Reputed mobster Angelo Musitano was being followed by a number of people in as many as four different vehicles in the days before he was gunned down in the driveway of his Hamilton home, police investigators said Thursday.
Musitano was shot to death on the afternoon of May 2, 2017, as he sat in his pickup truck in the driveway of his home on Chesapeake Drive in Hamilton’s Waterdown neighbourhood.
The shooter, described as a male with an athletic or stocky build, fled in a burgundy 2006 Ford Fusion, and minutes later was seen entering a black Honda Civic coupe about a one minute-drive away from the crime scene.
Det Sgt. Peter Thom said police recovered the Ford Fusion a few hundred metres from Musitano’s home on the day of the shooting.
However, a total of four vehicles were used by at least two suspects to “stalk” Musitano between April 27, 2017 and his death on May 2, he said.
“We believe Mr. Musitano was being followed or placed under surveillance in the days leading up to the shooting whether it was (to determine) what his habits were, and like I said, there’s a number of vehicles now that we believe may have been involved in that surveillance.”
The vehicles identified by investigators combing through several thousand hours of surveillance camera footage are the Ford Fusion mentioned earlier, a black Honda Civic coupe between the years 2006 and 2011, a grey or silver Infiniti sedan, and a 2017 Chevrolet Malibu sedan.
Thom said that investigators will start by speaking to the owners of black Honda Civic coupes in the area.
“We do have a partial plate number,” he said, adding they will move from Hamilton-area vehicles outward throughout the GTA if they do not find a match.
Anyone with information about any of the vehicles listed is asked to call Hamilton police.
About two months after Musitano was killed, shots were fired into the Hamilton home of his brother, Pat.
The brothers were charged with first-degree murder in the 1997 targeted mafia shooting of Hamilton crime boss Johnny “Pops” Papalia, known as the enforcer, and one of his lieutenants, Niagara Falls mobster Carmen Barillaro.
A plea bargain was struck with the Crown, which allowed the brothers to plead guilty to a conspiracy to commit murder charge.
The brothers were sentenced to 10 years in prison, and were released after serving approximately two-thirds of the plea deal.
Thom said police “have had no contact with the Musitano family to speak of,” since the May 2 shooting, saying that any questions they had were directed to Musitano family lawyer Dean Paquette.
“Traditionally people involved in the mafia don’t normally talk to the police,” Thom said. “If (Angelo Musitano) was out of that lifestyle then I would expect more cooperation from his family.”
