Jimmy’s Ghosts
A Goodfellas: The Last Man Standing Series Post
Years ago, while researching another Lucchese crime family story from the early 1980s, I stumbled on a rumor—one that refused to die. It claimed that a made man from Paul Vario’s crew had vanished with most of the jewelry from the 1978 Lufthansa Heist. Over $750,000 of the roughly $875,000 in stolen jewels never surfaced—at least not officially. From time to time, pieces would show up in private collections, pawn shops, and police seizures, usually in Florida.
For years, I brushed it off—a mob fairy tale. But every time I chased another story, I’d ask around, half-joking, half-hopeful. And the rumor grew teeth. Now, three years later, I’ve confirmed it’s true.
This series, Goodfellas: The Last Man Standing, is my investigation into the man who outlived Jimmy Burke’s bloody cleanup, the Lufthansa loot, and every cop who chased the case. It’s the story of one man who survived—and the secrets he kept hidden all these years.
Jimmy’s Ghosts
It took me five days in South Florida to do what the FBI and local police never could: identify and track down the man who sold the jewelry from the Lufthansa Heist. Five days of dead ends, suspicious glances, and the sense that I was chasing a ghost through decades of silence, but the hard worked paid off.
Day one began at a small pawn shop tucked between a liquor store and a barbershop on a sleepy stretch of US-1. The sign above the door had been updated in the last decade, but the iron security bars on the windows spoke of a time when things weren’t so safe.
Inside, the air smelled of old leather and the scent metal gives off after years of neglect. Like a classic car that’s been in a garage for years. That sort of smell. Anyway, the manager—a man with sharp features and a Mediterranean complexion—greeted me from behind the counter. His silver chain glinted beneath his open-collar shirt, and he spoke with a subtle accent I couldn’t place at first.
I introduced myself as a journalist working on a piece about the Lufthansa Heist and the missing jewelry. His eyes narrowed. He knew what I was referring to.
“You mean the one from the seventies?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I heard this shop handled a piece back in the nineties—a platinum ring or something. Would that have been you?”
He shook his head. “No, that would’ve been my father’s time. He ran this place before me—he’s retired now.”
“Is he still around?” I asked.
The man hesitated, then pulled out his phone. After a brief conversation in Italian—filled with laughter and rapid exchanges—he handed me a slip of paper with an address and a time. “He said he’ll see you tonight,” he said.
That evening, I found myself at a modest stucco home a few blocks away. A small statue of the Virgin Mary stood near the steps, its paint faded from the Florida sun. The door swung open to reveal a man in his seventies, with a thick head of white hair combed neatly back and a black button-down shirt open at the collar, revealing a thin gold chain around his neck. His accent was thick, unmistakably Italian.
He gestured for me to follow him inside. The home smelled faintly of garlic and coffee—old-world comforts. We made our way through a narrow hallway lined with family photos—black-and-white wedding portraits, snapshots of kids at the beach, even a few pictures from Italy—and into a small home office. A wooden crucifix hung above his desk, and a small table lamp cast a warm glow on a stack of worn ledgers and receipts. As we got to know each other a little, his wife occasionally called to him from the kitchen in rapid-fire Italian, her voice a soft background hum.
On the wall behind his desk hung a framed original of the 1994 New York Post article that I found online while researching the heist some months back. It’s what turned me onto the pawnshop to begin with. It was sort of weird to see it in real life. The headline screamed of stolen treasure found in the unlikeliest of places, meaning the pawnshop this old man worked. The frame itself was unique—a rough, handcrafted oak border with brass corners, each etched with tiny fleur-de-lis symbols. I paused, taking it in, and he caught me staring.
“My cousin from Italy made that,” he said proudly, his eyes lighting up. “He’s a carpenter. Real craftsman. Used to make everything by hand—tables, cabinets, even beds. He sent this to me years ago.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “A real conversation piece.”
He smiled, a flicker of pride in his eyes. “Every time I look at it, I think about the day the FBI came in the shop.”
“Tell me about it.” I asked.
He settled into his chair with a sigh, as if the memory weighed on him. “A man came in—early forties, I’d say. Italian. Dark hair, little bit of gray at the temples. Wore a windbreaker—navy, I think. He was polite, respectful. Said he had a piece of jewelry from his grandmother—family piece, he called it. Platinum, diamonds—beautiful piece. Old style, real craftsmanship. I bought it. Paid him cash. It wasn’t cheap I tell you, but I had to have it.”
“Did he seem nervous?” I asked.
The old man rubbed his chin. “Not really. He was calm. Said he needed the money for some medical bills. I remember that—he kept talking about how his mother was sick, needed medicine. People come in there all the time with stories like that.”
“Did he give you a name?”
He furrowed his brow, staring at the wall for a long moment. “Anthony, I think. That’s what I wrote on the ticket. But it’s been so many years.”
I flipped open my notebook. “And then?”
He shrugged. “A few months later, the FBI comes in, flashes their badges. Says it’s from the Lufthansa Heist. They took it. Never paid me back. I had paperwork, receipts. Showed them everything.” He waved a hand dismissively. “But that’s okay. It’s just business. Comes with the territory.”
His wife called out again, and he responded with a few quick words in Italian, his tone affectionate but tired.
