Brother of murder suspect Vince Zangari blames him for killing extortion victim Salvatore Rotiroti
NEW leads in the 1988 cold case killing of Italian extortion victim Salvatore Rotiroti further implicate a murder suspect in a Geelong death that could earn someone a $1 million reward.
Cold Cases
Don't miss out on the headlines from Cold Cases. Followed categories will be added to My News.
MURDER suspect Vince Zangari’s brother Joe told police he thought Vince was responsible for beating Italian extortion victim Salvatore “Sam” Rotiroti to death.
Details of him implicating his older brother are contained in documents the Herald Sun has obtained from the Rotiroti coronial inquest.
Joe Zangari claimed to homicide squad detectives that Vince rang him on the night of the 1988 murder and asked him to pick him up and bring a change of clothes.
POLICE HOPE $1M REWARD WILL CATCH ROTIROTI KILLER
ALL NEW MURDER REWARDS TO BE FOR $1M
According to the inquest document, Joe Zangari told detectives that when Vince got into his car he said: “I’ve got to get rid of these clothes. Take me somewhere where there’s no one around. They’re all stained.”
It wasn’t until the next morning that Joe discovered the call from his brother Vince came about 30 minutes after their uncle, Salvatore Rotiroti, 46 and a father of five, had been beaten to death in the driveway of his Geelong home.
Mr Rotiroti had already paid out $100,000 and police believe he had decided to stand up to the extortionist and not hand over any more cash.
“I thought that Vince, my brother, had killed Uncle Sammy,” Joe Zangari told police just days after the September 4, 1988, murder.
“Since Uncle Sam’s death I have asked Vince why he killed him, meaning Uncle Sam.
“Vince would just say that he didn’t do nothing.
“I told Vince that he shouldn’t have done it and he just said he didn’t do it.
“I don’t believe Vince and I think that Vince killed Uncle Sammy.”
Other friends and relatives also provided sworn statements to detectives in which they implicated Vince Zangari in the murder of Mr Rotiroti.
Those statements led to Vince Zangari, 21 at the time and of Calabrian descent, being charged with the murder three weeks after Mr Rotiroti’s bloodied body was found on September 5, 1988.
But the murder charge was dropped the following year after witnesses who implicated him changed or withdrew their statements.
The Herald Sun has spent several days trying to find Vince Zangari to give him the opportunity to comment on the allegations against him, but has so far been unable to trace him.
Vince Zangari denies being involved in the murder of his uncle and the Herald Sun is not suggesting he murdered his uncle Salvatore Rotiroti, just that he remains a person of interest in the unsolved cold case.
The Herald Sun revealed last month that Victoria Police has offered a $1 million reward in the hope one of the people they believe know who committed the 1988 murder will come forward.
Since then a Herald Sun investigation which led to the release of the inquest documents has also discovered:
VINCE Zangari’s cousin Gerardo Iannuzzi told police Vince’s brother Joe told him that when he picked Vince up on the night of the murder his clothes were covered in blood.
GERARDO Iannuzzi also told police that when Joe asked him who he thought had murdered Salvatore Rotiroti he replied “your brother” and Joe then said “yep, that’s right”.
JOE Zangari told police his brother Vince dumped his soiled clothes in a bin outside a restaurant on the night of the murder but that Vince went back the next morning to get them and said he was taking them to a friend’s house to be burnt.
THAT friend later admitted to police that he lied and had given Vince Zangari a false alibi after Vince told him the morning after the murder that “if something happens, just say I was with you last night in Melbourne”. He initially did tell police he was with Vince Zangari at the time Mr Rotiroti was beaten to death, but later made a second statement in which he swore he wasn’t with him and that Vince had arrived at his house some hours after the murder with a plastic bag and asked him to burn the contents.
VINCE Zangari also asked the friend to get his sister to say she saw the two of them together on the night of the murder and the sister did initially tell police her brother and Vince Zangari visited her in Melbourne about the time the murder happened in Geelong, but she later admitted to police she had lied and that she had only seen her brother that night.
