Search for murdered mob associate

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - Rhode Island State Police investigators were digging up a property on Bullocks Point Ave. Monday afternoon. The Target 12 Investigators have learned, through sources, they are looking for missing mob associate Joseph "Joe Onions" Scanlon.

Scanlon disappeared in 1978. Though his body was never recovered, it is believed he was murdered after some members of the Patriarca Crime Family suspected he was cooperating with law enforcement.

Monday's search coincides with the arrest of nearly two dozen people in an organized crime investigation, in which investigators say mob associates exchanged counterfeit purses and shoes for drugs and guns.

Patriarca Crime Family associate Nicholas "Nicky" Pari, 71, is among those facing charges in that case.

In 1979, a jury convicted Pari in Scanlon's murder. A judge later overturned the murder conviction on appeal. Pari then pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter, for which he received a seven-year prison sentence with 13 years suspended.