino family.

They used wiretaps, flipped informants, built cases against captains and soldiers. In one wiretapped conversation, Gambino and Bonanno members argued about who had killed the Uvas. Both families tried to take credit. The Gambinos said they did it.

The Bonannos said they did it first. The conversation was recorded. Federal prosecutors took note. The Uva murders were still unsolved; maybe this new evidence could help.

Thirteen years after the murders, federal prosecutors charged Dominic Pizzonia with conspiracy to murder Thomas and Rosemary Uva, as part of a larger racketeering case. Pizzonia was sixty-three, a Gambino member for decades, a captain, a loan shark, an enforcer. The evidence included wiretapped conversations and informant testimony. One informant was Salvatore Vitale, former underboss of the Bonanno family.

He testified that John Gotti Jr. , John Gotti’s son and acting boss after his father went to prison, had told him, “We took care of it,” regarding the Uvas. Vitale said Gotti Jr. was referring to the murders.

Another witness testified about Pizzonia’s involvement, saying Pizzonia and Ronnie Trucchio carried out the hit, that they tracked the couple for days, knew the Mercury Topaz, knew the routine, and waited for the right moment: Christmas Eve morning, light traffic, quick escape route. The trial began in May 2007 in federal court in Brooklyn. Dominic Pizzonia faced multiple charges: racketeering, conspiracy to murder. The Uva killings were the centerpiece.

Prosecutors argued Pizzonia orchestrated the hit because the couple had humiliated the Gambino family, made elderly made men strip to their underwear, stolen their money, violated their clubs. This could not stand. This required death. The defense argued lack of evidence.

No gun. No forensics. No eyewitnesses. The wiretaps proved nothing.

People talk. People claim credit for crimes they did not commit. Street reputation mattered more than truth. Pizzonia claiming involvement did not mean he was involved.

The prosecutors presented their case over two weeks: wiretap transcripts, informant testimony, evidence of Pizzonia’s position in the Gambino family, his crew, his territory, Ozone Park, the same neighborhood where the Uvas lived and died. Vitale testified about conversations with John Gotti Jr. and Joseph Massino, the Bonanno boss. They discussed who killed the Uvas.

Gotti Jr. said the Gambinos handled it. Massino was angry; he wanted Bonanno credit. The two families had nearly gone to war over who got to kill the couple.

Another informant described the open contract, saying multiple crews wanted the hit. The couple had robbed so many locations that so many families wanted revenge. But Pizzonia moved first. His crew found them.

His crew took them out. Christmas Eve morning, perfect timing, everyone distracted by the holiday. The defense cross-examined and pointed out inconsistencies. Different informants told different versions.

Some said Pizzonia pulled the trigger. Others said Trucchio did. Some said both were present. Others said neither.

The defense argued the government had no solid evidence, just rumors, just mob gossip recorded on wiretaps. The jury deliberated for three days. They found Dominic Pizzonia guilty of conspiracy to murder Thomas and Rosemary Uva. They did not find him guilty of actually pulling the trigger.

The distinction mattered legally; conspiracy carried a lighter sentence than murder. On September 6, 2007, the sentencing hearing convened before federal judge Jack B. Weinstein. Prosecutors asked for twenty years, the maximum for conspiracy.

The defense asked for mercy: Pizzonia was sixty-five, had health problems, his family needed him. Judge Weinstein sentenced him to fifteen years in federal prison. The judge acknowledged the lack of direct evidence, no gun, no forensics, but the conspiracy was proven: the planning, the authorization, the execution. Pizzonia had participated.

He must serve time. Pizzonia showed no emotion. He was taken into custody and began serving his sentence. He was released in 2022 after serving his full term, and he returned to Queens an old man.

The neighborhood had changed. Many of the old social clubs were gone, closed, converted to other businesses. The mafia’s power had diminished; federal cases and informants had destroyed the families. Thomas and Rosemary Uva are buried at St.

John Cemetery in Queens, the same cemetery where many mobsters are buried. John Gotti is buried there. Carlo Gambino. Lucky Luciano.

The Uvas rest among the people they robbed. Their story became legend in organized crime circles: the couple who robbed the mob, who humiliated made men, who made them strip to their underwear. Some people admire their audacity. Others see them as foolish.

Everyone agrees they paid the ultimate price. In 2014 a film was made about their story, “Rob the Mob,” with Michael Pitt as Thomas and Nina Arianda as Rosemary. The film took liberties with the facts, added romantic elements, made the couple more sympathetic.

But the core story remained: two young people, broke, desperate, who chose the most dangerous target imaginable, the mafia.