A plastic bag held the key to cracking a 30-year-old murder case of a professional gambler in Massachusetts, as reported by Fox News.
A fingerprint left on a plastic bag used to suffocate the murder victim 30 years ago matched a mafia enforcer named Kevin Hanrahan, Massachusetts State Police Unresolved Cases Unit and the the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office’s Cold Case Unit announced, according to Fox News. State and local authorities solicited the help of the FBI to match the print.
It’s that plastic bag that led detectives to one of the perpetrators 30 years later.@BristolDA re-opened the cold case last year & matched fingerprints to notorious violent criminal Kevin Hanrahan. Hanrahan was killed in 1992, but the DA thinks others are involved. @ABC6 pic.twitter.com/LTipBBjBB5
— Amanda Pitts (@APittsABC6) March 8, 2021
Hanrahan was shot to death just a year after committing this crime in 1992, and was known as a freelance enforcer for the Patriarca crime family, The Taunton Daily Gazette reported.
The 53-year-old gambler, Howard Ferrini, was suffocated using a plastic bag in August of 1991, the Gazette reported. A week after Ferrini went missing, his body was found in the trunk of a car parked on the fourth level of a parking garage at Logan International Airport in Boston with the plastic bag still tied around his head, the Gazette reported.
53 y/o Howard Ferrini was last seen alive at the Raynham dog track on August 14, 1991. Ferrini, a professional gambler, was found dead a week later in the trunk of his car at Logan airport with head injuries from a hammer and a plastic bag tied around his head. @ABC6 pic.twitter.com/c3kfCNUmK7
— Amanda Pitts (@APittsABC6) March 8, 2021
At Ferrini’s house, investigators found trace amounts of blood in the kitchen in 1991, the Gazette reported. Police theorized that Ferrini had been killed at his home, and his body was dumped at Logan Airport after the fact.
The autopsy revealed that Ferrini had died of asphyxiation, and had sustained head injuries most likely caused by two blows dealt with a hammer, as reported by Fox News. Investigators believe Hanrahan had help, and that at least two attackers participated in the murder, according to the Gazette. (RELATED: Feds Indict 15 Members And Associates Of Philadelphia Mafia)
“These are some of the worst cases we see, and many families have waited for years hoping for answers and some measure of justice,” a statement from District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III read, according to Mass Live. “It is never too late to do the right thing. We hope that anyone with this information will finally decide to break that silence by coming forward,” Quinn went on to say.