The victims were the tavern’s owner, 37-year-old Ronald Scharff, and barmaid Patricia Freeman, who had worked her shift at the bar the previous evening. For 27 years the murders remained unsolved. And then in 2008, Paul Scharff – Ron’s son – received a phone call that his former babysitter had read a book that she believed included a segment on Ron Scharff’s killing.

The investigation was reactivated, and a little over a year after receiving that call the Scharff and Freeman families obtained a degree of closure. Tonight Paul Scharff will take us through the events that resulted in the naming of the murderer of Ron Scharff and Patricia Freeman.

You can hear the show beginning at 9 pm Eastern at www.blogtalkradio.com/dennisngriffin.

One of the things he disclosed was the fact that another Vegas Mobster,  Larry Neumann, was most likely responsible for the unsolved double homicide of barkeeper Ronald Scharff and his waitress Patricia Freeman in  McHenry County, Illinois.  He gave great detail into why he thought this.

But McHenry County is 40 miles from Chicago, Mob central and who knows who was on the take.  But the Sheriff’s office never really went looking for Larry.  They talked to him, but that was about it.  Larry Neumann would later die of natural causes while in prison on another murder charge.

Fast forward almost thirty years later.  Frank Cullotta publishes his biography and in it talks about the murders.  This gets back to Paul Scharff, youngest son of Ronald Scharff.  With Frank’s help, he gets the case reopened.

After one year of new investigation work and help from Frank and other sources, the McHenery County Sheriffs office announced earlier this month that yes, they do believe that Larry Neumann is most likely the man who killed Paul’s father and his barmaid.

However, they stopped short of a definite “Yes”, due to the age of the case, lost files and the procedures of yesteryear are no match for the way cases are handled today. That, and the fact that the lead suspect is now deceased.  It’s as far as they can go. The Case is Closed.

So at least there is some closure for the families.  Not the way they would like it to be.  Yet it is more than they could have ever imagined had Frank Cullotta never published his life story.

Chicago News – Case Closed

The book Cullotta told me who killed my father 27 years ago, November 20, 2008
By Paul Scharff (McHenry, IL United States)

I have never written a review for a book before, but I never had a book IMPACT my life like this one. From the book Cullotta, I discovered who killed my father and his barmaid 27 years ago.

My name is Paul and I am the eldest son of Ronald Scharff. My father and Patricia Freeman were killed in Lakemoor, Illinois in 1981 by Larry Neumann. Neumann was one of Frank Cullotta’s Hole in the Wall Gang members that my father had the great misfortune of knowing; my father’s case in still officially unsolved.

Since reading the book, I have been working to get my father’s case closed with a considerable amount of help from Frank Cullotta himself and his co-author, Dennis Griffin. My family and I are deeply grateful for their help. Frank Cullotta has been the only one in the past 27 years that has tried to bring my family and the Freeman’s any kind of closure.

Please read this book to learn more about Larry Neumann and his ability to commit multiple murders. Your opinion on this man will help get this case closed. Visit my Facebook Group “McHenry County 1981″ to follow my continuing efforts to get closure in the Ronald Scharff and Patricia Freeman case.

Copy and Paste the link below into your browser to Visit my Facebook group “McHenry County 1981″

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?ref=mb#/group.php?gid=33678349794

Both are in CD form and ready for shipping…  Just in time for the holidays!!

Cullotta

From burglary to armed robbery and murder, infamous bad guy Frank Cullotta not only did it all, in Cullotta he admits to it and in graphic detail. This no-holds-barred biography chronicles the life of a career criminal who started out as a thug on the streets of Chicago and became a trusted lieutenant in Tony Spilotro’s gang of organized lawbreakers in Las Vegas. Cullotta’s was a world of high-profile heists, street muscle, and information lots of it about many of the FBI’s most wanted. In the end, that information was his ticket out of crime, as he turned government witness and became one of a handful of mob insiders to enter the Witness Protection Program.

Battle for Las Vegas

In the 1970s and thru the mid-1980s, the Chicago Outfit was the dominant organized crime family in Las Vegas, with business interests in several casinos. During those years the Outfit and its colleagues in Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Cleveland were using Sin City as a cash cow. Commonly referred to as the skim, unreported revenue from Outfit-controlled casinos was making its way out of Vegas by the bag full and ending up in the coffers of the crime bosses in those four locations. The skim involved large amounts of money. The operation had to be properly set up and well managed to ensure a smooth cash flow. To accomplish that goal, the gangsters brought in a front man with no criminal record to purchase several casinos. Allen R. Glick, doing business as the Argent Corporation (Allen R. Glick Enterprises) purchased the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina. They next installed Frank Lefty Rosenthal as their inside man, and the real boss of the casino operations. Rosenthal was a Chicago native and considered to be a genius when it came to odds-making and sports betting. Under Lefty s supervision the casino count rooms were accessible to mob.

Dennis Griffin’s new book, Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness, tells readers exactly what the book is about. Simply put, it takes readers inside the life of Frank Cullotta. Unite this tell all title with the mug shot on the cover, and I expected the book to be void of humor. It wasn’t. In fact, Mr. Griffin allowed Frank Cullotta’s colorful personality to shine throughout with astonishing candidness.

In the book’s forward, Nicholas Pileggi says an actual murder committed by Mr. Cullotta in 1979 was recreated for the movie, Casino, starring Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, and Joe Pesci. Also, Mr. Cullotta was hired as a technical advisor during the production. Knowing Joe Pesci’s character was based on the real-life mob-enforcer Anthony “Tony” Spilotro is the perfect opening for the book. Tony and Frank Cullotta were childhood friends and he plays a huge roll in Mr. Cullotta’s life.

Mr. Griffin’s easy, entertaining writing style will interest readers who aren’t true crime buffs as well. By the end of the book, I had greater comprehension regarding the mob; and my question about how much of The Sopranos was fictionalized had been answered.
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This book also gives readers raw insight into Frank Cullotta’s father, his childhood, early beginnings into crime, his success as a full-blown criminal, his time in prison, him trying to go straight, the set up at Bertha’s, witness protection and the end of Tony Spilotro and his brother, Michael. .

Mr. Griffin spent over 20 years in investigations and law enforcement in New York State, retiring in 1995 as Director of Investigations for the New York State Department of Health, Wadsworth Center. Shortly after retirement, he began to write his first novel, The Morgue, which is a fictionalize story of Mr. Griffin’s real life investigation of a Medical Examiner’s office in upstate New York by the New York State Department of Health.
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I enjoyed Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness so much, I plan to order The Morgue as well. (http://www.j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com)