September 25th, 1959. Queens, New York. Near LaGuardia Airport. On a quiet stretch around 94th Street and 24th Avenue, a black Cadillac sat with its motor still running. Inside were two bodies. Anthony Little Orano was slumped behind the wheel, blood soaking into his expensive suit. Beside him was Janice Drake, a former Miss New Jersey model, dancer, wife, and mother.
She had a bullet wound in her temple and another in her neck. She wasn’t a mafia boss. She wasn’t a racketeer. She wasn’t supposed to be part of that war, but that night she was sitting next to a man the mob wanted erased. Janice Drake was not another gangster casualty. That’s what makes this story different.
She had lived in front of cameras, on stages, in nightclubs, and in the orbit of show business. She had been admired for her looks, her charm, and her social confidence. But in New York’s 1950s nightife, glamour and organized crime often breathed the same cigarette smoke. The coper, Marinos, late dinners, big spenders, men with nicknames, men with drivers, men who smiled like gentlemen, and settled business with bullets.
This is the story of how a woman with no official connection to organized crime ended up dying in one of the most ruthless mafia hits of the Genevese power struggle. It is the story of Anthony Kafano, a forgotten old-timer who built a gambling empire in Florida, backed Frank Costello, insulted Veto Genevves, and paid the final price.
But more than that, this is the story of Janice Drake, a woman who went out for dinner, got into the wrong car, and never made it home. But here’s the part people miss. Janice Drake was not killed because she knew too much in the simple movie version of the story. She was killed because in the mafia world, witnesses are not people.
They are problems. And on that night, the men behind the hit decided one problem in the Cadillac was dangerous. Two problems could not be allowed to live. To understand why Janice died, you have to understand the world she stepped into. New York in the 1950s was not just bright signs, supper clubs, and television comedians.
Underneath the polished surface was a city quietly controlled by men who understood fear better than politics. They controlled garment trucking, docks, gambling rooms, nightclubs, vending machines, jukeboxes, labor unions, and loans that could never truly be paid back. The mob didn’t always look like violence.
Most nights, it looked like a good table at a restaurant. It looked like a man in a tailored suit sending over champagne. It looked like cash tips, quiet introductions, and favors that sounded harmless until the bill came due. Janice Drake moved through that world because show business moved through it, too. She was beautiful, sociable, and comfortable around powerful men.
She had been Miss New Jersey in 1944. She had worked as a dancer and model. She married comedian Alan Drake, a man who performed in nightclubs and on television. By 1959, Alan was often traveling for work. Janice had a young son, Michael, waiting at home in Queens. She was not a mob wife. She was not a criminal partner.
But she knew men who belonged to that world. And this matters because Janice had already been near danger before. In October 1957, Albert Anastasia, the feared boss known as the Lord High Executioner, was murdered in a barber chair at the Park Sheran Hotel in Manhattan. The hit became one of the most famous gangland executions in American history.
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Anastasia sat under a hot towel, vulnerable and unarmed, when gunmen walked in and opened fire. Janice Drake had reportedly dined with Anastasia not long before his murder, and police questioned her afterward. Then there was Nathan Nelson, a garment district figure who was also found murdered. Reports linked Janice to him socially as well.
You have to be careful here. Being seen with dangerous men does not make a woman responsible for their lives or deaths. But to police and reporters in 1959, it made Janice a name. She became one of those figures who floated at the edge of mob history. Not a boss, not a shooter, not a conspirator, but always close enough that detectives wanted to ask questions.
That is the tragic pattern. Janice did not need to be guilty of anything to be endangered. In that world, proximity alone could become a death sentence. Anthony Carfano understood that world better than almost anyone. Kanano, known as Little Orgie Pasano, was an old school New York gangster. He was short, sharp, neatly dressed, and already in his 60s when he died.
Some sources list him as 61. Others place him at 63. That disagreement tells you something about the era. These men lived behind aliases, false documents, and public silence. even their ages could become slippery. Carano came up in the prohibition years when alcohol turned street thugs into millionaires.
