Chicago Mafia Boss Vanished in 1963 — 60 Years Later, His Cadillac Is Found Buried Under a Speakeasy

Buried Boss

A demolition crew breaks concrete on Chicago’s South Side—and hits steel. Not a tank. Not a beam. Chrome. A headlight. Then, through a webbed windshield, a human skull. The Cadillac is black—or was. The bones in the driver’s seat tell one story; the bullet spiderwebs tell another. The name buried under eight feet of dirt and sixty years of silence? Andrew Michael Johnson. In 1963, he drove away. In 2023, the city dug him up.

This isn’t a legend. It’s a timeline. And it’s about the secrets cities keep until progress forces them to tell the truth.

1921–1933: Basement Bars And Watchful Eyes

Prohibition turns Chicago into a grid of hidden rooms and whispered passwords. In 1921, a four-story brick warehouse goes up on a corner lot. On paper: legitimate wholesale space. Underfoot: a narrow stairwell, a door, a look-out. Liquor flows in the dark while the 18th Amendment says it shouldn’t. The basement is a speakeasy—one of hundreds. There are boots on steps, signals at street level, raids that come and go, and a ledger that never mentions what the cash was for.

Prohibition ends in 1933. The speakeasy shutters—officially. The building switches costumes. Warehouse. Light manufacturing. Small offices. Then decades of decay. All perfectly ordinary. And none of it tells you what’s waiting eight feet below the concrete.

1956–1963: The Rise Of A South Side Power

Andrew Michael Johnson is born May 1915, near Chicago’s near west side—Italian immigrant neighborhood, name Americanized from Jordano to Johnson. He grows up bilingual. He grows up watching how power moves during Prohibition’s afterglow. At 18, he runs messages, collects debts, provides muscle. He learns when to be invisible. He learns when to be seen.

He rises: gambling operations, loan sharking, labor rackets, union leverage, extortion. In his 40s, he’s a capo—with a crew answering to him and him answering to the organization’s boss. He marries Rosa Martelli in 1942—romance reinforced by strategy. Two sons follow: Michael (1945), Anthony (1948). He buys a substantial two-story house in a good South Side neighborhood by 1956. He goes to church. He shakes hands at funerals. He pays for weddings. He owns a restaurant that legitimately serves excellent Italian food—and quietly launders cash. He has stakes in a dealership, a construction firm, a waste company. He wears a gold Rolex and a diamond ring. He wants to be recognized without being caught.

His adored car is a 1962 Cadillac Eldorado: long hood, tail fins, chrome that gleams like money. Expensive. Loud in status even when quiet at idle. In his world, the car isn’t just transport; it’s a message that arrives before he does.

Early June 1963: Pressure At The Top

The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover tightens its grip. New federal statutes expand reach. Surveillance gets smarter. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations framework is taking shape. Big names face long sentences. Some flip. Inside Chicago’s criminal hierarchy, territory friction grows. Younger operators push older fixtures. Bosses demand more tribute. Rivalries sharpen.

Andrew looks tense, preoccupied. He travels to New York—unusual for him. He spends more time at the office, less at home. Rosa asks. He says “business problems.” He doesn’t elaborate. In his world, operational security starts at the dinner table.

June 15, 1963: The Drive

It’s a warm Saturday night—mid-70s by 10 p.m., clear sky. Andrew spends the day at home—television, newspaper, dinner with Rosa and the boys. Around 9:30, he goes upstairs. Casual clothes off. Dark gray suit, white shirt, blue tie on. Watch on. Ring on. Wallet with cash in pocket. He says the meeting can’t wait. He will be back in hours.

At approximately 10:30, Rosa watches him back the black Eldorado down the driveway and turn north. The car glides toward its last stop.

Around 11:15 p.m., Andrew briefly stops at associate Frank Moretti’s. Frank later tells investigators—after initially claiming otherwise—that Andrew said he was meeting “people from New York.” No names. No location. Andrew leaves, heading south. No one else admits seeing him again.

By dawn Sunday, he hasn’t come home.

June 16–17, 1963: Silence Solidifies

Rosa calls Frank. Then other associates. Genuine worry answers. Sunday noon, she calls Chicago police and reports Andrew missing. The FBI, already investigating organized crime figures, steps in. Detective William Harrison on the CPD side. Special Agent Robert Sullivan on the federal side.

They distribute the car’s description and plate regionally and nationally. The Eldorado is distinctive enough to get noticed. It isn’t. Chop shops are questioned. Salvage yards checked. The street yields nothing. So does the sky. So does the river.

