Joseph Raso, the Montreal nightclub killer who fled to Italy, never to be caught

Joseph Raso

   Mike Giordano, 32, was working the door at a private after hours party on Peel Street across from Windsor Train Station on 10 September 1959. 

   It was 4 a.m. at the Bal Tabarin, which sat on the section of Peel (then known as Windsor Street) when Norman Primrose, a 24-year-old part-time waiter, showed up with two pals. 

   He asked Giordano to let them in.  

   The Bal Tabarin sat inside of the Hotel Montrealer, right next door to the Alberta Lounge, notable for being the spot where jazz superstar Oscar Peterson regularly performed his magic on the piano between 1947-1949. 

   One of the two owners, Angelo Lanza, told Giordano to let Primrose enter. 

   Giordano (also spelled Geordano) was sitting with Lionel Deare, an accomplished boxer who occasionally fell afoul of the law and was a frequent presence in Montreal at the time.

   At 5 a.m. the other co-owner Joe Raso, entered the bar and went into his office. 

   At about 6 a.m. Raso left his office with a gun in hand. For reasons unknown, Raso was in a rage. He hit the intimidating Deare on the head with the weapon and did the same to another man at the same table.

Giordano in 1973 

   Raso then pointed his small .25 calibre automatic pistol at Giordano and ordered him to move out of his way.  

    Raso then marched towards Primrose's table, shooting a bullet into the floor along the way. 

   "What's the matter Joe?" Primrose asked Raso. The two tussled briefly, a shot went off and Primrose soon lay motionless on the floor, very much dead.

   "Raso was in a very  bad mood and he had a couple of drinks before coming in," Giordano later told a court hearing on 24 March 1960. 

    Raso fled to Ottawa where his abandoned car was located. Raso likely traveled to Italy or the United States and was never caught or tried, in spite of being held criminally responsible for killing Primrose a few months later in absentia.

   Police authorities hoped to nab Raso for many years later, noting, in 1965, that he was believed to be working in a Milan-area crime syndicate. 

    The bars along the strip were all demolished not long after, as Montreal widened Peel Street, while also demolishing Osborne, which is now part of Place du Canada in front of Chateau Champlain. 

   Giordano and Lanza continued on in nightclubs and the criminal milieu for the next decade at least, working with Nicolas Di Iorio in a variety of rackets. 

Angelo Lanza

   Deare, along with being a well-known prize fighter was best known for an earlier incident from incident in 1955 when he teamed up with fellow black-Montreal boxers Ronald "Buddy" Jones, Charlie Chase, George Desmond, William "Carfare" Bowman and Vincent McIntyre to ransack the All American Cafe (Dorch, north side just west of Peel) and another local nightclubs on orders of ill-fated mob boss Frank Pretula. 

**

   The Bal Tabarin nightclub kept a low profile in its days of existence and only made news one other time, when manager Roger Mollet, a processional wrestler from France, punched and knocked out a performer, objecting to him playing the accordion onstage.

    Accordionist Michel Sauro, 22, of 3215 Ontario testified against Mollet in court in July 1950, saying that he told Mollet that he had no right to cancel his contract, prompting Mollet to strike the KO blow. 

   Prosecutors charged Mollet with assault. "Mollet punched me. The next thing I remembered was waking up in the bathroom when somebody was placing compresses on my forehead," Sauro told a courtroom.

**

    One other notable incident took place on the strip around the same time as the Primrose killing. 

  Just days prior to the shooting at the the Bal Tabarin, a grisly double shooting took place right next door at the Alberta Lounge at 1157 Peel (aka Windsor St) on Aug 30, 1959. 

   Larry Callaghan, 32, of 1862 Le Caron St. entered the Alberta Lounge and saw Harvey Muir, 35, of 1725 St. Antoine St. with waitress Rita Naguay, 33, of 2320 Beaconsfield Ave. 

     Callaghan, stricken with a jealous rage, pulled out a gun and shot Muir dead. Callaghan then took aim at Naguay, hitting her in the neck. She survived. Callaghan then turned the gun to himself and shot himself in the head. He died in hospital a few days later. 

  ** 

 Police announced a crackdown on weapons after the incidents, also citing ta pair of non-fatal shootings on the Lower Main and another shots-fired incident at Pal's Cafe on St. Catherine just east of the Main. 

   A week later, on 17 September, 30 liquor police officers raided the Bal Tabarin and the Alberta Lounge, as well as a few other bars, seizing various items such as caskets of beer. 

Authorities make off with 
beer from Windsor Street 
in Sept 1959

   Montreal had decided to demolish the buildings in 1950 in an attempt to widen the street to ease traffic. The violence might have worked in the favour of authorities as it likely helped quell possible opposition to the demolitions. 

   Some had objected to the demolition of nearby Osborne St around the same time, as it led to the disappearance of the much-loved Drury's restaurant and other establishments. (The demolished Osborne was a extension of what's now La Gauchetiere but to the east, straight through the park. It was demolished due to a half-baked, quickly-abandoned plan to create another east-west street parallel to Dorchester)

     No photos seem to exist of the Alberta Lounge, Hotel Montrealer or Bal Tabarin or even anywhere of that eastern section of Peel Street.