The Story of Aniello Dellacroce: The Underboss Who Made John Gotti
It starts with the eyes. People talk about a stare that didn’t blink. A face that didn’t move. A presence that made the room a little quieter. A New York detective put it plain. One of the scariest individuals I’ve ever met. He said, “Those eyes looked empty, like in that old film where the kids don’t have pupils, so blue they felt see-through.
You looked at him and felt he was looking through you.” A federal prosecutor added another detail. Delicroce liked to lean in close at the moment a life ended. Face to face, cold and calm. No noise, no rush. Cops heard the stories. They also saw the games. He moved around Little Italy wearing a priest’s collar.
People called him Father O’Neal. He smiled at [music] beat cops, tipped his hat, and kept walking. There’s a story that he caught two officers recording him and made them eat the tape at gunpoint. It fit the pattern. Control the room. Control the fear. Control the message. Old-timers remember the nicknames. The tall guy. The Pac.
Names born from his look and his stare. Even a veteran NYPD man said only two mobsters ever [music] rattled him. Delroce was one of them. That glare stayed with people. This is who we’re talking about. Annelloo Neil Deloce, the underboss who kept his voice low and his eyes colder than the room. The mentor who taught a young John Goty how power moves in the dark.
The man other gangsters measured fear against. When we tell this story, we start here with the look, with what it did to witnesses, cops, and rivals. You don’t need legends to explain a man like that. You listen to the people who were there. You study the record, and you pay attention to the silence that followed wherever he stood.
Angela Dela Crochce was born in 1914 in the narrow streets of Little Italy, Manhattan. His parents, Franchesco and Antwanet, came from Naples, hoping for a better life. They found work, they found struggle, and they raised their children in a tenement across from what would one day become the Ravenite Social Club, the same place Delroi would run decades later. He grew up fast.
The neighborhood taught lessons the schools didn’t. Power came from fear. Respect came from violence. By 16, Annie was already in trouble. In 1930, police caught him robbing a store. He was sentenced to 2 and 1/2 years in Elmyra Correctional Facility. A teenage inmate among career criminals. That’s where the street kid became something else.
When he came out, the depression was still biting. [music] An honest work was rare. He tried his hand as a butcher’s assistant, but the streets paid better. He learned the codes, the silence, the way to make money without asking permission. [music] Locals called him Neil, the American version of Annie. It fit him. Short, blunt, and sharp around the edges.
He started moving with small-time thieves and lone sharks, learning how things really worked in lower Manhattan. He had a calm way about him. But underneath, there was something colder. Even back then, people said he could watch someone without blinking. It wasn’t bravado. It was control.
The kind of control that would one day make him one of the most feared men in New York’s underworld. And somewhere in that maze of alleys and storefronts, the kid from Little Italy started walking toward the mafia. Not by luck, by nature. When Angelo del Croce came out of Elmmyra, New York was already divided by invisible lines.
Each block had someone watching, someone collecting, [music] someone enforcing. It was only a matter of time before a man like him got noticed. By the late 1930s, Delroce caught the eye of the Mangano crime family, one of the five families of New York. They were the old guard running rackets from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Inside that family was a man named Albert Anastasia, a killer who called himself the executioner.
To work for him meant you could stomach blood. Delrochi could. Anastasia ran Murder Inc. the enforcement arm of organized crime, a factory of death that handled contracts from coast to coast. Dela Crochi became one of his trusted soldiers. He learned how to read people, how to follow orders, and how to erase problems quietly. He didn’t brag.
He didn’t show off. That was part of his education. Keep the noise low, the fear high, and the eyes steady. Some said he dressed as a priest for certain jobs, calling himself Father O’Neal. It was part disguise, part mockery. He could bless a man before killing him. When Vincent Mangano disappeared, Anastasia took control of the family.
Delroi got promoted to Capo, running crews in Manhattan. The move gave him status, power, and money, but it also placed him in the shadow of a man whose ambition was starting to draw heat. To the world outside, Angelo Deloce was another mobster climbing the ladder. To those inside, he was something different.
