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Joseph Barboza Jr. (; September 20, 1932 – February 11, 1976), nicknamed "the Animal", was an American mobster and notorious mob hitman for the Patriarca crime family of New England during the 1960s. A prominent enforcer and contract killer in Boston's underworld, Barboza became a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant in 1967 and later entered the Witness Protection Program. He was a star witness in the trial of six men convicted in the 1965 murder of Edward Deegan; four of the accused were sentenced to death and another two were sentenced to life imprisonment. It later emerged that Barboza had helped frame the six defendants in a case of wrongful conviction for the Deegan killing, which was allegedly actually committed by Barboza and Vincent Flemmi. He was shot dead in San Francisco in 1976 after his whereabouts became known to Patriarca underboss Gennaro Angiulo. Early life Barboza was born on September 20, 1932, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to Portuguese emigrants from Valpaços, Joseph Barboza Sr. (born José Barbosa), a middle-weight boxer, and Palmeda Camille, who was a seamstress. His father was a Los Angeles-based prizefighter who competed in only two professional boxing matches; his debut bout was against Pete Frisco on January 27, 1933, and his second match was against Carlos Chipres on April 27, 1933. Barboza had two brothers; Donald and Anthony Barboza and a sister, Anne Houghton. Barboza was fluent in Portuguese, Italian and Spanish. He was married to a Jewish woman and fathered a daughter in 1965 and also a son and lived in Chelsea, Massachusetts, while employed by the Patriarca crime family. Professional boxing career Barboza would pursue a career as a professional light heavyweight boxer and member of the United States Boxing Association, using the name of "the Baron". His first boxing match on April 18, 1949, against Rocky Lucero in El Paso, Texas, and his last fight on September 23, 1961, against Don Bale in Boston. He fought with an orthodox stance. His boxing record shows Joseph as winning eight out of the eleven matches, with five of them ending in knock outs. He was classified as an out-fighter who was known for having very powerful punches. He was a sparring partner of Patriarca crime family associate, Americo Sacramone, future Massachusetts Auditor Joe DeNucci, Edward G. Connors and Anthony Veranis. He later worked as a longshoreman and as a clerk in a fruit store but always returned to crime. Criminal career Escape from prison He was first sent to prison in 1950 to the Massachusetts Correctional Institution - Concord for five years. Barboza would later lead a wild prison break in the summer of 1953, which would become the largest in the prison's seventy-five-year history. Joe and six other fellow inmates had guzzled contraband whiskey and pilfered amphetamine tablets, overpowered four prison guards and raced away in two separate cars. During their furlough of freedom they beat random people in the street, cruised the bars in Boston's Scollay Square, wandered to the neighborhoods of Lynn and Revere, and were finally apprehended at a subway station in East Boston. The escape party had barely lasted twenty-four hours. That November, while awaiting trial for his prison break, Barboza slugged a prison guard in the cafeteria for no reason. Three months later, he tossed a table at a guard's chest when he entered his cell. Entry into organized crime Barboza may have first been exposed to figures of Boston organized crime while incarcerated at Walpole. Paroled in 1958, he became a recognized figure in East Boston's organized crime circles and was a regular at a bar on the corner of Bennington Street and Brook Street, which became known among local criminals as "Barboza's Corner". His crew of small-time burglars and thieves consisted of Joseph W. Amico, Patrick Fabiano, James Kearns, Arthur Bratsos, Thomas DePrisco, father and son team Joseph and Ronald Dermody, Carlton Eaton, Edward Goss and Nicholas Femia. The crew was officially supervised for the Patriarca crime family by Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi. He was never officially inducted into the Patriarca crime family because of his non-Italian ancestry, but within eight years during the escalation of gangland warfare, he earned a reputation as one of Boston's most prolific contract killers and sidewalk soldiers. Due to his dark complexion and Portuguese heritage, Barboza was referred to as "the nigger" by his Italian associates. According to Patriarca capo-turned-government witness Vincent Teresa, Barboza "hated Negroes" and killed at least two victims solely due to their race. In 1964, Barboza legally changed his surname to "Baron". It was widely believed in law official circles that Barboza had performed contract killings for Raymond L. S. Patriarca. By January 1966, Barboza was considered a powerful crime figure in the Boston underworld. For disturbing the peace one night, he slugged a Metropolitan District Commission Police Officer, Joe MacLean, and received a six-month sentence. After his release from prison and his graduation from an expensive cooking school he was shipped out on the SS President Wilson to the Orient. A few notorious victims on his murder roster included Edward McLaughlin and both Cornelius Hughes and Stevie Hughes, killed between 1965 and 1966. Barboza aligned himself with the Winter Hill Gang in part because James "Buddy" McLean was an ally of Vincent Flemmi, who Barboza trusted along with his brother Stephen Flemmi. As early as 1965, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent H. Paul Rico, was using that trust to drive Barboza into becoming an informant. Barboza drove a 1965 Oldsmobile Cutlass which was referred to by law enforcement as "the James Bond car" because it had a sophisticated alarm system and a device for making thick black smoke come out of the tailpipe. Turning government witness By 1966, he had a very turbulent position in the Boston underworld. He had been shot at while standing outside his home in Chelsea. The local authorities believed there had been other unreported attempts. Brimming with reckless power, he was not abiding to the traditional rules of La Cosa Nostra. One night he went into a nightclub that was paying Gennaro Angiulo for protection and demanded that the owner make payments to him as well. By mid-1966, the unrelenting attention from the law Barboza received from the authorities only made his standing in organized crime more tenuous. In October 1966, he came to terms with his falling-out with the organized crime element after he and three local hoodlums were arrested on weapons charges while cruising the Combat Zone in Boston. His accomplices were released on bail, but Barboza had his bail set at $100,000 which he could not afford. Nobody from the Patriarca crime family came down to post his bail and he heard that it was the Mafia family who tipped off the cops. Two of his associates, Bratsos and DePrisco, went to raise .... Discover the Joe O Mahony popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Joe O Mahony books.