Santora never paid or offered a reward for his efforts, Franzone testified. He did come around with a gift when Franzone’s son was born in February 1987, a garbage bag full of baby clothes—new, with the tags on. Franzone accepted the gift but later threw it out because he didn’t want anything to do with Santora, or he feared they were stolen, or both.

If they hadn’t said so, a reader might have assumed that when the guy who had come around and ordered you to bury a body was no longer counted among the quick, perhaps there was less to be ill-at-ease about.

This line in the first linked article struck me as a bit odd. There were three witnesses to a murder, and one of them remained scared even after another of the three witnesses was later murdered. So what’s the word “even” doing in that sentence? I would think that the murder of a fellow witness would be more reason to be scared, not less.