The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter (19 page)

“Because of you, Vinny, his life is over. When Joey was killed, so was my body and mind. My family's lives have changed so dramatically and we ask you why you took away a father, a brother, a husband and my son. He was ripped from my life and left to die. And I was given no chance to say good-bye,” my mother stated.

Joey's wife, Maria, spoke next. Through her tears she talked about how Joey loved to spend all the time he had with their daughter—loving her, playing with her, teaching her to walk and talk.

She held up a photo of my brother—blown up to the size of a poster—and told Vinny and the court about the last day they had with Joey.

“Those were the last kisses, hugs, promises and smiles she saw. My daughter is always crying and asking why that bad man killed her daddy. ‘Why did he take my daddy? Everybody at school has their daddy, but I don't.' I'm here to beg for the maximum sentencing of Vincent Rizzuto for taking my husband and a father who can never be replaced to his little girl,” she implored.

Then it was my turn. I was very afraid to go up on the stand there and talk, and it has been hard for me to remember if I did or not. My mother said I did confront Vinny in the courtroom. When I found my victim impact statement recently, I couldn't believe those were the words I spoke, because it was as if I didn't have any emotions. When people are in shock, they're pretty much stone cold.

When I was writing it, I was just putting words on the paper. It wasn't coming from the pain and all the emotions that I really felt. That's because I had, and still have, post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is a real thing and I was diagnosed with it. That's why there are certain things I can remember vividly and some things I can't remember at all—and that scares me.

I was diagnosed with PTSD after a couple shootings. My father sent me for therapy because he knew something was wrong. I went to see the therapists, but things didn't always work out. One therapist cried after hearing my story.

“Why are you crying?” I asked him.

“I've never heard a story like this, ever in my life. Your life, your story, it's just so unbelievable.”

“Well, I'm not comfortable with you crying.”

I thought that was so weird, so I quit that guy. After my father died, and I was living in New Jersey, I found another therapist. He was an older man and I loved him. Talking to him reminded me of talks with my father. I was able to talk to him like he was my father. And since he knew about my father, he wasn't shocked at my story. I felt comfortable talking to that therapist.

One day I was having a meltdown on my birthday, so I called him. He used to tell me his phone lines were always open to me. He said I could call him anytime, day or night.

When I called that day, his daughter answered the phone and told me that her father had passed away that day—on my birthday. I started to cry, begging her to tell me that it wasn't true. I was freaking out that this guy had died. I didn't understand why everybody that I cared about died. He was the best therapist I had ever had, and he died on my birthday. I figured I was not meant to have a normal life. Whose therapist dies on her birthday? That's when I pretty much gave up on therapy.

Even though I don't remember speaking at the hearing, this is what I said to Vinny in that courtroom: “I don't know how to begin to describe the pain and suffering and the heartache that I feel since you took my brother's life—my little brother, Joey. The pain is constant, and the scars are embedded in my mind. I miss my brother, Joey, so much and I can't believe that he's gone. I try to remember the good times and the love that we shared as brother and sister.

“My brother is gone. I don't know why. I thought he would be in this world a lot longer. He had a whole life ahead of him—a life to share with his mother, his sister, his nephew but, most importantly, his daughter that he loved more than life. She was only four when her father was brutally murdered, and this little girl has to live her life without her daddy. You took away her daddy, and the pain this little girl has to deal with will be with her forever.

“Her mother has to watch her daughter, as a single parent, struggle every day with this pain that you caused. I see my mother every day as she struggles to go on, and the pain in her eyes as she tries to get through another day. This is a pain that only a mother feels when she loses a child and I wonder how she will get through this.

“How will his daughter, his mother and myself get through this? I believe the answer to that question is we will have to feel this pain and loss every day and hope we can find a way to cope. We will have to keep my brother's face, his smile, his touch and his laughter strong in our hearts and in our minds. And we will go to sleep at night and pray to God that one day we will be together again.”

My niece brought her diary to the hearing. She knew she was going to see the man who killed her daddy. She wanted to read parts of it in court, but she got scared, so the judge read some of it for her.

Then the judge asked Vinny if he wanted to speak. Vinny asked if he could talk without a child in the room. The judge said he couldn't force her to leave. Vinny said he didn't want to say anything bad about my brother in front of his daughter.

