The Irish Gang So Violent Even The Mafia Feared Them HT

May 13th, 1977. 5:45 p.m. 59th Street, Woodside, Queens. Mickey Spelain, 43 years old, walks toward his apartment building. Five bullets tear through him in rapid succession. He collapses on the sidewalk, blood spreading across the concrete. The hit takes 12 seconds. The shooter disappears into traffic.

Spelain dies before the ambulance arrives. For 15 years, he’d controlled Hell’s Kitchen with an iron fist. Now, he was just another body. This wasn’t random. This was a gift. A murder wrapped up and delivered to Jimmy Counan by Roy Deo, the Gambino family’s most prolific killer. Spelain’s death meant one thing.

The old guard was finished. A new breed of Irish gangster was taking over Hell’s Kitchen, and they were about to make Spelain’s reign look gentle. By comparison, this is the story of the Westies. The Irish mob crew so violent, so unpredictable that the Italian mafia subcontracted their murders to them.

Dismemberment wasn’t a threat. It was standard procedure. Bodies didn’t just disappear. They were cut into pieces and scattered across the Hudson River. For two decades, Hell’s Kitchen belonged to them. This is how they built an empire on fear. and how one man’s betrayal brought it all crashing down.

But here’s what most people don’t understand. The Westies weren’t just street thugs. They ran a sophisticated criminal operation worth millions. Labor unions, lone sharking, drug trafficking. They had direct partnerships with the Gambino crime family. Paul Castellano himself gave them work.

The Italians feared them, and with good reason. Hills Kitchen in the 1970s was a war zone. 9th Avenue to 12th Avenue, 34th Street to 59th Street, 50 square blocks of poverty, violence, and Irish workingclass grit, tenement buildings with broken windows, bars on every corner, docks where long shoremen unloaded cargo and ran numbers on the side.

The NYPD called it the most dangerous neighborhood in Manhattan. Locals called it home. Jimmy Kunan was born here on December 21st, 1946. His father was an accountant with mob connections. His mother kept the family together. Jimmy grew up watching the neighborhood’s power structure. Mickey Spelain ran everything.

If you wanted to operate in Hell’s Kitchen, you paid Spalain. If you didn’t, you disappeared. Kunan watched, he learned, and he waited. By his 20s, Kunan was pulling scores, hijackings, burglaries, small-time work. He was smart, fearless, and already building a reputation. But he had a problem. Spelain. The older mobster demanded tribute from everyone.

Kunan refused. That decision almost killed him. Spelain put a hit out. Kunan survived barely. He went into hiding for 3 years. During that time, he made connections, Gambino family members, guys who saw potential in a young Irish kid with ambition and zero fear. Then came 1977, Spelain’s murder.

Kunan didn’t pull the trigger. He didn’t need to. Roy Deo did it for him. A favor between friends. Deo was a stone cold killer who ran a crew out of Brooklyn. He’d murdered over 100 people. Spelain was just another contract. But for Kunan, it was everything. With Spellelain gone, Hell’s Kitchen was his.

He was 30 years old and he was just getting started. Kunan built his crew carefully. First, he brought in Mickey Featherstone. Francis Thomas Featherstone, born September 3rd, 1948. Small guy, 5′ 6 in, 140 lb. But Featherstone was a combat veteran. Vietnam, nine months in the jungle, two purple hearts.

He came home with PTSD, a hair trigger temper, and skills that translated perfectly to organized crime. Featherstone became Kunan’s enforcer, his collector, his killer. Then there was Kevin Kelly. Joined the Westies in the late 70s. Big, strong, reliable. started his muscle, worked his way up to running his own lone sharking operation.

Kelly didn’t ask questions. He followed orders. That made him valuable, and eventually it made him a target. The Westies operated out of a handful of bars, the Sunbrite on 10th Avenue, the 596 Club. These weren’t just drinking spots. They were headquarters, back rooms where deals were made, where debts were collected, where bodies were dismembered.

Kunan ran everything from these locations. His wife, Edna, helped manage the money. She wasn’t just a mob wife. She was part of the operation. Kept the books, laundered cash. Later, she’d served 15 years in federal prison for her role. By the late 70s, Kunan had a problem. Money. The Westies were making good cash from lone sharking and hijacking. But Kunan wanted more.

