Bristol County DA’s office cracks cold case of murder from nearly 30 years ago
The district attorney says mafia man Kevin Hanrahan was connected to the murder of Howard Ferrini, who was found in a car parked at Logan in 1991.
Authorities have named a suspect in the murder of professional gambler Howard Ferrini, the Berkley man who was discovered dead at Logan Airport nearly 30 years ago, The Taunton Gazette reports.
The Bristol District Attorney’s office and the Massachusetts State Police said they learned that Kevin Hanrahan, a mafia enforcer who worked for the Patriarch crime family in Providence, was involved in Ferrini’s killing in 1991. Hanrahan, who also associated with criminals Frank “Cadillac” Salemme and Gordon O’Brien of Taunton, was shot to death in 1992.
The case was reopened last year as part of a new effort to revisit unsolved murders, and Hanrahan was identified thanks to an updated fingerprint database from the FBI.
“These are some of the worst cases we see, and many families have waited for years hoping for answers and some measure of justice,” Bristol District Attorney Tom Quinn said in a statement to the Gazette.
Kelly Ferrini, Howard’s daughter, was 18 years old and nearly due to give birth when her father was killed. Kelly, now 47, told the Gazette that she found out about his death watching the news. She said she believed police at the time weren’t invested in solving the murder because of his own criminal record.
“I know he did a lot of bad things in his time,” she said. “But as far as being a father, he was a very good father.”
Howard Ferrini was found dead with a plastic bag tied around his head on Aug. 21, 1991. He was discovered by a Massport employee in the trunk of his blue Cadillac at the Logan airport parking garage a week after he went missing, when he was last seen with friends at the Raynham dog track. An autopsy at the time showed that he died the day he went missing and that he suffered skull fractures to the head with a hammer, but that he ultimately died from asphyxiation.
It appeared that the hit happened at Ferrini’s home: When police searched his property, they found traces of blood in the kitchen despite an apparent effort to clean up the scene, with cleaning powder on the kitchen floor. They also found that a hammer and a mop was missing.
Hanrahan was identified as a suspect by the DA office’s cold case unit with help from the Massachusetts State Police and the FBI thanks to fingerprint analysis on the plastic bag tied around Ferrini’s neck. Authorities didn’t define a motive but ruled out robbery, as Ferrini was found with jewelry and thousands in cash on his person.
The case isn’t completely closed yet — police think at least one other person was involved in the murder because of the nature of the killing and the movement of the body to Boston. Authorities ask those with information to call Massachusetts State Police Lt. Ann Marie Robertson at 508-961-1918 or the Massachusetts State Police Unresolved Cases Tip Line at 855-MA-SOLVE.
“It is never too late to do the right thing,” DA Quinn said. “We hope that anyone with information will finally decide to break that silence by coming forward.”
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