On a cold, winter's night in early 1963, mob enforcer Rocco Anthony Balliro and a pair of associates stormed a darkened apartment on the outskirts of Boston and engaged in a fierce gun battle with several assailants (police officers, it turned out) waiting in ambush for the ex-convict and recent prison escapee. In the aftermath, a young woman and her toddler son lay dead. The story of Rocco Balliro, a petty criminal and enforcer for New England … [Read more...]
Daniel Zimmerman
Over the past eighteen years, first-time author Daniel Zimmerman has written nearly six hundred columns as a stringer for GateHouse Media, a United States publisher of daily and weekly newspapers. While only a toddler during the events in 1963, Zimmerman grew up with knowledge of the shooting: the victims, Toby and Mark Wagner, were his aunt and cousin. Years ago, he was granted exclusive access to Rocco Anthony Balliro and met with him in … [Read more...]