Roy Albert DeMeo was born into a working-class Italian-American family in Brooklyn, New York, on September 7, 1940. He was the fourth of five children born to Antonio Joseph “Anthony” DeMeo, a deliveryman, and Eleanor Colarullo, a homemaker. The DeMeo family hailed from Formia in Lazio, Italy. Roy was raised in Flatlands, Brooklyn, and graduated from James Madison High School in 1959 alongside future figures like Bernie Sanders and economist Walter Block.

As a teenager, DeMeo worked in a local grocery store and trained as a butcher—skills that would later be grotesquely repurposed in his criminal career. His older brother “Chubby” DeMeo was killed in the Korean War in 1951, and his father died of a heart attack in 1960. After this, DeMeo’s mother returned to Italy with Roy’s youngest sibling.

From an early age, DeMeo was involved in loansharking and petty crimes. By the mid-1960s, he was a Lucchese associate involved in car theft and illegal operations. That changed in 1966 when Gambino soldier Anthony "Nino" Gaggi recruited him. Roy began expanding rapidly—establishing a violent and loyal crew, gaining influence, and using a Brooklyn credit union as a front to launder illicit money.

Despite appearing as a suburban family man, Roy DeMeo lived a double life as a mob enforcer and crew leader. He married Gladys Brittain in 1960 and raised three children in a custom-built Massapequa Park home on Long Island. Publicly, he was seen as a used car dealer or businessman. Privately, he managed one of the most brutal mafia murder machines in American history.

DeMeo led a faction within the Gambino crime family known as the “DeMeo Crew,” operating out of the Gemini Lounge in Brooklyn. The crew became infamous for a murder technique called the "Gemini Method": victims were lured to the back room of the bar, shot in the head, stabbed in the heart, drained of blood, and then dismembered. Their remains were often stuffed into bags and buried in landfills or dumped at sea. This method allowed the crew to eliminate bodies efficiently, leaving little evidence behind.

Between 1973 and 1982, DeMeo and his crew were suspected of killing between 100 and 200 people, many of whom were never found. Victims ranged from mob informants and business partners to innocent bystanders like 18-year-old college student Dominick Ragucci—mistakenly believed to be a hitman and gunned down in a car chase. Roy allegedly cried afterward and was devastated by the error.

One of DeMeo’s most significant murders was that of Andrei Katz, a car ring associate turned informant. In June 1975, Katz was lured, tortured, and dismembered at a supermarket meat locker. His limbs were later discovered in trash bags. It was a warning to anyone considering betrayal.

In the late 1970s, DeMeo expanded his criminal empire to include pornography, drug trafficking, truck hijacking, and one of the largest auto theft rings in New York history. Cars were stolen, dismantled, or shipped overseas. His crew earned tens of thousands weekly, sometimes more, and DeMeo’s reach extended internationally.

DeMeo's most public and dangerous era came when he formed an alliance with Irish gang The Westies, which helped him gain his formal induction into the Gambino family in 1977. However, Paul Castellano, the family's boss, viewed DeMeo as volatile and dangerous. Despite DeMeo’s profitability, Castellano grew wary of his bloodthirsty methods and increasing exposure.

As internal crew conflicts emerged and law enforcement closed in, DeMeo’s paranoia spiked. He wore a shotgun under his jacket at all times and even considered faking his own death. In early 1983, he was summoned to a meeting with his own crew—never to return. His body was discovered ten days later in the trunk of his Cadillac outside the Varuna Boat Club in Sheepshead Bay. He had been shot multiple times.

It’s widely believed that his own men—Joseph Testa, Anthony Senter, and possibly Nino Gaggi—carried out the hit with Castellano’s blessing.