Four theories take shape:

– Rival execution to seize territory
– Internal elimination for liability or betrayal
– Preemptive hit to stop potential cooperation with feds
– Staged disappearance to escape indictments or enemies

Financial records show no prep for flight. Associates express real shock. Informants don’t point convincingly in any direction. There’s no body. No car. No scene. By September 1963, the active investigation stalls—officially open, functionally frozen.

In 1967, a court declares Andrew legally dead, allowing Rosa to resolve insurance and business affairs. But declarations aren’t answers. She lives another 25 years without them.

1963: A Basement Floor Changes—On Paper

A city permit surfaces in archives decades later. Late June 1963: “foundation repair and floor reinforcement” authorized in the basement of the former speakeasy building. Issued to Martelli Construction—a firm with documented mob connections. The owner of record: a real estate company tied to New York organized crime interests.

On paper, a contractor reinforced a floor. In reality, a pit was dug, a car was buried, dirt was compacted, and fresh concrete sealed the story shut. The most thorough way to hide a body and a recognizable vehicle? Leave both exactly where they fell—and make the ground over them new again.

It worked. For sixty years.

1970s–2000s: The Long Decline Above Ground

Chicago’s organized crime structure weakens through prosecutions, internal wars, and shifting economics. RICO lets prosecutors target organizations, not just individuals. Some break code and cooperate. Families shrink. New groups fill parts of the vacuum, but the city’s criminal map has changed. The old basements still exist. Their secrets still don’t.

The building cycles through warehouse, light manufacturing, small offices. The neighborhood declines. By the 2010s, it’s vacant—windows boarded, façade crumbling, roof failing. The city cites it. Owners weigh renovation versus demolition. Then a buyer opts to start over.

August 14, 2023: Concrete Gives Up

Midwest Demolition Services arrives with a plan: gut, abate, take down floor by floor, then excavate the basement and fill it for new construction. Foreman James Martinez runs the site. Carlos Rodriguez operates the excavator.

At 2:15 p.m., in the northeast corner, the bucket hits metal. Not random scrap; shaped, curved, trimmed. Carlos stops. James looks. The team excavates with surgical care—bucket used like a scalpel to peel dirt from contours. Chrome appears. Lines reveal a roof. Bumper edges emerge. At 3 p.m., they know: a buried car. By 3:30, patrol officers confirm. By 4:15, cold case detectives take over. Forensic specialists arrive with cameras and measuring tapes.

Over two days, an archaeological cadence unfolds: dust, photo, measure; dust, photo, measure. The pit is roughly 15ft x 10ft x 10ft, oriented east, nose tipped down. The vehicle’s bones are all Cadillac: tail fins, long hood, chrome frames. Black paint is mostly rust now. Tires are gone; steel wheels remain.

The windshield is cracked—multiple circular impact points with radiating fractures. Bullet signatures. Glass tells stories without words.

Through the driver’s side window, a skeleton sits where a man once did—held in place by a deteriorated seat belt. The skull shows a circular defect at the left temple: entry wound with radiating lines. Ribs show holes and fractures consistent with projectiles. Multiple shots. Designed to kill. Not a theft. Not a warning. An execution.

Inside, non-degradable remnants survive: metal buttons, zipper teeth, belt buckle. The left ring finger wears a gold ring—untarnished. The left wrist still holds a corroded watch band. The glove compartment yields a small metal document holder protecting fragments of a 1962 registration. The license plate renders legible under digital enhancement. Records link it: Andrew M. Johnson’s 1962 Cadillac Eldorado, South Side address. Fragments of a degraded driver’s license whisper “Andrew” and “Johnson,” and “May” and “1915.”

Sixty years later, Andrew Johnson is exactly where he stopped being alive—behind the wheel in a basement that was choreographed as a tomb.

Forensics And Reconstruction: How The Trap Worked

Ballistics signatures in glass. Entry wound in skull. Rib damage. Angle and clustering consistent with shooters at the driver’s position. The car’s orientation suggests it was either driven into the pit or pushed. The body remained restrained by a seat belt.

The burial itself required heavy equipment. Excavation overnight or in subsequent days. Pit filled and compacted. Permit obtained under the guise of structural work. Floor poured. If anyone asked why the basement floor had new concrete, a stamped city document answered.

Investigators cross-reference ownership. The building’s management ties back to New York families. The contractor has mob links. It’s not proof of who pulled triggers, but it’s pattern and capability: resources to plan and execute—in both senses—the burial, then conceal it in plain paperwork.

