"Why Did You Kill My Father?" – Sammy Gravano Gets an Unexpected Phone Call

Patrick Bet-David (0:00)

So good, so good, so good.

SPEAKER_2 (0:02)

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Patrick Bet-David (0:19)

Have you ever gotten a random phone call of one of these families that later on you testified, you trust that I did take these guys out?

Did any family member ever confront you? Did anybody ever call you?

Sammy Gravano (0:29)

Yes.

Patrick Bet-David (0:30)

Who called you?

Sammy Gravano (0:31)

There's a Spanish guy who we killed, and I can't think of his name, but he's on my list. If you look at my list, he's a Spanish guy. Puerto Rican.

Patrick Bet-David (0:47)

DiBernardo, Mormondo, Santiago, John Santiago.

Sammy Gravano (0:54)

John Santiago.

One day, my phone rang, and he says, is this Sammy? I says, yes. And he says, I'm Johnny Santiago's son.

Patrick Bet-David (1:07)

Son.

Sammy Gravano (1:08)

Son. He says, could I talk to you?

I said, yes. What do you want to know? He said, all I want to know, Sammy, I understand the life a little bit. My father was around it. Why did he die? Why did he get killed? Why did you kill him?

I said, I'm going to tell you the whole story. Don't interrupt. Don't hang up.

Patrick Bet-David (1:34)

Is he being a jerk? Is he being fair?

Sammy Gravano (1:35)

Is he respectful? He was very respectful and fair.

Patrick Bet-David (1:39)

How old was he when he called you?

Sammy Gravano (1:40)

20s, 30s? 20s, probably. I don't know. So I said, your father was fucking Stymie's brother's wife, and he knew us at everything. Stymie came to me and told me, Sammy, I want to kill this kid, Santiago.

He was one of my top guys. I said, why? He says he was fucking my brother's wife.

I said, you know I have to go get permission from Tato and then Paul. I need to ask you questions. He said what?

Patrick Bet-David (2:29)

Did he rape the wife, the brother's wife?

Sammy Gravano (2:33)

Yeah. Did he rape, huh?

No.

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Sammy Gravano (3:16)

Did he force her?

Patrick Bet-David (3:19)

He's asking you this question.

Sammy Gravano (3:21)

I'm asking him, Steinme. I'm telling him what I'm asking Steinme.

Patrick Bet-David (3:25)

If John Santiago forced her or raped her.

Sammy Gravano (3:28)

Yes, I'm asking Steinme.

Patrick Bet-David (3:29)

Right.

Sammy Gravano (3:30)

And he says, no, I don't think so.

Do we kill your sister-in-law, too?

He says, no, that's my sister-in-law. She wasn't raped. She wasn't forced. She's a participant in this.

We're going to just kill him?

And she's okay? I don't want to ask you another question. Is this going to make their marriage better? Because we kill him?

She says, Sammy, how am I supposed to know? I have to know. I have to know. I'm your boss. I have to bring it to Tato. I have to bring it to Paul. I got to ask them, I'm going to kill a fucking guy who got, who somebody who's not even in our family. I need those answers.

He couldn't answer. I said, Sammy, listen to me. I know you're hot with this. He disrespected you. And I get it. But you're not asking me, you would like to break his face. You'd like to give him a fucking beating with your hands. You're asking me to kill somebody.

I said, here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to say no, maybe down the road. Let's sit with this a while. I'm not going to go to ask the permission, and we'll put it on the side until we really live with this for a while and we see what happens.

I was dead against it. This is what I'm telling this on. One night I get a call a couple of weeks later. Sammy, come down right away. Now, I don't question on my phone what happened. When I hear that, my guy is saying, come on right away. I noticed something really bad that happened, and I jumped in my car and I drove down. What happened? Hook told me. And I said, what happened? Sammy got in the car with the Santiago guy, and he was a little drunk and he killed him. Oh, my God. He killed him? Yeah. Is the car still around? We put it somewhere. They just clean it up? Do you got the gun that he used? His clothes?