“Did they ever ask you about the man who sold it?” I asked.
He leaned back, his face shadowed by the lamplight. “They asked, sure. I told them everything I could. Anthony, the address he gave, his story about his mother. But he was just another face. After all these years, I can’t even picture him.”
A few moments later the mans wife walked into the room with a tray of crackers and cheese. A real set up. We took a break from talking about the heist and instead talked sports. We talked about other things, too—his theories about the man’s involvement in the Lufthansa Heist, the murders of crew members who’d had a hand in it, and the rumors that still floated through the Florida air like smoke. After forty-five minutes, there wasn’t much more to say.
I smiled, thanked him for his time, and his wife for the food, but I doubt she understood what I said. I stepped out into the muggy night, headed back to my hotel to transcribe the notes from our meeting.
Police Leads
The next day, I headed to the local police station that covered the investigation years back. It was their job along with the Feds to dig into who might have sold the loot to the pawnshop. As I already knew, they landed on nothing, but I still filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get a look at the case file.
It was a thick stack of paperwork, yellowed and brittle at the edges, but it told a story the headlines never did. Among the pages was a short list of names—people the police had interviewed as persons of interest. Not suspects, but people who might have known something.
Harold Bennett — a neighbor whose blue four-door Oldsmobile Cutlass matched the vehicle description given by witnesses in the pawn shop the day of the sale.
Daniel and Mary Ellis — a married couple who lived at the address the man who sold the jewelry had given to the pawn shop.
Gertrude Miller — the woman who called in the jewelry after watching an episode of America’s Most Wanted and recognizing the jewelry in the pawn shop.
The reports detailed why each was interviewed. Harold Bennett had the bad luck of driving a similar car, but he’d been cleared—no suspicious ties, no connection to the jewelry.
Daniel and Mary Ellis had been contacted because the man who sold the jewelry gave their address as his own. They both denied knowing him and claimed they had nothing to do with the piece. The interview notes mentioned that they seemed genuinely confused, and that the man had probably used their address as a decoy. Laura Michaels, a renter in the basement of the Ellis home at the time, was equally confused.
Gertrude Miller who told police she didn’t know anything. She just saw the television episode and thought the ring at the pawn shop looked just like it. She just happened to be in the building a day or so after the pawnshop made the purchase hawking an old bracelet from a dead beat and also dead husband, or so I read. She wasn’t considered a suspect, and the file noted “no further action” beside her name.
Back at my hotel that night, I spread the notes across the bed and tried to piece together what I’d learned. Harold Bennett had died in 2015. Daniel Ellis was gone too—dead since 2009. But Mary Ellis was still alive.
A small lead, but a lead nonetheless.
The Big Break…Sort of
The next day, I called Mary Ellis. Her voice on the line was polite but cautious—she agreed to let me stop by for a quick conversation, “just to set the record straight,” she said.
Her house sat at the end of a quiet street lined with palm trees and cracked sidewalks. It was a modest single-story ranch with faded blue siding and a patchy lawn that needed mowing. A detached two-car garage stood off to the right, its paint peeling in the Florida sun.
I parked at the curb and made my way up the cracked sidewalk, passing a small basement window half-covered by overgrown grass. The side door was the main entrance, set a few steps up from the ground, with a storm door that rattled in the breeze.
As I reached the top step and raised my hand to knock, I noticed a movement below—a figure slipping out of a basement door that opened onto a small concrete walkway. It was the downstairs apartment, no doubt the one Laura Michaels had rented years ago. The figure, a woman, walked briskly toward the detached garage and disappeared inside.
A moment later, the side door opened just a crack. Mary Ellis stood behind it, her eyes wary.
“Mrs. Ellis,” I said, offering a smile. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me.”
She shook her head, her grip tightening on the door. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said, her voice firm but trembling. “I have nothing to say about what happened.”
“Can I ask why?” I tried to keep my tone gentle, non-threatening. “Even just to clarify what you told the police. It could really help me understand—”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “I don’t have anything to add. Please.”
As I stood there, the garage door rumbled to life. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the woman walk into the detached garage and climb into a small sedan parked closest to the door. As the car started, I couldn’t help but notice an old, late-1980s blue four-door Oldsmobile Cutlass sitting quietly in the second stall—its paint worn. It looked like it hadn’t moved in a long time, like a ghost from another time. Remember the smell? I guessed it probably smelled just like that, but I would never find out.
I turned back to Mary, who looked as though she’d been holding her breath. “If you ever change your mind,” I said, slipping my business card into the crack of the door, “I’d really like to talk.”
She closed the door without a word.
That night, back at the hotel, I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling, the day’s details rattling around in my head. The address the man, maybe called Anthony, who sold the jewelry had given the pawn shop. The Cutlass in the garage. The cautious way Mary spoke through a crack in the door.
I started to wonder: Could Daniel Ellis have been the elusive made man in the Vario crew—the one who’d vanished with the jewelry? But just as quickly as that theory took shape, my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
The caller ID was a Florida number I didn’t recognize.
I answered, and everything changed.
Next Friday, in Confessions from the Shadows, I sit down with the man himself—and nothing could have prepared me for what he told me.
