In dramatic testimony Wednesday, two witnesses detailed how Bruno Mancari and his childhood friends were involved in an auto theft and drug operation and how Mancari plotted the 1985 murder of Joseph Russo in an effort to keep him from telling federal investigators about the scheme.
The witnesses implicated Mancari as an accomplice in the March 16, 1985, stabbing and beating death of Russo, prompting a judge to rule that prosecutors could move forward in their murder case against Mancari.
Mancari, the younger brother of Frank Mancari, who owns three local automobile dealerships, was charged in January with murder in the death of Russo, based on information from the witnesses and other sources, prosecutors said.
According to the testimony at the preliminary hearing Wednesday in Violence Court, Bruno Mancari was apparently fearful that Russo was going to become a state’s witness in an investigation of their alleged auto-theft ring that operated from the south suburbs
“He [Mancari] wanted me to kill Jo-Jo Russo,” James Palaggi, 50, who described himself as a childhood friend of Mancari’s, testified Wednesday. “He was afraid about him beefing to the feds. He thought he was going to jail.”
Another witness at the hearing, Harold Merryfield, 53, has also been charged with murder for helping dispose of Russo’s body; a third, unidentified suspect, whom prosecutors would not name, may have actually killed Russo.
In return for Merryfield’s cooperation, prosecutors say they will recommend to a judge that he be given a minimum sentence with credit for time served.
Palaggi testified Wednesday that he refused Mancari’s request to kill Russo, allegedly made during the first week of March 1985, because he is not a violent person. “I don’t do dirty work. I only pay other people to do dirty work,” Palaggi said.
Merryfield said Mancari approached him on March 13, 1985, about beating up, or doing a “tune-up,” on Russo. He said he told Mancari he “was opposed to that kind of thing.” But he also testified that he routinely intimidated individuals who owed Mancari money, “sometimes through talk and sometimes through force.”
Merryfield turned state’s witness in 1995 when he was arrested on multiple weapons and drug charges in Wisconsin. He called authorities and arranged interviews with organized crime investigators from the FBI and Chicago police, he testified.
“You hung around with an organized crime element, didn’t you?” asked Mancari’s attorney, Ed Genson.
“I suppose,” Merryfield said.
Merryfield said that while he had refused to beat up Russo, he did agree to allow Mancari and an unidentified third individual– whom authorities say may be the actual hit man–to use his mother’s house for the beating.
Merryfield agreed to leave his mother’s home, where he also lived, shortly before Mancari and his unidentified companion arrived so that Merryfield would have an alibi.
Merryfield testified that when he returned, he heard Mancari and the other man arguing in the basement, and when he went downstairs, he found Russo’s body, face down in a pool of blood.
Merryfield, who said he did not know Russo would be murdered, testified he asked Mancari what happened. “He [Mancari] said he didn’t want to talk about it or `You’d be laying there right beside Russo.'”
Mancari ordered Merryfield to clean up the mess and dispose of the body in Summit, “somewhere where it would be found quickly,” Merryfield testified. Merryfield said he left Russo’s body in a residential area of Summit, where it was found about a month later.