BRUNO IANNUZZI, who is murder victim Salvatore Rotiroti’s brother-in-law and who survived being shot in the back, told police he and his family had been harassed and that “I am scared of Vince Zangari”.
Salvatore Rotiroti was related by blood or marriage to the Zangari and Iannuzzi families and in 1988 they all lived near each other in Geelong.
Some members of the Rotiroti family have since moved to Sydney, as has Vince Zangari.
The head of the Victoria Police homicide squad’s cold case team, Detective Senior Sergeant Peter Trichias, recently told the Herald Sun he believed some members of the Rotiroti, Zangari and Iannuzzi families had information which could see the Rotiroti murder solved.
He said if they came forward and the killer was charged and convicted then they would be eligible to claim the $1 million reward.
“Also, as a consideration for any of these family members, if they think they have issues about their safety — if they are concerned about what they want to do — we can assist with that,” Sen-Sgt Trichias said.
“On top of that there is the $1 million reward, they can get some comfort from that and they will also be able to be protected.
“Even though we need to keep an open mind, and we always do, the reality in this case is the evidence is indicative that the answer will come from within the family.
“That’s why we are making this final appeal to the family.”
According to the inquest documents, Vince Zangari’s younger brother Joe initially told police he had gone to bed before his uncle Salvatore “Sam” Rotiroti was murdered about 10.25pm.
But in a statement to police three weeks after the murder the then 18-year-old admitted he lied in his first statement.
“I am now going to tell the truth about what happened the night Uncle Sammy was killed,” Joe Zangari told police.
“I didn’t tell the truth the first time because I didn’t want to get my brother, Vince Zangari, into trouble.
“At about 11pm (the murder happened about 35 minutes earlier) my mum came to my bedroom door and knocked and said Vince wanted me on the phone.
“I got up out of bed and I went to the phone. Vince said ‘Joe, pick me up, quick, I’m outside the table tennis centre in Church St (Geelong)’.
“I said ‘what’s up, what’s wrong?’ and he said ‘quick, hurry and bring me a shirt, pants and shoes.
“I grabbed a white shirt, a pair of white pants and a pair of white shoes.
“I drove along Church St to the table tennis centre and I saw Vince standing on the corner. This would have been about 11.10pm.
“Vince came over and opened the door and got in and said ‘quick, quick, drive somewhere quiet’. I started driving and said ‘what for?’ He said, ‘don’t worry, just drive’.
“I said ‘why, what’s happened?’. He said, ‘we got into a fight and the cops came … I made a run for it. I’ve got to get rid of these clothes. Take me somewhere where there’s no one around’.
“I said, ‘what’s wrong with my clothes (Vince often wore Joe’s clothes and was on the night of the murder)?’ He said, ‘they’re all stained’.
“I said, ‘you don’t have to throw them out, they’re my clothes’. He said, ‘don’t worry, I’ll buy you new ones’.
“While this conversation was going on I was driving to the Geelong Botanical Gardens. “When we drove through the park Vince was sitting in the front passenger seat getting changed out of the stained clothes.
“As I was driving along Vince said, ‘no, go somewhere else quiet, where I can dump the clothes’.
“I then drove to the Isola Bianca pizza restaurant, which is situated at 11 Ormond Rd, East Geelong. I work casual work at the Isola Bianca restaurant as a pizza maker.”
Joe Zangari told police he took the clothes and shoes off Vince and put them in the rubbish bin at the back of the restaurant and he and his brother then drove home, arriving about 11.30pm on September 5, 1988.
“I fell asleep pretty well straight away,” he told police.
“At about 1.30am, I was woken up by a lot of people yelling and screaming outside.
“When I heard Uncle Sammy had been killed I didn’t know what to think. I thought that Vince, my brother, had killed Uncle Sammy.
“I didn’t say anything to Vince because all the family were around. I stayed up with everyone until about 2.30pm when I went back to bed.”
