Oct. 16, 1963 - Protected by dozens of federal marshal and cops toting submachine guns, shotguns, rifles, and binoculars, Joseph Valachi, the Cosa Nostra historian, talked for 75 minutes today before a Queens grand jury. His chief topic was the gangland assassination four years ago of Anthony (Little Augie PIsano) Carfano and his blonde companion, Janice Drake. Valachi’s “new evidence has opened up many leads” in the double killing, Queens D.A. Frank O’Connor later reported, and the authorities are now able “to follow up information which we did not have four years ago when the shootings took place.” “He has a fantastic memory,” O’Connor said. Earlier this month, Frank Casino, an underworld figure suspected of having knowledge of the Pisano murder, was arrested. Casino was named in information given to the Justice Department by Valachi as being the “finger man” who had lured Pisano to a hotel a short time before he was killed. Valachi was reported last week to have told the Justice Department that Pisano was killed on orders of Vito Genovese, a syndicate leader now serving a jail sentence.
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