Each week we will be presenting notorious crimes that occurred in your San Francisco neighborhood.   Isn’t it nice to know that even the most peaceful neighborhood has a few skeletons in the closet.

 

 

On February 11, 1976, when Joe Barboza was shot to death on Moraga and 25

th Ave there was little speculation about who did it or why.  It was more “why did it take so long.”  

 

The FBI described Barboza nicknamed “The Animal,” “the most vicious criminal in New England” and “a professional assassin responsible for numerous homicides.”  He had been a top enforcer for the New England Mafia but lost favor and was abandoned when he was arrested on a weapons charge in 1966.  He became a star witness for the FBI and hit the jackpot when his testimony helped convict seven Mafiosi for the murders of Willie Marfeo and Teddy Deagon.  In the Deagon case four men to death row, and  two to prison for life. In the Mafeo case, the FBI hit the jackpot when  New England Mafia Boss Ray Patriarca was convicted and sent to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

 

There was nothing a grateful FBI would not do for Joe and he became the first participant in the Federal Witness Protection Program.  Although Joe admitted killing 26 people he was given a sentence of one year, including time served.  The FBI agents he worked with also overlooked another of Joe’s foibles – five of the six people his testimony convicted in the Deagon case were actually innocent.  Joe admitted later that “ the Mafia screwed me and I’m going to screw as many of them as possible.”  

 

Twenty five years later the true facts came out and led to the disgrace and conviction of FBI agents Paul Rico and Dennis Conden.

 

Meanwhile Joe was paroled in March 1969 and told to leave Massachusetts forever.

He was resettled in Santa Rosa by the Witness Protection program under the name of Joe Bentley and enrolled in a cooking school.  He gave up cooking and went back to his favorite occupation, homicide, killing a local criminal named Clay Wilson.

Although the FBI did everything they could to get Barboza off, he was convicted of 2

nd degree murder and served 5 years in a California prison.  He was released with a new name, Joe Donati and lived with a girlfriend at an apartment at 1250 La Playa Street in San Francisco.                                                                                                           Would you buy a used crime from this man?

 

Two months later Barboza was murdered outside the apartment of Ted Sharliss, a fellow ex con, who later pleaded guilty to helping to set up the murder.  In 1992 Joe Russo, a notorious hit man from Boston plead guilty to the murder.   By the time of his death Barboza stature in the world had gotten somewhat classier.  His nickname had changed from “The Animal” to “The Baron.”