He needed a partnership. someone with connections, resources, and reach. He needed the Italian mafia, specifically the Gambino family, the most powerful crime family in America. Paul Castellano was running the Gambinos. Big Paul, a businessman in a tailored suit who lived in a mansion on Staten Island.

Castellano didn’t like violence. He liked money. Kunan reached out. He offered a deal. The Westies would handle contract killings for the Gambinos. They’d provide muscle. They’d control Hell’s Kitchen and keep it clean for Gambino operations. In return, the Gambinos would give them protection, connections, and a cut of bigger scores.

Castellano agreed, but there was a middleman, Roy Deo, the same guy who’d killed Spalain. Deo became Kunan’s direct contact with the Gambino family. And Deo taught Kunan something crucial. How to make bodies disappear completely. Dismemberment. Deo had it down to a science. Cut the body into six pieces.

Remove the teeth and fingertips. Wrap everything in plastic. Dump it in different locations. The Westies learned fast. And they improved the method. Here’s how it worked. When someone needed to die, they were lured to one of the Westy bars, usually with a fake meeting or a drink. Once inside, they were shot.

Immediately, plastic sheets were laid out in the back room. The body was placed on the plastic. Then came the dismemberment. Saws, knives, methodical work. Arms, legs, torso, head. Each piece wrapped separately, then dumped. Hudson River, East River, dumpsters across the city. Some pieces were never found.

One of the first victims was Ruby Stein, 1977. Stein was a lone shark. He had money. The Westies owed him. Kunan didn’t want to pay. So Stein was invited to the bar. Shot in the head, dismembered. His body parts were scattered across Manhattan. The head was never recovered. Stein’s disappearance sent a message. Don’t press the westies for money.

You won’t live to collect. Another victim was Edward Kuminsky, one of their own. Kuminsky was a Westy who talked too much. Kunan heard he was cooperating with police. On September 21st, 1976, Kuminsky was called to a meeting. He was shot multiple times, dismembered, dumped. Cuminsky’s murder proved something.

Loyalty meant nothing if he became a liability. The Westies would kill their own without hesitation. But the signature Westy murder happened in 1980. A man named Michael Holly. Holly was a construction worker. He got into a bar fight with a Westy associate. Holly won the fight. Bad move. Kevin Kelly and Kenny Shannon were sent to kill him.

Holly was shot and killed outside a building in Manhattan. But here’s where it gets interesting. Mickey Featherstone didn’t do this murder. He wasn’t even there, but he got blamed for it. Featherstone was arrested, charged with Holly’s murder. He went to trial. The evidence was thin. Mostly witness testimony from other Westies.

Featherstone maintained his innocence. Didn’t matter. He was convicted. Sentenced to 25 years to life. Featherstone sat in prison knowing he’d been set up. He knew who really killed Holly. Kelly and Shannon. And he knew Kunan had allowed it to happen. That betrayal changed everything. While Featherstone was locked up, the Westies kept working.

They expanded into labor racketeering, the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, the massive aircraft carrier turned museum on the Hudson River. The Westies infiltrated the operation. They controlled the workers, skimmed ticket sales, stole hundreds of thousands of dollars. Museum officials didn’t even realize it was happening until federal investigators uncovered the scheme years later.

They also ran loan sharking operations that stretched from Hell’s Kitchen to Wall Street. Garment district manufacturers, stock brokers, small business owners. Everyone needed money. The Westies provided it at 25% interest per week. Miss a payment and Featherstone or Kelly showed up. Sometimes they broke bones.

Sometimes they burned down businesses. Sometimes people just disappeared. The money was massive. Kunan was pulling in hundreds of thousands annually. He bought property. He lived well. But he made mistakes, big ones. He trusted the wrong people. He left witnesses alive. And he underestimated law enforcement.

The FBI had been watching the Westies since the early 80s. Surveillance, wiretaps, informants. They knew about the murders. They knew about the lone sharking. But they needed proof. They needed someone on the inside. Then in 1985, they got their break. Mickey Featherstone. Featherstone had been in prison for four years, wrongfully convicted, angry, betrayed.

Then his lawyer found new evidence. Witnesses who could prove Featherstone wasn’t at the Holly murder. testimony that pointed to Kelly and Shannon. Featherstone’s conviction was overturned. He was released, but he wasn’t grateful. He was furious. Featherstone reached out to the FBI. He had information. Names, dates, murder details.