He was the executioner’s apprentice, quiet, loyal, and cold enough to survive whatever came next. October 25th, 1957, Albert Anastasia, the executioner himself, sat down in the barber’s chair at the Park Sheran Hotel in Manhattan. Hot towel, straight razor, no bodyguards. He’d done it a h 100 times. But that morning, two [music] masked gunmen stepped through the door and opened fire.
Anastasia died in a pool of his own blood, still facing the mirror. The man who’d sent hundreds to their graves never saw it coming. The city shook. Newspapers called it an underworld earthquake. Nobody claimed the hit, but everyone whispered the same name, Carlo Gambino. He’d been Anastasia’s quiet, calculating under boss.
The kind of man who smiled while the walls moved around him. [music] For Angelo Delroce, it was a test. Anastasia had been his teacher, his guide through the life. Loyalty like that didn’t fade easy. But Delacroce understood hierarchy. He knew the rules. The family came before blood, before revenge, before ego. So when Gambino took the throne, Delroce bent the knee.
He chose structure over sentiment and Gambino saw something rare in him. Discipline. In return, he gave Delroce room to grow. Detectives later said that was when Annello Del Crochce truly became dangerous. No longer a soldier, no longer an apprentice. Now a man who’d learned that survival in the mafia didn’t come from rage.
It came from patience. The barber shop floor was still stained when Delrochi started his next chapter, serving under a new godfather. The lesson was written in blood. In this life, loyalty changes hands as quickly as power does. When Carlo Gambino took control, he reshaped the family with quiet precision.
No fireworks, no speeches, [music] just strategy. And standing beside him was Annaniel Deoce, the man who chosen loyalty over vengeance. Gambino saw what others feared in him. Steadiness. A man who didn’t chase headlines or flash wealth. Delroce handled the street work, gambling, extortion rackets. While Gambino built connections with unions, construction, and white collar business.
Together they balanced the old and the new. Delrochi became the bridge between generations of gangsters. The soldiers respected him because he’d done the dirty work. The bosses trusted him because he never talked out of turn. He was the face you saw in the back of the Ravenite social club. Quiet cigarette smoke curling in the air, watching every move without saying much.
He was loyal but not naive. Gambino’s world was full of ambition. He knew every handshake could hide a knife. Still, Delacrochi stayed in line. He never forgot what happened to Anastasia. How a single decision at the top could erase a lifetime of loyalty. So he played his part perfectly. Obedient on the surface, calculating underneath, he recruited lookalikes to throw off police tales, used double talk to protect his men, and made sure the real business stayed out of sight.
For years, the partnership worked. Gambino got richer. Delrochi got respect and the Gambino family became the most powerful mafia organization in America. But in every organization built on power, there comes a day when someone has to decide who sits next on the throne. And for Delroi, that day was getting closer. By the mid 1960s, Carlo Gambino was running his empire like a businessman.
Calm, organized, invisible. But even the quiet dawn needed someone who could handle the street. Someone the soldiers feared and respected in equal measure. That man was Annie Dela Crochce. In 1965, Gambino made it official. He pushed aside his aging under boss, Joseph Bondo, [music] and handed the title to Dela Crochce.
It was more than a promotion. It was a message. The man who once worked under the executioner now spoke for the most powerful family in New York. Delicroce kept the crews in line. He collected from the bookmakers, settled disputes, and made sure nobody forgot where the power flowed from. He didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.
When Delrochce walked into a room, the temperature dropped. He operated out of the Ravenite Social Club on Malbury Street, the same block where he had grown up. From that small, smoke-filled room, he ran an empire of gambling, lone sharking, and extortion. Detectives said the Ravenite felt like a church with him inside.
