Fred Aldrich, 64, Ex-mob associate dies, crashes car
Matthew Kruk
Posted on Wed, Feb. 17, 2010
Ex-mob associate dies, crashes car
By George Anastasia
Inquirer Staff Writer
Fred Aldrich, a mob associate who was targeted in one of the most
notorious attempted gangland hits in Philadelphia history, died Monday,
seconds before crashing his car into a Subway sandwich shop in
Glenolden.
Aldrich, 64, apparently suffered a massive heart attack while pulling
into the parking lot off Chester Pike around 12:30 p.m., his son, Fred
Jr., said yesterday.
Eric Marrero, 28, manager of a neighboring furniture-leasing store, said
he saw a gray Lincoln sedan crash into the front of the sandwich shop.
Marrero said rescuers dragged a heavyset man from the car and performed
cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but to no avail. Aldrich was pronounced
dead at the scene, police said. There were no other injuries.
Aldrich, who lived in Folsom, was a decorated Marine Corps veteran who
had served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He had been living in Delaware
County for several years and was no longer active in the underworld,
according to law enforcement sources.
In the mid-1990s, however, he was a top associate of mobster Ron Previte
and frequently was the driver for then-mob boss John Stanfa.
Aldrich was driving Stanfa and his son, Joseph, to work on the morning
of Aug. 31, 1993, when their car was ambushed in a drive-by shooting
during rush hour on the Schuylkill Expressway.
An unmarked van with portholes cut into the side panel pulled up
alongside the silver-gray Cadillac Seville that Aldrich was driving,
according to police reports. Two gunmen inside the van began strafing
the side of the Cadillac with 9mm machine pistols. John Stanfa, a
passenger in the front seat, ducked. His son, riding in the back, was
hit in the face.
Aldrich, according to underworld and law enforcement sources, reacted
instinctively, ramming the side of the van and forcing it off the
highway at Vare Avenue. He then gunned the engine of his car and, with a
rear tire shot out and deflated, sped a half mile to the University
Avenue exit. He then pulled the car up in front of a luncheonette owned
by the Stanfas.
The younger Stanfa was transferred to another vehicle and driven to the
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was admitted in
critical condition.
Joseph Stanfa survived the hit, which came amid a bloody mob war that
pitted the Stanfa organization against a rival group headed by Joseph
"Skinny Joey" Merlino.
No one has been convicted in the shooting, but authorities have
attributed the ambush to the Merlino faction of the mob.
Aldrich left the area for a time after John Stanfa and his top
associates were jailed in 1994, and the Merlino faction took control of
the organization.
Previte remained active, however, while secretly working for the FBI,
recording hundreds of conversations that were used to convict Merlino
and his associates.
Aldrich was living on medical disability, according to his son, who said
his father had several serious medical problems.
He once had owned an auto-body shop in the Fernwood section of the city
and occasionally, when able, worked in a shop where his son is currently
employed.
But by his own admission, he and Previte earned a living as outlaws.
Long before their association with the mob, they were independent
underworld operatives engaging in loan-sharking, gambling, extortion,
drug dealing, and prostitution, among other ventures, he once said.
"He was an enigmatic character, to say the least," his son said.
For several years, the younger Aldrich said, his father had been talking
about writing a book about his experiences during the war in Vietnam and
during his life in the underworld.
He said he wanted to call it From Saigon to South Philly, the son said.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete yesterday.
In addition to his son, Aldrich is survived by a daughter, Melanie
Peterson; a grandson; and a granddaughter.
Contact staff writer George Anastasia at 856-779-3846 or
ganas...@phillynews.com.
Inquirer staff writers Robert Moran and Mari A. Schaefer contributed to
this article.
Find this article at:
http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/20100217_Ex-mob_associate_dies__crashes_car_into_shop.html
danny burstein
>(Noted in WP's Post Mortem)
>Ex-mob associate dies, crashes car
>By George Anastasia
There's just something, ... poetic ... about a mob death
story bylined by an Anastasia...
