John Favara

John Favara was a furniture-store manager who lived in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens, New York, a few doors from the family of John Gotti, then a rising figure in the Gambino crime family. In March 1980, Favara was driving when 12-year-old Frank Gotti darted into the street on a minibike; Favara struck and killed the boy in what authorities determined was an accident, as the child had ridden out from behind a dumpster.

Although the death was ruled accidental and no charges were filed, Favara received threats in the following months. Reports described a woman, believed to be Gotti's wife, confronting him, and the word 'murderer' being spray-painted on his car. Friends urged him to move away, and he reportedly made plans to do so, but he remained in the area longer than many thought wise.

On July 28, 1980, Favara left his workplace and vanished. Witnesses reportedly saw him being attacked and forced into a vehicle. He was never seen again, and his body was never recovered. The timing—while John and Victoria Gotti were conveniently out of town—and the surrounding circumstances led investigators and observers to conclude that Favara had been abducted and murdered in retaliation for Frank Gotti's death.

No one was ever charged with Favara's disappearance. Over the years, accounts from mob informants offered gruesome claims about how he was killed and disposed of, and his presumed murder became part of the lore surrounding John Gotti's rise to power. Gotti, who later became boss of the Gambino family before his imprisonment, denied involvement.

The disappearance of John Favara officially remains unsolved, as no body was found and no prosecution ever took place. It is nonetheless widely regarded as a mob killing, a stark example of retaliation, and one of the episodes most often cited in accounts of Gotti's ruthless reputation.

Twelve-year-old Frank Gotti had ridden a motorized minibike into the path of Favara's car in March 1980; witnesses and investigators concluded the boy could not have been avoided, and no charges were filed. In the weeks that followed, Favara's car was stolen and returned, the word 'murderer' was scrawled across it, and he received menacing messages, yet he reportedly dismissed friends' warnings to leave the area. When he vanished on July 28, 1980, John and Victoria Gotti were in Florida, an absence widely seen as a deliberate alibi. Years later, organized-crime informants offered accounts of how Favara was ambushed and killed, but none produced charges before John Gotti died in federal prison in 2002.