[music] Quiet, reverent, dangerous. But even the most disciplined soldier can’t control everything. Gambino was aging and whispers began about who’d take over when the old man was gone. Most expected Delroce to be the heir. He had the loyalty of the streets and the history to back it. Still, power in the mafia rarely follows logic.
And Del Crochce would soon learn that loyalty doesn’t always come with a reward. Mulbury Street was Delacro’s territory. He’d grown up there. And now he ruled it. His headquarters, the Ravenite Social Club, looked like any other neighborhood spot. A narrow door, cigarette smoke drifting through the cracks, men in dark coats moving in and out.
But inside, it was a command post for the Gambino family. The Ravenite became his fortress. He sat at the back, chain smoking, listening more than he spoke. Soldiers came in to pay their tribute. Captains came in to settle business, and informants waited outside, hoping for a glimpse. The FBI watched the place for decades, but Delroce was careful.
He used doubles to throw off tails. Sometimes the bureau would follow the wrong man across town while Deloce quietly disappeared through a side door. He handled the street rackets, gambling, hijacking, loans, and he kept the peace when smaller crews clashed. Even his enemies admitted he had discipline. [music] Detectives who spent their careers chasing mobsters said Delacrochi carried himself with an old school code.
He believed in hierarchy, silence, and respect. In those years, he became a kind of myth. To the younger wise guys, he was the last of the real mobsters. The type who could shake your hand one minute and order your death the next. His stare, his composure, the way he seemed to float above the noise. It all fed into the legend.
He never looked for attention. No fancy suits, no big mouth, no spotlight, but every man in the room knew who held the power. When Delrochi spoke, even in a whisper, it carried the weight of the entire Gambino family. The Ravenite was his church. And from that smoky room in Little Italy, he helped define the quiet power that kept the mafia alive through the 1960s and ‘7s.
Somewhere between the smoke-filled tables of the Ravenite and the chaos of the New York streets, a young man started hanging around Dela Croach’s crew. His name was John Goty. Loud, confident, hungry. The kind of street hustler who wanted more than envelopes and corner rackets. Goti came up under Carmine Fatiko, a Gambino cappo who ran operations out of Ozone Park.
When Fatiko went away on charges, Delacroche stepped in to oversee the crew. That’s when the young Goty met the old underboss. Two very different men, but something clicked. Dela Crochce saw ambition. Goty saw power. Dela Croce became his mentor, not by speeches or lectures, but by [music] presence. He taught Goty how real influence worked.
Silence over shouting, patience over rage. He told him stories of the old days when Albert Anastasia ruled with fear, and Carlo Gambino with calculation. To Goty, these weren’t bedtime stories. They were [music] blueprints. By the late ‘7s, Goty was earning fast. Hijackings, gambling, construction, anything that brought cash.
Delicrocei gave him his own crew, trusted him with bigger jobs, and let him taste authority. But with success came ego. Goti started dressing sharper, talking louder, and running his operations like a man already sitting at the top. When Gambino died in 1976, [music] everyone assumed Delrochi would take the throne. Instead, Gambino named his brother-in-law, Paul Castellano, as boss. Delacrochi accepted the decision.
quietly, respectfully, and stayed under boss. But the family split. Castellano handled white collar business from Staten Island while Delro’s faction ran the streets. And in that [music] faction, John Goty was rising fast. Delroce warned his men about drugs. He told them anyone caught dealing would answer to him personally.
But Goty didn’t listen. He saw quick money where the old man saw disaster. When Castellano found out, tensions cracked wide open. Goty’s crew was under surveillance and prosecutors caught his right-hand man, Angelo Rigiierro, on tape, dealing heroin and mocking Castellano. Castellano wanted blood. [music] Delicroce refused.
He hid the tapes, stood between them, and kept the peace. He told Rigiierro he’d been fighting for him from the start, but if it came to war, they go all the way. That was Annie Delroce. Loyal to his boss, protective of his men, and forever balancing the line between discipline and chaos. Goty respected him more than anyone else in the life.