He moved in the circles of Frankie Yale, Joe Maseria, Lucky Luchiano, Frank Costello, Joe Adonis, and the early architects of the modern American mafia. These were not neighborhood tough guys anymore. These were businessmen of violence. They took old ethnic street gangs and shaped them into a national criminal system. Kfano’s first real education was the bootlegging economy. The opportunity was simple.
Alcohol was illegal, but demand never disappeared. The inside connection was everyone who could be bought. Dock workers, truck drivers, cops, bartenders, warehouse men. The execution was practical. Bring liquor in, store it, move it at night, protect the route, pay who needed paying. The money was enormous because the law created scarcity.
A bottle that cost a few dollars to produce could be sold for many times that price in a speak easy. The problem was that everyone wanted the same route, the same docks, the same police protection. That is why prohibition made money, but it also made bodies. By the 1930s, Kano had become more than muscle. He was trusted. He was useful.
He had connections in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and later Florida. When the old Maseria world collapsed and Luchiano’s organization rose, Kafano survived. That survival was not an accident. In the mafia, surviving a regime change is a skill. It means you know when to speak, when to stay quiet, and when to make yourself too valuable to kill.
For years, Carfano was tied to Frank Costello’s side of the underworld. Costello was not a wild street boss. He was political, polished, and careful. He liked judges, fixers, gamblers, and quiet power. If Genevvesi represented fear, Costello represented influence. Carfano fit into that system. He could earn. He could manage gambling.
He could operate in places where a loud killer would have been bad for business. That is why Florida mattered. In the late 1930s and 1940s, South Florida became one of the great open money zones for organized crime. Miami and Miami Beach were full of tourists, hotels, wealthy visitors, and law enforcement that could be softened with cash.
The opportunity was gambling. Tourists wanted action. Locals wanted nightife. Politicians wanted money flowing into hotels. The inside connection was the hotel business, casino operators, police protection, and national mob backing. The execution was layered. Legal hotels in front, illegal gambling rooms behind, bookmaking networks feeding cash into the same machine.
The money came from volume. Small bets, large bets, hotel rooms, restaurant tabs, liquor, women, markers, debts. The problem was territory. Florida looked open, but no profitable territory stays truly open for long. Myansky understood that better than anyone. Lansky saw Miami as a gambling market, not just a vacation city.
He pushed the idea that Miami should be an open city, meaning multiple crime families could operate there without one boss claiming total control. On paper, that prevented war. In reality, it created quiet tension. Everyone could come in, but everyone still wanted the best rooms, the best protection, and the biggest cut. Carano built serious money there.
Reports describe his gambling interests as worth millions. That is not a small detail. In the mob, murder often gets explained with insult, disrespect, or revenge. But follow the money, and the picture gets clearer. A man with a multi-million dollar gambling network is not just a man. He is a revenue stream.
If he dies, someone else collects. By 1957, the entire balance of power in New York was shifting. Frank Costello had survived for years because he understood political influence. But Veto Genevves wanted the throne. Genevves was ambitious, impatient, and old school in the most dangerous way. He believed power should be recognized openly.
Costello was in his way. On May 2nd, 1957, Costello walked into the lobby of his apartment building at 115 Central Park West. A gunman, widely identified as Vincent the Chin Gigante, stepped out and fired. Costello turned his head at the last instant. The bullet grazed his scalp instead of entering his skull.
Costello survived, but the message was clear. Veto Genevvesi wanted him gone. That moment changed everything for Carano. Kanano had been a Costello loyalist. He had prospered under Costello. He was tied to that older political wing of the Luchiano family. After the attempted hit, Genevvesi began consolidating power.
Men had to show loyalty. They had to attend meetings. They had to bend the knee without saying those words out loud. Kafano did not do that well. Some accounts say he refused to attend Genevves meetings. Others say he openly showed contempt for the new boss. There are also theories that his Florida and possible Cuba ambitions threatened interests connected to Lansky and the Genevese faction.
The exact motive is disputed, but the pattern is not. Carano was an old Costello man with money, ego, and independence. In Vto Genevves’s world, that was a bad combination. Here’s where it gets interesting. The mafia sells itself as a brotherhood. Men kiss cheeks. They call each other compare. They talk about honor.
