Feds Digging for Body of Driver Who Killed Gotti's Son
By Sarah Wallace
(Ozone Park, Queens-WABC, October 4, 2004)
— Have the feds found a graveyard for the mob? Federal agents spent much of Monday using heavy machinery to dig up an empty lot in Queens -- which could hold the answer to a 24-year-old mystery.
FBI agents are looking for the body of a man who vanished in 1980 after he hit and killed John Gotti's young son. The abandoned lots are located at the intersection of Ruby and Dumont in the Ozone Park section of Queens.
Eyewitness News reporter Sarah Wallace was at the scene.
Sources say the FBI is now expecting to find three bodies in the vacant lots here. But the centerpiece is the 24-year-old mystery of John Favara, which is remembered in Howard Beach as if it were yesterday. Neighbors we spoke with clearly remember the disappearance of the furniture store worker who lived in a house behind that of John Gotti.
In March of 1980, Gotti's son was riding a bike on a neighborhood street when Favara accidentally ran him over.
The connection has never been proven, but four months after the accident, and after he had gotten several death threats from the Gotti family, witnesses saw Favara being stuffed into a van by several men. He was never seen again.
Now after nearly 24 years, FBI agents have gotten a tip from an informant. Armed with a back hoe, they are digging for Favara's body in a vacant lot just a few miles from where he disappeared.
Sources say current intelligence has also identified this lot as the burial sites of two Bonanno family capos who disappeared around the same time. The information that lead to this search was the result of a current case.
Even though newly-constructed homes now line many of the streets in this area, it is a desolate spot. The FBI is planning to bring in even heavier equipment now. One of the problems is that a layer of concrete lines many of these lots.
We are told that the searchers plan to plan to search here continuously for a number of days.
By Sarah Wallace
(Ozone Park, Queens-WABC, October 4, 2004)
— Have the feds found a graveyard for the mob? Federal agents spent much of Monday using heavy machinery to dig up an empty lot in Queens -- which could hold the answer to a 24-year-old mystery.
FBI agents are looking for the body of a man who vanished in 1980 after he hit and killed John Gotti's young son. The abandoned lots are located at the intersection of Ruby and Dumont in the Ozone Park section of Queens.
Eyewitness News reporter Sarah Wallace was at the scene.
Sources say the FBI is now expecting to find three bodies in the vacant lots here. But the centerpiece is the 24-year-old mystery of John Favara, which is remembered in Howard Beach as if it were yesterday. Neighbors we spoke with clearly remember the disappearance of the furniture store worker who lived in a house behind that of John Gotti.
In March of 1980, Gotti's son was riding a bike on a neighborhood street when Favara accidentally ran him over.
The connection has never been proven, but four months after the accident, and after he had gotten several death threats from the Gotti family, witnesses saw Favara being stuffed into a van by several men. He was never seen again.
Now after nearly 24 years, FBI agents have gotten a tip from an informant. Armed with a back hoe, they are digging for Favara's body in a vacant lot just a few miles from where he disappeared.
Sources say current intelligence has also identified this lot as the burial sites of two Bonanno family capos who disappeared around the same time. The information that lead to this search was the result of a current case.
Even though newly-constructed homes now line many of the streets in this area, it is a desolate spot. The FBI is planning to bring in even heavier equipment now. One of the problems is that a layer of concrete lines many of these lots.
We are told that the searchers plan to plan to search here continuously for a number of days.