Even when he cursed him behind his back, he never forgot who had taught him the rules. But by the mid80s, the underboss’s body was failing him. Cancer had started its slow work and with it the last barrier between Paul Castellano and John Goty began to crumble. By the early 1980s, the Gambino family was split down the middle.
On one side stood Paul Castellano, the businessman, the modernizer. On the other Deloce, the street general who kept the old code alive. It wasn’t a civil war, not yet. But everyone could feel it coming. Castellano ran his empire from a mansion on Staten Island, holding meetings over stake dinners and ledgers. Delroce stayed in the Revenites, surrounded by men who earned their money in alleys and bars.
Two styles, two philosophies, one family. Castellano tolerated Delroce because he needed him. The soldiers were loyal to Neil. They trusted him. Without that respect, Castellano’s empire would have cracked fast. So, he gave Delroce control over half the family’s crews, a move that only deepened the divide. From the outside, everything still looked organized.
But inside, [music] Castellano was losing his grip. He outlawed drug dealing, trying to keep heat off the family. Delicroce agreed with the rule in theory. But on the street, money moved faster than loyalty. His own men were dealing behind closed doors. Goty among them. When one of Goty’s associates was arrested for heroin, Castellano demanded answers.
He wanted tapes, [music] names, proof, and punishment. Delicrocei stood in the middle. He refused to hand over the recordings that would condemn his men. He told Rigiro, his close friend, “I’ve been taking your part since the beginning.” And it was true. Without Deloce, Goty and his crew wouldn’t have survived that storm.
Behind the calm exterior, Delroce was holding a fragile balance. Loyalty to Castellano, loyalty to his crew, and loyalty to the code. But even the best negotiator can’t hold back [music] gravity. As his illness worsened, Delacro’s control began to fade. Goty’s impatience grew. Castellano’s arrogance deepened. And everyone in the underworld knew that when the old man finally left the table, there’d be blood on the floor.
For now, the Gambino family had two leaders, one in a mansion, one in a smoky back room on Malbury Street, and only one of them still commanded respect where it mattered, on the street. By 1984, the cracks in the Gambino family were no longer whispers. They were open wounds. FBI surveillance had caught Angelo Rugierro, one of John Gotti’s closest men, on tape.
Drug deals, insults, loose talk, enough to bring heat on everyone around him. Paul Castellano wanted the tapes. He wanted names, proof, and control. To him, betrayal wasn’t a question. It was policy. Anyone dealing in drugs was a liability. The problem was that Riierro’s tapes didn’t only expose drug deals. >> [music] >> They revealed the family’s private thoughts, jokes about Castellano, disrespect.
Delicroce knew what would happen if Castellano heard them. Riierro would be dead before the week was over and Goty’s entire crew might follow. So Delroce made his choice. He refused to hand them over. He told Castellano that the tapes were a legal matter, something he couldn’t interfere with, but everyone understood what that meant.
The underboss had drawn a line. At the same time, his body was breaking down. The doctors said brain cancer. He was 71, losing weight, losing energy, but never losing command. Even in pain, he still came to the Revenite. He still listened to his men. Goty visited often, sitting across from him in silence, knowing the balance of the family depended on this dying man.
Those who saw Delrochi in his final months said he looked hollow, still sharp, but fading. The fire in his stare dimmed, replaced by a kind of resignation. He knew what would follow his death. [music] In private, he warned Goty about war, told him not to move unless there was no other way. But the streets were already choosing sides.
Castellano had isolated himself, and Goty’s name was being whispered as the future. [music] On December 2nd, 1985, Annella Dela Crochce died at Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens. His men filled the church on Mott Street for his funeral. The boss, Paul Castellano, didn’t show. To Gotti’s crew, that was all they needed to see.
The old underboss was gone. The restraint was gone, and the storm he’d been holding back was about to break loose. December 2nd, 1985. Annie Deloce took his last breath at Mary Immaculate Hospital in Queens. 71 years old. [music] Cancer. The kind of death most men in his world never lived long enough to see.