>No one has been convicted in the shooting,
Anyone know where Amy Bishop was?
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
Rob Cibik
>
> >(Noted in WP's Post Mortem)
> >Ex-mob associate dies, crashes car
> >By George Anastasia
>
> There's just something, ... poetic ... about a mob death
> story bylined by an Anastasia...
>
> >No one has been convicted in the shooting,
>
> Anyone know where Amy Bishop was?
>
IHOP?
Police: University shooting suspect was charged after fight in 2002
CNN
February 17, 2010
Boston, Massachusetts (CNN) -- An Alabama professor accused of gunning
down her colleagues at a university last week faced criminal charges
after an altercation at a Massachusetts restaurant nearly eight years
ago, police said Wednesday.
It was the latest incident to surface involving Amy Bishop, a biology
professor who is charged with capital murder and three counts of
attempted murder in the shootings at the University of Alabama in
Huntsville last week.
Police in Peabody, Massachusetts, were called to an International
House of Pancakes restaurant on March 16, 2002, on a report of an
assault, according to a report from the Peabody Police Department.
Responding officers found a crying woman who was the alleged victim,
the report said.
The woman, identified in the report as Michelle Gjika, told police she
and her two children had been seated for breakfast.
"Soon after another family with the defendant Amy Bishop was seated in
a booth nearby," the report said. Gjika "then asked the waitress for a
booster seat for one of the children and the waitress brought one
over. The defendant Amy Bishop then also asked the waitress for a
booster seat but Amy was told by the waitress that there were no more
booster seats.
"The defendant ... then became angry that [Gjika] had the last booster
seat and made the comment, 'But we were here first,' " the report said
She then became loud and abusive to the woman, the report said,
shouting profanity at her and at one point saying, "I am Dr. Amy
Bishop."
Bishop was asked to stop using profanity, but continued to verbally
abuse the woman, becoming so loud that she was heard throughout the
restaurant, police said.
The IHOP manager told police that Bishop was acting "like a crazy
person."
The manager asked Bishop to leave, and Bishop struck the other woman
on the right side of her head in front of the woman's two children,
the report said. After she left the restaurant, the manager wrote down
the license plate number of her red 1988 Ford Taurus.
Authorities interviewed the victim and witnesses and contacted Bishop,
who said that Gjika had been the aggressor, but her account did not
match what others said about the incident.
Bishop was charged with assault and battery and disorderly conduct,
police said. The Essex County district attorney recommended a year of
probation and anger management classes, but Bishop instead admitted
that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute her for disorderly
conduct and assault and battery and agreed not to contact Gjika,
according to court documents.
She was put on unsupervised probation for six months, according to
Steve O'Connell, a spokesman for the Essex County district attorney.
Gjika did not return a call from CNN.
Authorities previously have said Bishop, who is also known as Amy
Bishop Anderson, fatally shot her brother in the family's Braintree,
Massachusetts, home in 1986. The shooting was ruled accidental, but
authorities said Tuesday that previously missing police records of the
incident had been found.
Probable cause existed in 1986 to charge Bishop with assault with a
dangerous weapon, carrying a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession
of ammunition, Norfolk County District Attorney William Keating said
in a statement. However, the statute of limitations on those charges
has expired, as well as on a potential charge of "wanton and reckless
conduct," the lowest standard for manslaughter in Massachusetts, he
said.
And in effect, the recovered documents do not contradict
investigators' conclusion at the time that the shooting was an
accident, according to the statement.
In addition, The Boston Globe reported Monday that Bishop and her
husband, Jim Anderson, were questioned in the 1993 attempted mail
bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor. Jim Anderson told CNN
on Monday that federal investigators had gathered "a dozen subjects"
in the attempted bombing, but "there were never any suspects. Never
anyone charged, never anyone arrested. Then five years later, we got a
letter from the ATF saying, 'You are in the clear.' "
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/17/alabama.shooting/index.html?eref=googletoolbar
MWB
GO RED SOX NATION
Mark