Goodfellas: Who Really Killed Tommy DeVito?

Martin Scorsese’s 1990 gangster film, Goodfellas, is a classic of the crime genre, but the death of Joe Pesci’s Tommy DeVito doesn’t reflect the real-life murder on which it is based. Though Goodfellas was inspired by a true story, some liberties were taken with its adaptation, and one of those is the death of Thomas DeSimone.

Goodfellas follows Henry Hill’s (Ray Liotta) rise and fall in the mafia underworld of 70s New York. In an Oscar-winning performance by Joe Pesci, Tommy DeVito, one of Hill’s associates, is a flamboyant, violent gangster who ultimately meets his end when he believes he’s about to be a “made” man in one of Goodfellas’ most shocking scenes.

Like many of the film’s characters, Tommy DeVito is a renamed interpretation of a real-life mafia figure. Tommy DeSimone was mentored from a young age by members of the Lucchese crime family, including Hill and Jimmy Burke (renamed Jimmy Conway and played by Robert DeNiro in the film). While he was integral in some of the family’s biggest heists, including an infamous Lufthansa airline robbery at JFK International Airport, Tommy’s volatile temper and proclivity to violence made him a born assassin.

According to Hill, DeSimone first shot an innocent pedestrian to impress his gangster friends, and his penchant for random violence would continue. Among those he killed were William “Billy Batts” Bentvena, a teenage waiter known as “Spider,” and Ronald “Foxy” Jerothe, a friend of legendary mob boss John Gotti. Of those, two were killed in moments of rage that Pesci perfectly captured in Goodfellas. The death of Bentvena, however, is more complicated; it also may have led to DeSimone’s own murder.

Bentvena was a made man in the Gambino crime family, meaning he couldn’t be killed without permission from the family boss. While Bentvena was in prison for drug-related charges, Burke was in charge of his loansharking business. Upon release, Bentvena was anxious to take over again, but Burke had other ideas. He and DeSimone beat an intoxicated Bentvena until they assumed he was dead. They put him in the back of Hill’s car, only for him to wake up as they drove to bury him. The three men stopped at the house of DeSimone’s mother, where DeSimone grabbed a large kitchen knife and stabbed Bentvena to death. This is depicted in one of the best scenes in Goodfellas, with one major inaccuracy: while Bentvena did insult DeSimone for his past work as a shoe shiner, Burke’s need to keep his loansharking power was the primary motive for Bentvena’s murder, which is likely the reason that DeSimone was killed.

Exactly who killed DeSimone is unknown, but there are a few theories. In Goodfellas, Tommy is killed by Gambino soldiers in retaliation for Bentvena’s death. That may not be far from the truth, as some have speculated that Gambino hitman Thomas Agro killed DeSimone, and Agro was also responsible for the death of one of DeSimone’s brothers years before. According to Hill, however, John Gotti was directly involved in the killing, either murdering DeSimone himself or alongside Agro. Another theory suggests that Paul Vario, the Lucchese capo who first hired DeSimone, had him killed after DeSimone attempted to rape Hill’s wife – and Vario’s mistress – Karen Hill.

By investigating the truths of America’s underbelly, Scorsese inspired many of today’s most acclaimed films. He brought the violent, luxurious world of New York’s mafia scene to life for Goodfellas, which ranks among Scorsese’s best. However, the death of Tommy DeSimone isn’t as straightforward as depicted in the film. Like all based-on-a-true story films, Goodfellas gives answers where none exist. With more time, perhaps fans of the gangster genre will learn what really happened to notorious hitman Tommy DeSimone.

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