Who lured Loiero to a deadly rendezvous?

Baker's killer was lurking at his funeral, police believe

By Peter Edwards / Toronto Star

"It's the old story. You never worry about your enemies
because you're always on your guard with them. It's your friends
that hurt you. '' F - Veteran Metro organized crime investigator

Somewhere in the crowd of grim-faced men in black at the funeral of
Frank Loiero yesterday was an enemy who helped put him in his grave.

Little else seems certain in the murder of Loiero, a father of
three, baker of fine bread, long- time associate of key Metro
mobsters - and York Region's first homicide victim of 1996.

Asked if one of the enemies who plotted Loiero's death was among
the crowd of 350 at St. Fidelis Church in the Keele St.- Highway 401
area, a source close to the underworld said: "I'd be willing to bet
it.''

The man who betrayed Loiero and lured him to a fatal rendezvous at
a Woodbridge parking lot Sunday night would have been conspicuous by
his absence if he hadn't joined the collection of mobsters,
relatives, neighbors, school chums of Loiero's three children and
homicide cops, police say.

The assortment of mourners, all in black, watched Loiero's
white-shrouded, closed casket wheeled to the front of the church,
past Christmas boughs and bells still hanging overhead.

"It's so sad,'' said one mourner. "And so many strangers.''

In a resurrection mass celebrated in Italian, Rev. Vitaliano Papais
asked the congregation to forget about earthly concerns - what they
heard on TV or read in the newspapers.

Most important, they should not judge anyone else, because everyone
will be judged on the final day, Papais cautioned.

Prayers and mea culpas for the murder victim were said as a tall
white Easter candle burned at the front of the casket.

"It is human to react with vengeance,'' Papais said later. "But
you need to forgive everybody if you want to be forgiven by God.''

At Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Woodbridge, a 15-minute drive from
where Loiero was slain, his widow Mirella threw a single red rose on
to his coffin as it was placed in a marble crypt.

Then she grabbed the coffin and was joined in sobbing by the dead
man's mother, before being pulled away by pall-bearers.

Away from the emotion of the funeral, police are trying to find a
motive for the slaying.

There are already countless theories about why Loiero was killed,
but just a few facts are known for sure: mobsters wanted him dead
badly and did a professional job of killing him.

And they left close to $5,000 on the body to let others in their
world know that Loiero wasn't killed by a common robber.

Some mob killers dispatch their victims with symbolism that would
make a literature professor envious.

The killers of Metro mobster Paul Volpe in 1983 left his body at
Pearson International Airport in a public parking lot, which has
been interpreted by some as a sign that he upset mob interests
outside the country - namely, Atlantic City, where he had scammed
others out of millions of dollars.

The killers of Ignazio (Leadhead) Drago were more blunt in their
use of symbolism.

Like Volpe and Loiero, Drago was lured from his home. He was
tricked by a man at a door posing as a police officer, wearing a
blue jacket with "52 Division'' and "Police'' on the back.

The clear message was that Drago was a police informer. The police
garb had a double message, since the man believed to be the hitman
was himself a former police officer.

When police showed witnesses a composite sketch of Drago's killer,
they were firmly told: "Let sleeping dogs lie.''

No one was ever charged.

There's no suggestion that Loiero was talking to police. "Loiero
didn't rat anyone out,'' a veteran cop said.

But Italian Mafia expert Antonio Nicaso cautions against
over-theorizing.

Nicaso doesn't subscribe to theories that today's mob doesn't shoot
victims in the face so that they can be buried in open caskets, or
that victims are killed in January, so they can celebrate a final
Christmas with loved ones.

Killers are criminals, not poets, Nicaso cautions.

"The Mafia is not a romantic organization,'' he said. "If they
have to shoot people, they don't care if it's January, February,
March or Christmas Day.''

York Region police Detective Gary Miner certainly isn't getting
tangled up in Mafia theories as he probes the slaying, and hopes for
tips about any cars that were seen in the Woodbridge Mall on Highway
7 around the time of the killing, between 7 and 8 p.m. Sunday.

He doesn't have much time for talk of codes and brutish etiquette.

"We're looking for a car,'' Miner said. "My focus is on what we
can prove. What we know.''

Nicaso says Loiero's killing is a mystery, even in mob circles.

But the killing of Loiero seems to have caught many by surprise.

Mobsters here are slower to pull the trigger on someone like Loiero
than in Calabria, Nicaso says.

"Toronto is a strange place,'' he said. "In Toronto, when they
have to kill, they think a thousand times.''

Jan. 13, 1996