My mother and my sister-in-law went nuts. They started screaming at him.

“Did you care about the child when you killed her daddy?”

“Did you care about your victims' families?” Vinny shouted.

At that point his attorney and the court deputy were trying to calm him down.

Vinny pointed to my mother and asked why she was even saying anything to him. Then he went into a rage, screaming about all the people my father killed and the people my brother killed.

While this was happening, my sister-in-law took my niece out of the courtroom. Vinny stopped ranting until she was out the door.

Then he started up again, yelling at the prosecution for going back on the deal they had made with him.

“You think I want to take twenty-four years? I'm never going to see my parents again. My kids are going to be my age when I get out,” Vinny told the judge. “What kind of life is that? I wish I would have died. That's it. I wish it would have been me.”

In August 2002, Vinny wrote me a letter from prison trying to rationalize why he murdered my brother. He told me he knew it was going to be hard for me to read, but it was also hard for him to write. He said he didn't know how to begin to make me see the truth. He said he was also a victim, but he could never put down on paper what really happened.

He told me when I was dating Joe, he took a strong liking to me and my son. He said he was jealous of his brother because he (Vinny) had a lot of love for me. He said in a world filled with betrayal, envy, hatred and deceit, he hoped that I was focused, maintaining strength of mind and at peace.

As for himself, he said, he was continuously elevated, always mindful that the sun rotates so its rays reach different people and places, causing darkness to descend on others.

He wrote in the letter that he hated what had transpired between us; but when people are surrounded by ignorance on a daily basis, things happen that they sometimes can't get around.

Finally he said he was sorry for my loss and he wished he could see me so he could tell me the truth. He said I would understand then. He said he didn't know what he was doing writing the letter, but he was truly sorry.

But Vinny is wrong. I'll never understand why he killed my brother.

CHAPTER 17

MY MOST TRUSTED FRIEND

After my father died and my brother was killed, I turned to Tommy McLaughlin, a former member of my father's crew, who was serving fourteen years on a drug charge. It was the worst time in my life, and Tommy reminded me of my father and my brother.

From a very young age Tommy was raised by his sister. His sister had her own life, so he was basically on his own a lot. That's how he got into the street life. He used to come to the house all the time when we were teenagers—we were just about the same age. He liked me and it was obvious. He wasn't like the other guys who were with my father.

For example, sometimes when my father's crew was at the house, I would walk through the living room in a bikini—I had been swimming in the pool—to go up to my room to change. All the other guys looked away, but not Tommy. He looked and he didn't care if my father saw him. My father used to give him a slap on the back of his head.

Tommy had no fear of anything, and he certainly didn't fear my father. That was because he didn't have any bad intentions. And that was the reason he was never afraid to approach me. He always give me a smile or a wink. He had a really strong charm about him. But he also had another side to him—an angry side.

When we got a little older, if he saw me out at a club or somewhere, he got really protective, but not like the other guys in my father's crew who would just tell me to go home. Tommy got angry if he saw me talking to a guy or if I had been drinking.

He had a bite to him—a personality where you didn't know what he was thinking because he could go either way. He could be really sweet and charming, and then he could be really mean and nasty, although never to me. It just bothered him if I was talking to some other guy and I wasn't with him. So when I used to see him in clubs, I tried to avoid him. I was too young for that; I didn't want to deal with it. That's why at first I didn't want to date Tommy. I was having fun and I wanted to keep having fun.

When he found out that I was dating Joe Rizzuto, he was so angry. Every time he saw me, he'd say, “I can't believe you're going out with that loser, white-trash lowlife.” He hated Joe. They were rivals. They did not like each other at all. I always thought Tommy hated Joe more than Joe hated Tommy.

After Joe and I broke up, I had started hanging out more with Tommy. One day Joe came to my house, crying and apologizing to me. But I didn't want anything to do with him after he cheated on me. I was trying to move on. I already had talked to Tommy and I wanted to go out with him. So Joe left.

When we were together, Tommy was very affectionate and sincere. I felt comfortable with him. And he was always on my side—it didn't matter what I said or did, I was always right.

During the Colombo war Tommy was dealing drugs, and the Brooklyn DA was out to get him. They thought he could lead them to his bosses. Two Brooklyn cops were getting ready to arrest him in September 1992, but the war got worse and Tommy went into hiding.