He knew where bodies were buried, literally. But he wanted something in return. Witness protection, a new identity, safety for his wife and kids. The FBI agreed. In 1986, Mickey Featherstone became a cooperating witness. The most valuable mob informant in New York. Featherstone told investigators everything. He detailed murders going back a decade.

He explained the lone sharking operations, the labor racketeering, the partnership with the Gambinos. He named names. Kunan, Kelly, Shannon, Mroy, Bokean, all the major Westies. He gave up everything. The FBI moved fast. March 1988, coordinated raids across Manhattan. Federal agents stormed into homes and businesses.

Jimmy Counan was arrested at his apartment. Kevin Kelly was picked up on the street. Kenneth Shannon, James Mroy. One by one, the Westies were taken into custody. The indictments were devastating. Racketeering, murder, conspiracy, loan sharking, labor racketeering. The entire organization was being dismantled. The trial started in 1988.

Federal court, Southern District of New York. The prosecution star witness was Mickey Featherstone. For weeks, Featherstone sat on the stand. He testified in excruciating detail, described murders, explained how bodies were dismembered, named who pulled triggers, showed where money came from. Defense attorneys tried to break him, called him a liar, a murderer, a traitor. Featherstone didn’t flinch.

He answered every question. The jury heard about Ruby Stein, Edward Kaminsky, Michael Holly. They heard wiretap recordings, saw financial records, listened to testimony from other witnesses. The evidence was overwhelming. The Westies weren’t just violent criminals. They were a sophisticated racketeering enterprise that had operated for 20 years.

The verdicts came down in 1988. Jimmy Counan guilty. 75 years in federal prison. Kevin Kelly guilty. 50 years without parole. Kenneth Shannon guilty. 40 years. James Mroy guilty 60 years. One by one, the Westy’s leadership was sentenced to life behind bars. Edna Kunan was convicted separately. 15 years for rakateeering. Fined $200,000.

Mickey Featherstone walked free. He entered witness protection with his family. New names, new city, new life. He’d admitted to participating in murders, to being an enforcer, to collecting debts through violence, but his cooperation earned him immunity. As of 2026, Featherstone is still alive, still in witness protection, still looking over his shoulder.

Jimmy Counan is 79 years old. He’s currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tucson, Arizona. His projected release date is June 2030. He’ll be 83. He’s appealed multiple times, requested compassionate release, argued his age and health issues. Every appeal has been denied. Kunan will likely die in prison.

Kevin Kelly is also still incarcerated, 68 years old, serving his 50-year sentence. No parole, no early release. He won’t get out until 2037, if he lives that long. The Westies as an organization died in 1988. Some younger members tried to keep it going. They failed. Law enforcement kept the pressure on. The neighborhood changed.

Hell’s Kitchen gentrified. Luxury apartments replaced tenementss. Restaurants replaced mobun bars. The old Irish workingclass neighborhood became Clinton, a trendy, expensive Manhattan address. The Westies territory doesn’t exist anymore, but their legacy does. The Westies proved something important about organized crime.

Violence alone isn’t enough. You need discipline, structure, loyalty. The Westies had violence. They had brutality, but they lacked the one thing that keeps crime families alive for generations. Omar Ta, the code of silence. When Featherstone flipped, the entire organization collapsed. One cooperating witness destroyed 20 years of criminal enterprise.

Here’s what the history books don’t tell you. The Westies were more sophisticated than people realize. They weren’t just street thugs who happened to kill people. They ran legitimate businesses. They had political connections. They bribed cops and union officials. They laundered money through real estate and construction companies.

They built a criminal empire worth tens of millions of dollars. And they did it in one of the most heavily policed cities in America. The partnership with the Gambino family was genius. It gave the Westies legitimacy in the mob world, access to bigger operations, protection from rival gangs. The Italians got something, too. Deniability.

When the Gambinos needed someone killed, they called the Westies. Irish guys killing Italian targets. Harder to trace, harder to prosecute. It was a perfect arrangement until it wasn’t. Paul Castellano was murdered outside Sparks Steakhouse in December 1985. John Gotti took over the Gambino family. Gotti didn’t trust the Westies, didn’t like them. The partnership weakened.

By the time the Westies were indicted, they’d lost their most powerful ally. They were on their own, and they couldn’t survive. The dismemberment method the Westies perfected became infamous. Law enforcement started calling it the Gemini method, named after Roy Deo’s Gemini Lounge in Brooklyn, where he’d first used it.