A likely sequence:

– Andrew is lured to a “meeting” with “people from New York,” possibly staged in the building’s basement for privacy.
– Gunmen ambush him at or near the car; multiple shots hit. He dies where he sits.
– The decision is made to bury body and car in place rather than risk transport, discovery, or witnesses.
– A pit is dug, the car lowered, fill added, concrete poured under a legitimate permit. The scene is erased by construction.

Why it worked for six decades: no one had cause to break that concrete. The basement was storage space for tenants who didn’t know what was under the floor. Later, the building aged into neglect—and neglect preserves secrets as well as any vault.

The Family: Lives In The Shadow Of A Mystery

Rosa lives 29 years beyond the night Andrew left. She never remarries. She never knows. Michael (18 when Andrew vanished) becomes an accountant, builds a normal life, and keeps his children away from the underworld story. He dies in 2015 at age 70. Anthony (15 in 1963) becomes a high school teacher, marries, and lives in the suburbs away from the gravity of his father’s legacy. In 2023, at 75, he picks up the phone and hears what happened: the car was found; the bones were his father’s. After six decades, a question becomes an answer—even if the names of those who made it necessary remain buried in time.

On September 30, 2023, Andrew is buried next to Rosa. The headstone reads the timeline: “Andrew Michael Johnson, 1915–1963—Found after 60 years. Finally at rest.”

The Artifact: Tail Fins And History

The Eldorado is removed, studied, then preserved. It isn’t just a car anymore; it’s evidence and context. The Chicago History Museum expresses interest. Tail fins under museum lighting tell a different kind of story than when they caught the sun on Michigan Avenue. They become a chapter in how Chicago made its money and settled its scores.

The building is gone. The site is compacted fill and new foundations. Developers will put retail and apartments where midnight deals once held sway. The ground no longer has a secret to keep.

Who Ordered It? Who Pulled The Trigger?

After sixty years, certainty is rare. The likely scenario—based on Frank Moretti’s “people from New York” comment and the building’s connections—points to a sanctioned hit with coordination between New York interests and Chicago figures. Whether rivals seized turf, whether higher-ups eliminated a perceived liability, or whether internal politics demanded elimination, the common denominator is planning, resources, and the kind of confidence that thinks a concrete floor is forever.

Names died with the people who knew them. The method survived until the day a bucket’s sound changed.

Why It Matters—Beyond One Grave

– Cities bury secrets under normalcy: concrete floors, legitimate permits, tenants who never ask questions.
– Organized crime history isn’t gone; it’s layered. The law’s long arc bent through RICO and decades of interagency work, but some stories only surface when progress digs.
– Closure matters—even when justice can’t name culprits. A family finally buries a father and husband. A city updates its ledger of truths.

This is not just about a mob boss in a car. It’s about how places change without erasing what they were—and how development forces forgotten chapters into daylight.

Timeline Of A Hidden Crime

– 1921: Warehouse built; basement speakeasy opens.
– 1933: Prohibition ends; building repurposed for legitimate uses.
– 1942: Andrew marries Rosa; their families’ ties deepen.
– 1956: Andrew buys a substantial South Side home; visible success grows.
– 1962: Andrew buys a black Cadillac Eldorado.
– Early June 1963: FBI pressure rises; New York trips begin; tension noted.
– June 15, 1963: Andrew leaves at 10:30 p.m.; last seen around 11:15; says he’s meeting “people from New York.”
– June 16–17, 1963: Rosa calls police; FBI joins; search yields nothing.
– Late June 1963: Basement “foundation repair” permit issued; pit dug; car buried; concrete poured.
– 1967: Andrew declared legally dead.
– 1970s–2000s: Organized crime in Chicago weakens; building deteriorates.
– August 14–16, 2023: Demolition crew finds buried Cadillac; forensic excavation confirms Andrew’s remains.
– September 30, 2023: Andrew buried next to Rosa; headstone acknowledges the wait.

The Last Revolver’s Echo

Every glass fracture in that windshield is a point in time. Every pit measurement is a line drawn across decades. The code of silence cracked in courtrooms over the years; it never cracked enough to reveal who stood in front of the Eldorado’s driver’s seat with a gun. But the city that let him disappear finally forced itself to say where he went.

Andrew drove away in 1963; concrete hid him in 1963; development uncovered him in 2023. Chicago’s history had one more truth to offer, measured in inches of concrete and feet of dirt.

Rest in peace, Andrew Michael Johnson. Your Cadillac carried you farther than anyone ever imagined—eight feet down and sixty years forward. Now the road ends beside Rosa, under a name carved in stone, above a story carved into the city’s memory.