On this day‬ in 1928, in Brooklyn, the World would see the birth of The Grim Reaper. Greg Scarpa was a capo for the Colombo crime family and informant for the FBI. During the 1970s and 80s, Scarpa was the chief enforcer for Colombo crime boss Carmine Persico and is suspected to have committed a minimum of 50 murders from the early 1950s through 1992.

In 1991 he survived an assassination attempt, when the Colombo family split into two factions when Vic Orena challenged for control of the family over Carmine Persico, this would spark one of the bloodiest wars of the late 20th Century. Scarpa was one of Persico’s strongest allies.

In 1986, Scarpa was diagnosed with HIV and by 1993 his health had seriously decreased. He was blind in one eye, suffered with energy levels and then would go on to die from AIDS-related complications in 1994.

On this day in 1928, Brooklyn welcomed into the world a man who would become one of the most feared and lethal figures in the history of organised crime in America. Gregory Scarpa Sr., known throughout the underworld as "The Grim Reaper," would go on to carve out a reputation for violence so extreme that even hardened mobsters spoke his name with a degree of genuine unease.

Scarpa rose through the ranks of the Colombo crime family, one of New York's infamous Five Families whose roots stretched back to the era of Lucky Luciano and the founding of the National Crime Syndicate in the early 1930s. By the time Scarpa reached his peak in the 1970s and 1980s, he had become the indispensable enforcer for Colombo boss Carmine Persico, a man who understood better than most the value of having a truly merciless weapon at his disposal. Scarpa is suspected of having committed a minimum of 50 murders spanning from the early 1950s through to 1992, a body count that places him among the most prolific killers in American mob history.

What made Scarpa's story all the more remarkable — and troubling — was his long-running relationship with the FBI as a confidential informant, a dual existence that raised profound questions about the Bureau's willingness to tolerate, and perhaps enable, extreme criminal behaviour in exchange for intelligence. His FBI handler, agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, would later face serious allegations surrounding their relationship, allegations that cast a long shadow over both men.

In 1991, Scarpa found himself at the centre of one of the bloodiest internal conflicts the American mob had witnessed in decades. When acting boss Vic Orena moved to challenge Carmine Persico's imprisoned leadership of the Colombo family, it ignited a brutal internecine war that claimed numerous lives across Brooklyn and beyond. Scarpa was among Persico's most ferocious loyalists, diving headlong into the conflict despite already battling a devastating personal crisis — in 1986 he had been diagnosed with HIV, believed to have been contracted through a blood transfusion. By 1993, his health had deteriorated sharply; he was blind in one eye and severely weakened. On 4th June 1994, Greg Scarpa died from AIDS-related complications whilst in federal custody.

The legacy of Greg Scarpa remains one of the most disturbing and morally complex chapters in the history of American organised crime, a story that speaks as much to institutional corruption as it does to the savagery lurking within the mob itself.