Joe Zangari told police that just a few hours later, about 7.45am the morning after the murder, Vince knocked on his bedroom door.
“I got up and unlocked the door and he said ‘come on, quick, we have got to get rid of those clothes’,” Joe Zangari told police in his September 28, 1988, statement.
“About 8am Vince and I left home to go to the restaurant to get the clothes.
“I was driving my car and on the way to the restaurant I said ‘you really had a fight did you? Listen don’t lie, look I know what you did’.
“Vince said ‘look, don’t worry, I didn’t do nothing all right’. I didn’t believe Vince at all.
“We arrived at the Isola Blanca restaurant and Vince got out of the car, walked over to the box, the rubbish box, and he got the pants, windcheater and shoes. Vince brought a white plastic shopping bag with him from home.
“He put the clothing and shoes into the bag before he got back into the car.”
Joe Zangari told police his brother told him to drive to a friend’s house.
“We arrived there about 8.20am and Vince got out of the car and walked to the front door.
“He took the white plastic bag with the clothes in it with him. Vince walked inside the house and the front door was closed.
“Vince was there for about five minutes and then he came back outside, got into the car and I said ‘did you give them to him?’ He said ‘yep let’s go’. I just drove home after that.”
Joe Zangari made another statement to police the day after making the first statement in which he said he believed his brother Vince murdered their uncle.
In that later statement he said his mother had told Vince he had been speaking to police about Vince.
He told police he was in his car when he saw Vince driving their father’s Holden.
“I was shocked that I saw him and he was pointing his finger at me and shouted something like ‘bastard’. He was driving behind me, following me,” Joe Zangari told police in his September 29, 1988 statement.
“I wanted to ring the police and I did from outside a milk bar. I am afraid of Vince that he may be violent to me or anyone who says anything against him or about this matter.”
Two months later, on November 23, 1988, Joe Zangari made yet another statement to police in which he gave an account that matched what his brother had told police, which was that the clothes he was wearing on the night of the murder were damaged when he was attacked by a dog and fell in a puddle and that he had burnt them so his mother wouldn’t find out he had damaged the clothes and get upset with him.
And far from accusing Vince of the murder, as he did in his earlier statements, Joe Zangari told police in his latest statement that “my brother Vince was very close to his Uncle Sam Rotiroti. As far as I know they had an excellent relationship”.
Vince Zangari was charged on September 29, 1988, with the murder of his uncle Salvatore Rotiroti.
Aged 21 at the time and then living with his family in Geelong, he was released on bail in December that year.
The murder charge was dropped in October 1989, after a number of witnesses who had implicated Mr Zangari withdrew or changed their statements. He has since moved to Sydney and changed his name.
In October 1989, Geelong coroner Ian Von Einem returned an open finding on the death of Salvatore Rotiroti, saying he was unable to establish who contributed to it.
Mr Von Einem said he was not convinced of the honesty of the evidence given by some members of the immediate Rotiroti family.
He said he accepted a statement from the murder victim’s son Vince Rotiroti, but questioned those of other family members.
The inquest heard murder charges against Salvatore Rotiroti’s nephew, Vince Zangari, had been discontinued shortly before the coroner handed down his 1989 finding.
Mr Von Einem said although the charges against Mr Zangari had been withdrawn he found Mr Zangari had given an “untruthful” account of the situation.
“There was a lot of innuendo and suspicion, but there was no direct evidence to suggest who was at the scene,” the coroner said.
The case carries a $1 million reward and anyone with information about the murder of Salvatore Rotiroti should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report at www.crimestoppers.com.au
Elite squad to track elusive murderer and cold case fugitive
It’s been almost a year since a confirmed sighting of one of Queensland’s most wanted men, cold case fugitive and convicted murderer Keith Lees, and police are stepping up the hunt.
‘Last ray of hope’ snuffed out with no charges over crayfish farm shooting
The family of a young scientist shot dead while working at a crayfish farm say they lost their “last ray of hope” after an inquest failed to result in charges against two people named by a coroner.