The news moved fast through the city. To the FBI, it was the end of an era. To the streets, it was the end of balance. [music] The only man keeping peace between Paul Castellano and John Goty was gone. At Old St. Patrick’s on M Street. Hundreds came to pay respects. Soldiers, Kippos, even men from rival families.
The casket was carried out by his closest crew, the last loyalists of a code that was dying with him. Outside, federal agents took pictures from parked cars. Inside, the whispers had already started. Delro’s faction, the street guys, watched carefully. Castellano never showed. No flowers, no call, no gesture at all. [music] To them, it wasn’t a snub.
It was betrayal. For men like Goty, it sealed the next move. Delicroach’s death wasn’t violent, but it triggered one of the bloodiest power shifts in mafia history. With him gone, the last thread holding the Gambino family together snapped. He died quietly in a hospital bed, surrounded by few. But his shadow still stretched over New York.
Even in death, Neil Deacrochi was the man everyone answered to. If not in life, then in memory. 2 weeks after Annie Dela Crochce was laid to rest, the peace he’d held together finally [music] broke. The Gambino family split turned into open war. And it started with dinner. December [music] 16th, 1985. Paul Castellano had plans to meet his men at Spark [music] Steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan.
He stepped out of his Lincoln with his new underboss, Thomas Belotti. Neither of them made it to the door. A car waited nearby. Inside, John Goty and Sammy Gravano watched as three gunmen in trench coats walked up and opened fire. Dozens of shots. Castellano and Balotti collapsed on the sidewalk, blood spilling across East 46th Street.
Goty didn’t flinch. When the job was done, he lit a cigarette and drove away. The newspapers called it a mob execution in broad daylight. One of the most daring hits New York had ever seen. But to those who knew the streets, it wasn’t a surprise. Delicroach’s death had removed the only man Goty still [music] respected enough to wait for.
Within days, Castellano’s loyalists either switched sides or disappeared. Gotiy took the throne, officially becoming boss of the Gambino family. The man once mentored by Dela Crochce now ruled the same empire and ran it with a style the old underboss would never have approved of. Detectives later said it was like watching the old mafia die in real time.
Castellano had represented the businessmen. Delroce the soldiers both were gone. What replaced them was something a new loud flashy and soon to be famous. [music] From his corner table at the Revenite, John Goty became the Dapper Dawn. But everyone in that room knew who had made him.
[music] Every power move, every silence, every lesson, they came from the man who once ruled those same four walls. The night Castellano fell. The last shadow of Angelo Delroce lingered on Malbury Street. He was gone, but his code, his eyes, and his legends stayed behind. When the smoke cleared and the headlines faded, one thing stayed the same.
The name Anello Delroce. To most people, he was a ghost. No speeches, no interviews, no photos, smiling in court. But to the men who lived by the code, he was the model. Calm under pressure, loyal until the end, deadly when needed. Delicroce never ran the family outright, but his reach was everywhere.
He mentored a generation of killers and earners who would reshape organized crime in the 1980s. Even John Goty for all his flash and fame carried Delro’s lessons like scars. He taught that real power didn’t need noise. That respect came from silence. That fear when controlled was a tool, not a curse. Those who met him still talk about his eyes.
Detectives, prosecutors, even other gangsters. The color so pale it seemed hollow, like he could see straight through the soul and into the lie underneath. In the end, Delacrochi represented the line between the old mafia and the one that came after. Before him, there was order. Bosses who stayed in the shadows, who believed in loyalty over fame.
After him came the cameras, the tabloids, and the slow collapse of the old world he once protected. He didn’t live to see it fall apart, but he would have understood why it did. When fear left the streets and ego took its place, the code died with it. That’s the legacy of Annie Delroce. Not a legend carved in glory, but a warning written [music] in silence.
A man who embodied everything the mafia once was. Disciplined, ruthless, and unforgettable.