A couple months later, Tommy invited me to go to the wedding of a Colombo family member in Brooklyn. It was going to be our first official date. On the day of the wedding Tommy looked so nice—he always looked nice—and he smelled really good, too.

While we were at the reception, which was at the Embassy Suites hotel, he told me he spotted some cops there and he was going to get arrested. He said he needed me to help him get out of there. I didn't know what the hell was going on.

So Tommy told me what to do, and that's what I did. Tommy went into a bathroom and climbed out the window; I was standing outside another bathroom. So when the cops came and asked me where he was, I pointed into that bathroom. But he was never in there. He was already out the window and gone. I didn't see him again until after he was in jail.

The cops finally caught up to him in December. He called to tell me he had been arrested. By then, I knew I wanted to be with him. I didn't know the extent of his trouble, but I wanted to be with him regardless.

I found out later he had been arrested on charges of racketeering, extortion, firearms, drug trafficking, and tax evasion. They offered to cut him a break if he testified against the other guys, but he refused. Tommy pleaded guilty to one charge of selling cocaine and one charge of tax evasion. He got fourteen years in state prison for selling coke and nine years—to run at the same time as the state charges—for the tax evasion.

At first, he was in the Brooklyn House of Corrections and I went to visit him as much as I could. The visits were rough at the Brooklyn House. There was no contact and you had to sit on the opposite sides of the table. But I still went to try to make him feel better and lift his spirits.

There was one day when he called to tell me he couldn't have a visit. I was already getting ready to leave my house and I had it in my head that I was going to see him, not matter what. I remembered that he could see me from a particular window. I told him to look out that window at three o'clock in the afternoon and I would be outside.

“Don't come all the way here for that,” he said.

“I have something to show you, so go by the window. I'm coming to see you. I don't care if it's through the window.”

He finally agreed. So I went and got this big poster board and wrote with a black marker in big, thick letters so he could see it:
TOMMY
,
I LOVE YOU
. He came by the window at that time and I held up the poster. He had a big smile on his face. He called me later and said, “I can't believe you came all the way here and did that. You made my day. I was so happy.” At that point we were getting really close.

After one visit I left Tommy and went to see my father, who was in the hospice with the marshals at that time. When I got to the room, I ran, crying, into my father's arms. I said that I loved Tommy and I wanted to be with him. I wanted to know what I was going to do. It was so emotional, even the marshals were becoming emotional. They were looking at me crying on my father's shoulder. I could tell they felt bad.

“I want to marry him. I want to be with him,” I told my father.

“Do whatever makes you happy. You have my blessing to marry him if you want to marry him,” he said. “But you have to tell him he has to take off the ‘Mc' from his name.” He was joking to make me laugh. Even the marshals laughed.

When Tommy was in the Brooklyn House, I would see him as much as I could. When my son was with his father on weekends, I would go. Whenever I could see him, I would.

But then they transferred him from the Brooklyn House, I think it was to Rikers Island and the visits became harder and less frequent. It was harder for us to talk, and we just grew apart—not by choice but because of circumstance.

Then my father died in June 1994; and in March, the next year, my brother was murdered. I really didn't see Tommy during that time. About six months after my brother was killed, I went to Tommy's sister's house. She was so angry at me. She was yelling and screaming.

“Where have you been? We needed you and you were nowhere to be found!”

“I just lost my family. What are you talking about? I don't even know what you're saying. My brother died. I don't understand what you're saying.”

I didn't have any idea what was going on. I hadn't been following what was happening with Tommy because I had so much stuff happening to me.

“We needed you in court,” she said.

She said he had had other charges brought against him.

“Where is he? I want to see him.”

So I went to see him. At that point he was in Green Haven Correctional Facility in upstate New York. He was kind of standoffish and had his guard up a little bit. I cried and told him that I was sorry and missed him. He hugged me because of my brother. He couldn't believe it. He tried to comfort me but he really didn't know how to react to me.

Then I asked him a question that kind of shocked him.

“Do you want to get married?”

“You're asking me?”

“Yeah, I want to be with you. I've realized a lot of things.”

“Do you understand how much time I have?”

I told him that I didn't care. I said that I loved him, and I wanted to be with him. So we planned to get married, but it was going to be a secret. I was afraid of my son's father finding out, then taking me to court for marrying someone who was in prison for drugs. So I kept it a secret from everyone—not even my mother knew. At first, nobody knew I married Tommy except for his family.

