On June 28, 1978, five bodies were found in the blood splattered basement of the Blackfriars Pub on Summer Street in Boston. The gangland-style killing would be known as the “Blackfriars Massacre.” The Suffolk County District Attorney said he “had never witnessed a more shocking crime.” Among the dead were club manager John (Jack) Kelly, a former radio and investigative TV reporter who was known to associate with members of organized crime. Also killed were Charles Magarian, Peter Meroth, Freddie Delavega, and Vincent Solmonte, the club’s owner. The victims were found shot in the head with either a .12 gauge shotgun, or a .25 caliber automatic or both — it was believed that there were two shooters. In 1979, Robert J. Italiano and William N. Ierardi were acquitted of the murder. They were the only suspects tried for this unsolved crime. — Leanne Burden Seidel
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George Rizer/Globe Staff
June 28, 1978: Boston police secured the scene outside 105 Summer St., where five men were found shot to death huddled together on the basement floor of the Blackfriars Pub. A law enforcement official said all five victims apparently had been shot in the head with a shotgun. "There was blood all over the place. All I could think of was the Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago," he said.
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Associated Press
June 28, 1978: Boston police watched as as one of the Blackfriars victims was loaded into the medical examiner's station wagon. The victims were identified as Vincent E. Solmonte, 35, of Quincy; John A. (Jack) Kelly, 34, of Framingham; Peter F. Meroth, 31, of Jamaica Plain; Freddy R. Delavega, 34, of Somerville, and Charles G. Magarian, 36 of North Andover.
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George Rizer/Globe Staff
June 28, 1978: Curious employees in the Blue Cross office building at 100 Summer St. look down at the scene of the murders of five men in the Blackfriars Pub basement. The bodies were found by Jerry Robinson, a night cleaner shortly after 7 a.m. The Boston Globe reached him by phone only minutes after he had made the grim discovery and called police. "The only one alive here is me," Robinson told the Globe. "They're all dead! There are five bodies on the floor of the office." Boston homicide detectives remained in the establishment for several hours and it was not until close to 11 a.m. before the last of the five bodies was taken from the building and transported to the mortuary.
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George Rizer/Globe Staff
June 28, 1978: Boston Deputy Superintendent John Barry, in plain clothes, listened as Boston Detective Lieutenant Jerome McCallum spoke to reporters at a press conference outside the Blackfriars Pub where the five bodies had been found that morning. The FBI's Organized Crime Squad had been investigating Solmonte and the Blackfriars, and among the investigators was now-disgraced FBI Agent John Connolly, presently serving time in Florida for his role as FBI informant to Bulger in the 1982 murder of John Callahan, a crooked business partner of Bulger's.
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Janet Knott/Globe Staff
March 12, 1979: A court officer stood guard in the main upstairs room of the Blackfriars Pub, while the jury toured the downstairs where the five men were slain. The jury of nine men and three women were ultimately sequestered for a month at the Holiday Inn in Somerville. This first day of the trial they were taken to see the murder scene. On April 9, after about seven hours of deliberation, they returned a not-guilty verdict for the defendants William Ierardi and Robert Italiano.
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Rachel Ritchie/Boston Globe Archive
April 9, 1979: Robert J. Italiano left the Charles Street Jail, as he and William N. Ierardi were acquitted on all indictments charging them with first-degree murder. Italiano, 36, of Everett said he never doubted the jury would find him innocent of the Blackfriars Pub murders. "I was innocent," he said, "I'm going home to rest for a while." No one was ever convicted for the murders.