But when leadership changes, loyalty becomes evidence. If you were loyal to the wrong man yesterday, you become suspicious today. Kfano had survived prohibition, maseria, Luciano, and decades of mob politics. But by 1959, he had a new problem. He was rich, visible, and out of step with the boss who wanted obedience. The machinery of a mob hit is never as cinematic as people think.
It is usually not a random ambush by strangers. It is a social trap. The opportunity was Kanano’s routine. He liked good restaurants, good nightclubs, and familiar company. The inside connection was trust. If a known mob figure invited him to dinner, he might go. The execution required timing. Keep him relaxed, get him into his own car, control who is with him, move him to a quiet location, shoot before he can react.
The money was not a bag of cash handed over in an alley. The real money was what came afterward. gambling interests, Florida influence, the removal of a rival, and a warning to every other Costello loyalist. The problem was Janice Drake. On the night of September 25th, 1959, Carfano went out in Manhattan. Reports place him at the Copa Cabana nightclub earlier that evening.
The Copa was not just entertainment. It was a crossroads. Celebrities, comedians, singers, wealthy businessmen, and mobsters all shared the same air. That night, Janice Drake was also in that social orbit. Later, Kfano went to Marino’s restaurant. Depending on the source, he was there for supper, a meeting, or a social stop that became something more dangerous.
Anthony Tony Bender Stro, a Genevese captain, is often named in accounts as part of the setup. Stro was not a small player. He was trusted by Genevves and dangerous enough that his name still hangs around unsolved mob business from that period. At Marinos, Janice Drake was among the people Carfano encountered. She was dressed for a night out.
One report describes her wearing a stone Martin stole. Her husband, Alan Drake, was away working a nightclub engagement. Her son was at home in Queens and Carano offered to drive her home. Think about how ordinary that sounds. A ride home, a late dinner, a Cadillac, a city where important men often played chauffeur when they wanted to appear gallant.
There is nothing in that moment that tells Janice she is stepping into an execution chamber. But that’s not the crazy part. According to some accounts, Carfano received a phone call during the evening. After that call, he said he had urgent business and left with Janice. Some police theories later suggested that the call may have been a warning from Frank Costello.
Others believe it was part of the trap. There is no clean courtroom answer. No confession that solved it neatly. No tidy final page. What we do know is this. Carfano and Janice left Manhattan in his black Cadillac. They did not make it to her home. They did not make it to Miami. They did not make it out of Queens alive.
There are multiple versions of the killing. One theory says gunmen were already hidden in the backseat of the Cadillac. that would mean the trap had been prepared before Carfano ever turned the key. Another theory suggests the killers intercepted the car near LaGuardia and forced it to stop. Either way, the result was brutally efficient.
At around 10:30 that night, roughly 45 minutes after Carfano and Janice left Manhattan, the Cadillac was found in Queens near LaGuardia Airport. The motor was still running. Carfano was dead behind the wheel. Janice was dead beside him. Both had been shot in the head. Reports describe additional wounds, including shots to Janice’s temple and neck and several wounds to Kano’s head.
That detail matters. This was not a robbery. It was not panic. It was not a lover’s quarrel. It was controlled violence. The kind meant to end a person and send a message. The forensic truth of a mob hit often sits in the small details. the running engine, the bodies still in the front seat, the location away from the glamour of Manhattan, the speed of the discovery, the absence of a surviving witness, the fact that the woman beside him was killed, too.
That last detail tells you the killers were not improvising morality. They were removing risk. Janice became collateral damage, but that phrase is too clean. Collateral damage sounds like something that happens by accident. Janice was not hit by a stray bullet in a crowded room. She was shot at close range because the men who killed Carano would not leave behind someone who had seen faces, heard voices, or understood the route.
And that is the ugliest truth in this story. The mafia did not kill only enemies. It killed inconvenience. After the bodies were found, the press moved fast. A dead mobster and a dead beauty queen was the kind of story New York tabloids could not resist. The contrast was irresistible. Little Orgie, the old rakateeer.
Janice Drake, the blonde former Miss New Jersey. A black Cadillac. A quiet Queen’s street. A marriage. A nightclub comedian husband, a young son at home. But the coverage also turned Janice into a symbol. And sometimes symbols flatten people. She was not just the girl in the car. She was a person who had lived a life before that night.
