Danbury's Mafia Murder
Monday July 27 marked the 100th anniversary of one of the most famous unsolved murders in Danbury. On July 27, 1909 Giovanni Zarcone was gunned down near his house on Hospital Avenue. He had been involved in Mafia operations in New York City and was a suspect in a gruesome incident called the Barrel Murder. This was a dispute between rival Mafia factions and the body was driven from the scene in one of Zarcone's wagons (he was parners in a butcher shop). Zarcone fled to Danbury and bought a 59 acre farm on Hospital Avenue. He was attacked on the night of July 27 by three men with shotguns who had waited in ambush for him. They pursued him to the doorstep of his house and fired a fatal blast into him. As you would expect there was consternation in Danbury. Police were sent looking for the killers and the militia was also called out but the murderers escaped and the case was never solved. There is an extensive article titled Mafia Murder in Danbury in Informer: The Journal of American Mafia History by Thomas Hunt (Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 2009) and much of the article is based on genealogy research materials available in the Danbury Library: City Directories, The News-Times on microfilm.