On this day in 1939 Mafia hitman Joe Sullivan was born in Queens, New York. He is currently serving three life sentences and still hold the title of the only known person to escape from Attica, in 1971. Sullivan was said to have been the mobster who transported Jimmy Hoffa’s body putting it in an oil drum, and in 1978 carried out a failed hit attempt on Carmine Galante. A year later, Galante was taken care of by another team of hitmen.

On this day in 1939, Joe Sullivan was born in Queens, New York, entering a world that he would later navigate through violence, cunning, and a ruthless dedication to organised crime. Known within underworld circles as a reliable and cold-blooded hitman, Sullivan carved out a fearsome reputation as one of the most dangerous mob-connected killers of the latter half of the twentieth century, a man whose name became synonymous with the darkest corners of American Mafia operations during one of the most turbulent eras in organised crime history.

Sullivan's most audacious achievement — and one that cemented his place in criminal folklore — came in 1971 when he became the only known person to successfully escape from Attica Correctional Facility in New York. The feat was extraordinary by any measure. Attica, a maximum-security institution that would later become infamous for the deadly prison uprising of that same year, was considered virtually impenetrable. Sullivan's escape demonstrated not only his resourcefulness but also hinted at the network of support available to those operating within the mob's sphere of influence.

His alleged connections to some of the era's most significant organised crime events only deepened the mythology surrounding him. Sullivan was widely reported to have played a role in the disposal of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa's body following Hoffa's disappearance in 1975, with accounts suggesting Sullivan transported the body and concealed it within an oil drum. Hoffa's fate remains one of America's great unsolved mysteries, and Sullivan's alleged involvement has kept his name attached to the story for decades. Whether or not the full truth will ever emerge remains doubtful.

In 1978, Sullivan was reportedly dispatched to carry out a hit on Colombo and Bonanno family associate Carmine Galante, one of the most feared and volatile figures in New York's Five Families hierarchy at the time. The attempt failed, but Galante's violent tendencies and his increasingly erratic power grabs had made him too dangerous to ignore. In July 1979, another team of hitmen caught up with Galante at Joe and Mary's Restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn, shooting him dead while he sat dining in the garden — a cigar still clenched between his teeth in what became one of the most iconic crime scene photographs in mob history.

Sullivan was eventually convicted and sentenced to three consecutive life terms, and he remains incarcerated to this day. His legacy endures not only as a cautionary tale but as a vivid reminder of how deeply the Mafia's reach extended into American life during its most powerful decades.