But the Westies took it further. They made it faster, more efficient, more terrifying. The psychological impact was enormous. People knew if the Westies came for you, there wouldn’t be a body. There wouldn’t be a funeral. You just vanish. That fear kept people in line for years. Mickey Featherstone’s testimony didn’t just destroy the Westies, it helped prosecutors go after the Gambino family.

Featherstone testified at John Gutty’s trial. Explained the partnership between the two organizations. Described meetings with Gambino captains. His testimony was part of the evidence that eventually sent Gotti to prison for life. One cooperating witness. Multiple crime families damaged. That’s the power of turning an insider.

Today, Hell’s Kitchen is unrecognizable. Luxury highrises line 10th Avenue. Michelin star restaurants occupy spaces where mob social clubs once stood. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is over $4,000 a month. The neighborhood the Westies controlled through fear and violence is now one of the most desirable areas in Manhattan.

The [clears throat and snorts] irony is almost poetic. But talk to longtime residents, the ones who lived through the 70s and 80s. They remember. They remember when you didn’t walk certain blocks after dark. When bar fights ended with bodies in the river, when everyone knew someone who disappeared. The Westies weren’t folklore.

They were real. And they made Hell’s Kitchen genuinely hellish for 20 years. Here’s the final truth about the Westies. They were victims of their own brutality, the dismemberments, the casual violence, the complete disregard for human life. It made them feared, but it also made them targets.

Law enforcement couldn’t ignore them. The media couldn’t ignore them. Bodies kept turning up in pieces. Eventually, that level of violence demands a response. And when Mickey Featherstone gave prosecutors the ammunition they needed, the response was total. Jimmy Kunan thought he was building an empire. He thought partnering with the Gambinos made him untouchable.

He thought loyalty and fear would keep his crew together. He was wrong on all counts. The empire lasted 20 years. The partnership ended in betrayal, and loyalty evaporated the moment Mickey Featherstone realized he’d been set up for a murder he didn’t commit. Kunan’s biggest mistake wasn’t the violence.

It was leaving a witness alive. a witness with a photographic memory and a burning grudge. The Westies are gone. Their leaders are in prison or dead. Their territory has been gentrified beyond recognition. But their story remains a cautionary tale about the limits of violence, about the inevitability of betrayal in organized crime, about what happens when fear is your only currency.

The Gambino family feared them. The neighborhood feared them. Even other Westies feared each other. And in the end, fear wasn’t enough. It never is. If you want to understand the modern history of organized crime in New York, you have to understand the Westies. They represented the last gasp of the Irish mob in Manhattan.

The end of an era that stretched back to the dead rabbits in the 1800s. After the Westies fell, there were no more major Irish gangs in New York. The Italians consolidated power. Then they fell too. Now organized crime in the city is fragmented. Russian, Albanian, Chinese, Dominican. The old ethnic territories don’t exist anymore.

But for one brief bloody period, Hell’s Kitchen belonged to Jimmy Kunan and the Westies. And they held it with a level of violence that shocked even the mafia. That’s their legacy. Not the money, not the power, the brutality, the bodies cut into pieces and thrown into the river. The absolute terror they inspired and everyone who crossed their path.

That’s what the Westies will be remembered for. And that’s why their story still matters. So what should we take from this? What does the rise and fall of the Westies teach us about organized crime? Simple. Violence without structure fails. Power without loyalty crumbles. And fear without respect is temporary.

The Westies had all the wrong ingredients. They built something that looked like an empire, but it was actually a house of cards. One good push and it collapsed. Mickey Featherstone was that push. And when the Westies fell, they fell completely. No second generation, no comeback, just prison sentences and graveyards.

Jimmy Counan sits in a cell in Arizona. He’s an old man now, sick, tired, forgotten by everyone except law enforcement and crime historians. He once controlled 50 square blocks of Manhattan. He partnered with the most powerful crime family in America. He inspired genuine terror in thousands of people.

Now he’s prisoner number 04054-054. That’s the real story of the Westies. Not the violence, not the power, the inevitable grinding price of choosing that life. A lifetime in a cage, watching the world move on without you. That’s the cost. And Jimmy Kunan is still paying it. If you found this story fascinating, hit subscribe.

We drop a new mob documentary every week. Drop a comment. What other Irish mob story should we cover? The Boston Winter Hill gang, the Charles Town crew, let us know. This is Mobs History.