While he was in Green Haven, I visited him all the time—it was part of my life. If my son was with his father, I was at the prison. Once we got married, we were able to have overnight weekend visits. I only got to have one weekend visit with him, which I completely ruined.

Back then I was suffering from massive anxiety and panic attacks. So when I went up for that visit to be with him for the weekend, I nearly had a heart attack. We were in a room that was locked from the outside and I couldn't get out when I wanted. We could go outside, but the guards had to let us out.

I was freaking out being locked up. If I looked out the window, all I could see was a huge wall surrounding the prison and the guards. Tommy tried to calm me down.

“Let's go outside and get some air.”

“No, I can't. You don't understand. I have to leave. I have to get out of here.”

There was a phone in the room for visitors to use if they wanted to leave. But if you picked up that phone, your visit was over. That was it. I wanted to call to get out.

“Linda, please.”

“I have to get out of here.”

“Just calm down. I'm here with you.”

“I can't calm down. I can't. You don't understand. I can't calm down. I have to go.”

I ended up staying, but it was not a good weekend. I wasn't able to calm down. I was freaking out the whole weekend. Even though it was just a different atmosphere, which we needed so we could be alone and spend time together, I knew I could never do it again.

He wanted me to come again on a weekend visit. We were planning it, but I kept making excuses why I couldn't make it. I was so afraid to go up there. I wanted to spend time with him, but it was too scary for me. I didn't like the feeling at all.

Before that weekend, though, we had had so many talks about us having a life together, and having kids. I used to tell him that we were going to have twins—it's ironic that I did end up having twins, but with someone else—and I was going to name them Tammy and Tommy. He used to laugh and tell me I was crazy. I was convinced that I was going to have these twins with him.

When Tommy was first sent to Green Haven, he was trying hard to be there for me. He called me as much as he could. One time I was sick and I couldn't get to the store to get the things I needed. The next thing I knew, one of his friends was at the door with milk and groceries. I couldn't believe that he was able to accomplish that while he was so far away from me. He took better care of me while he was in prison than some people took care of me on the outside.

While he was away, Tommy promised that he was going to stay out of trouble, but it was really hard for him. He had a very strong and aggressive personality when he was put in certain positions. Being in jail, you're put in those positions all the time. I was twenty-something years old and didn't understand that. I told him to stay out of trouble and go to school.

He told me he was going to get his GED, and do this and do that; he wouldn't get in any trouble. When Tommy got in trouble, we couldn't speak for days or weeks. It would make me so angry that I couldn't talk to him. The prison would take his phone privileges away.

I tried to spend time with his family to fill the void. To me, being close to his family was like being close with him. He liked when I was around his family, too. I really didn't have anybody. I had just lost my father and my brother, and I didn't have my niece. My mother was living in Long Island at the time, so I was trying to make his family my family. I wanted to be close to them.

The reason I turned to Tommy after I lost my brother was because a lot of people turned their backs on us. I felt that no matter what happened between Tommy and me, I could always go back to him and he would be there for me. Before anything else he was my friend.

I was right. Even though Tommy was hurt because we had lost contact for a while, he didn't turn me away when I went to see him after Joey was killed. The reason I called him “my most trusted friend” was because that's exactly what he was. I could turn to him, no matter what.

Tommy also experienced a loss while he was in prison. His mother died while he was away. I was the person who had to tell him. When he called, I told him I had to speak to him and it was very important. I told him to call me when he was alone.

“I don't want you around anybody,” I said.

“What's going on?”

“I need to tell you something very important, but I need you to be alone—as best as you can be alone.”

“Okay, I'm going to call you back.”

He did a short while later.

“What's wrong?”

“Tommy, I'm really sorry, but your mother passed away.”

He was in shock.

“Are you fucking kidding me? I can't believe I'm in here.”

Even though his sister raised him, he loved his mother. He was so upset. I tried to comfort him the best I could over the phone. It was a difficult time that we had to get through. At least he was able to go to his mother's funeral.

As time went on, Tommy wasn't staying out of trouble. He wasn't doing what he said he was going to do: go to school and get his GED. I wasn't happy about that, and our relationship started to suffer. Then something happened that totally destroyed our marriage.