She had won beauty titles, performed, married, raised a child, and moved through a world that rewarded charm but punished misjudgment. She may have liked powerful company. She may have enjoyed the protection and excitement that came with men like Carfano, but none of that makes her death less tragic. It makes the lesson sharper.
The mob world was attractive because it borrowed glamour from everyone around it. It sat near singers, dancers, comics, athletes, politicians, and models. It wanted the shine of legitimate society. But underneath that borrowed glamour was a system that could turn a dinner invitation into a death warrant. Law enforcement had theories. Veto Genevvesi was the obvious shadow over the killing. He had motive.
Kanano had been aligned with Frank Costello. Kanano had money in Florida. Kano did not appear eager to submit. Stro’s name appears in many accounts as the man who helped arrange the end, but no one was convicted for the murder. The case became another mob killing where everyone knew the shape of the truth. But the legal record never fully caught up. That is another insider truth.
The mafia survived for so long, not because it left no clues, but because clues are not always enough. Witnesses disappear. People refuse to talk. Detectives know names they cannot prove. Prosecutors need evidence that can survive a courtroom. The street can say Genevies. The file can say unsolved. And then, like so many mob stories, the men around the murder started falling too.
Veto Genevves did not enjoy a clean victory for long. In 1959, the same year Carfano died, Genevves was convicted in a narcotics case and sentenced to 15 years in prison. There has always been debate around that case. Some historians and law enforcement veterans believed Genevves may have been set up by rivals who wanted him removed.
Whether that theory is true or not, the result was real. Genevies wanted the throne and he got a prison cell. Tony Bender Strolo also vanished from the underworld. In April 1962, he left his home and was never seen again. His body was never recovered. Some accounts suggest Genevies ordered him killed because he suspected betrayal.
Others point to the same endless cycle of distrust that consumed so many men in that life. Stro had helped remove problems. Then he became one. That is the pattern. The mafia teaches men to solve fear with murder. But every murder creates more fear. Every body produces another suspicion. Every secret becomes leverage.
Every loyal soldier eventually wonders if loyalty is enough. Karfano’s death also showed the end of an era. The old Costello world of political protection, gambling elegance, and quiet influence was giving way to a harder Genevese order. The suits remained, the restaurants remained, the nicknames remained, but the violence underneath became more direct.
The message was not subtle. Old loyalty would not protect you. Money would not protect you. Age would not protect you. And if an innocent woman happened to be in the passenger seat, innocence would not protect her either. What happened to Janice’s family after that night is the part the mob stories usually rush past. Alan Drake had to identify and bury his wife under the glare of reporters.
Her son had to grow up with a mother remembered not for her full life but for the car where she died. That is what organized crime does beyond the headlines. It leaves people behind to carry the weight. A mobster dies and people talk about power. A woman dies and people talk about scandal. A child loses his mother and the world moves on.
The public lesson in 1959 was simple. Stay away from gangsters. But the deeper lesson is more uncomfortable. Organized crime has always depended on the cooperation, silence, fascination, and denial of the legitimate world. Nightclubs welcomed mob money. Politicians took favors. Businessmen accepted protection.
Newspapers sold the glamour. Ordinary people watched from a distance and pretended the violence belonged only to those who chose it. Then Janice Drake ends up dead in a Cadillac and the lie collapses. Because the mafia’s violence does not stay inside mafia boundaries, it leaks. It reaches drivers, waiters, girlfriends, wives, children, clerks, witnesses, neighbors, and strangers who happen to be standing too close when the bill comes due.
The mob likes to say it only kills its own. History says otherwise. Janice Drake’s story matters because it strips away the romance. There is no honor in a passenger seat execution. No code in killing a woman who wanted a ride home. No loyalty in a system where yesterday’s friend becomes tonight’s target.
Kanano had spent decades in that life. He knew the rules. He helped profit from them. But Janice was not a captain, not a bookmaker, not a racketeer. She was a reminder that the mafia’s rules were never rules at all. They were excuses. By the end, Anthony Carfano lost everything he had spent a lifetime building. His Florida gambling power, his costello connections, his reputation as a survivor.
