NYPD 'Italian Sherlock Holmes' detective to get to death after century

By Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News

New York – a NYPD detective As a “Italian Sherlock Holmes”, almost a century after his death will finally get a grazesite marker, the Daily News found out.

Members of the Detective Endowment Association will introduce the tombstone for detective Joseph Pucciano at Brooklyns Green-Wood Cemetery on Tuesday.

Pucciano, an announced gang buster and member of the Nypd's famous Italian squad In the 1920s on July 13, 1928, members died of pulmonary tuberculosis. He repeatedly adorned on the daily news pages with reports on his headlines.

“Joe solved a dozen or more apparently insoluble murders,” wrote the news a month after the detective's death. “His memory was deep. His luck was good. He was called to be successful where the ferret of others had failed. The largest of his long list of victories was the detention or execution of almost 50 members of one of the ruthless predatory gangs in New York.”

The detective with steel eyes was born in Calabria in 1879. He grew up on the Lower East Side and learned to speak four languages: English, Italian, Chinese and Albanians.

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He stepped into the NYPD in 1905 and spent the next 20 years to break gangsters in Brooklyn as part of the Italian squad and the Brooklyn Moricide Squad. The Italian squad was consisting of police officers born in Italy focuses on mob-related murders and chaos.

“Pucciano was a stubborn, intelligent, innovative and experienced investigator who deserved his detective sign within five years,” the Dea noticed. “[He] Worked on a variety of cases that ranged from huge, organized crimes of shakedown artists such as the notorious Navy Street Gang to the kidnapping and kidnapping for ransom as well as poisoning cases and narcotics from the prohibition period. “

He took over more than 40 murder examinations and was called “The Italian Sherlock Holmes” and “The Master Detective” in the press, said the union.

One of his greatest cases was the fear of Tony Perreti, “with the nickname without rhyme or reason 'Tony the Shoemaker'”, who found the news at that time.

Perreti, the head of the Navy Street Gang, who planned 23 murders and was known to have wasted dinner, in which he surrounded his plans, rival gang leaders, had organized the execution of two rival gangsters from Harlem and already fled to the west coast when Pucciano became the case.

Pucciano was able to solve the double killing and one of the conspirators, Ralph “The Barber” Doniello, attended on the coffee house of Perretis, where the detective “accidentally – or deliberately – – had put down a picture from the wall,” said the news.

Several addresses were written on the wall behind the picture, including Doniello.

“How did Pucciano know that it would never be known,” said the news.

The detective took Doniello in Reno, Nev. He immediately became a state witness and helped Pucciano to round the rest of his gang.

Almost a decade later, just a year before the detective death, Perreti was sent to the electric chair.

Pucciano was survived by two sons and a daughter. His son George became a NYPD police officer. But his grave never had a marker.

The DEA was provided with last year as it learned unveiled a tombstone for detective Bernardino Grottano He was shot when he persecuted a pregnant one on May 19, 1924.

Grottano's widow could not afford a tombstone at the time of her husband's death. Grottano was another NYPD detective until the DEA entered to pay a worthy marker for the hero police.

When they prepared the unveiling of Grottano's tombstone, the DEA members learned that he was a partner of Pucciano who was buried a few plots and also had no tombstone.

The union thought it was important to honor the detective with the same tribute.

“The job has not changed and nobody did better,” said Dea President Scott Munro about Pucciano. “[He] served the citizens of the city with bravery and award. “

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