Admitted Mob Killer Takes Stand Against Accused Mob Killer

An ex-mobster took the stand in Brooklyn Federal Court Tuesday in the murder trial of an alleged Columbo mob boss, admitting that he himself had committed 18 murders in his criminal career.

Salvatore “Good Looking” Vitale said he committed the cold-blooded hits during his time with the Bonanno crime family, working for 30-years with his sister’s boyfriend, Joseph Massino, who would become boss of the family.

Vitale began cooperating with police after a 2004 arrest.

Vitale testified about the structure and inner workings in the mob during the trial of 72-year-old Joel (Joe Waverly) Cacace, who allegedly broke the cardinal mob rule—don’t kill a cop—after ordering the murder of an off-duty police officer Ralph Dols in 1997.

Cacace, wearing a grey jogging suit and his ponytail neatly pulled back, looked more like an aged hippie than a hard-core criminal. However, the mobster is serving a 20-year prison term for ordering a 1987 hit against federal prosecutor William Aronwald, when he killed the intended victim’s father by mistake.

Prosecutors said Dols’ murder was motivated from the disrespect Cacace faced when ex-wife Kim Kennaugh married the Hispanic cop. A hit team ambushed Dols outside his Sheepshead Bay apartment building in August 1997.

The autopsy report found that he was shot eight times.

The alleged shooters, Dino Saracino and Joseph Competiello, were the Colombo snitches who testified at an earlier trial that they were not told before Dols’ murder that he was a cop. Saracino and alleged mobster Thomas Gioel were acquitted of murder charges in the Dols case last year.

This is the last chance to bring Dols’ killer to justice.
Photo of Joel Cacace