Death Investigations / Bufalino Crime Family

About the show

Barbara Butcher was the second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan; the work was gritty, morbid, and sometimes dangerous, but she loved it. In the first half, she discussed how she investigated homicides and suicides as part of the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner, and learned surprising lessons about life by dealing with death every day. Back when she first started out on the job in 1992, there was something like 2,400 homicides a year in New York City (now it's less than 500), so she worked on multiple cases at the same time. She emphasized the importance of keeping an open mind during investigations and not automatically assuming a case was a homicide. "You've got to walk in completely open to what the evidence tells you, and what the body tells you...and that's how you really become a good investigator," she explained.

In one case, police assumed a man had been shot in the head as he had a hole in the center of his forehead. But she noticed the strong smell of alcohol, and the wound had a different pattern than the typical abrasion ring of a bullet. Then she saw stone molding at the bottom of the stairs that came to a very sharp point, which had a bit of blood on it, and she concluded he had fallen down the stairs. In some of the death scenes, there is the overpowering odor of decomposing bodies, which she said is impossible to block out; other times, smells have given clues to a crime, such as when she detected an almond/cherry aroma associated with cyanide. She also touched on serial killers, "death by misadventure" (such as with autoerotic asphyxiation), and methods to determine the time of death.

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In the latter half, investigative journalist Matt Birkbeck shared the story of the Bufalino crime syndicate and William 'Big Billy' D'Elia and how he became the de facto leader of the family until his arrest in 2006, when he was charged with money laundering and the attempted murder of a witness. Birkbeck based his book on extensive interviews with D'Elia, who was released from prison in 2012, and wanted to set the record straight. D'Elia was like a surrogate son to the powerful crime boss Russell Bufalino, initially serving as his bodyguard. While assisting Bufalino, he carefully observed the family's operations, which included gambling and manufacturing.

When Bufalino was imprisoned in the 1970s, D'Elia rose in importance in the crime organization, visiting him in jail and then eventually taking over in 1981, when Bufalino was sentenced to Leavenworth. Regarding the mystery of the disappearance of labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa, "we don't know who pulled the trigger," said Birkbeck, "but we do know now who ordered it, in that it was Tony Provenzano and Anthony Salerno, from New York with the blessing of Russell Bufalino." D'Elia told him that Frank Sheeran ("The Irishman") was not involved in Hoffa's death and that Hoffa's body was cremated after he was killed.