Talk:James Burke (gangster)

message: The following sentence under the Jimmy the Gent heading bothers me: "Despite this being a rather innocent offense in comparison to narcotics dealing, loansharking, and murder; corrupt law enforcement officers, bribed by Burke, would tell him about any potential witnesses or informants."
Armed robbery is hardly a "rather innocent offense" compared to narcotics or loansharking - I would reword this myself but I'm not a registered wikipedia user.
The article is well-sourced and mostly well-written, but there are a few serious? There are several plain made up words (such as "strewned"). Another issue is that there is a tendency toward sensationalist non-objective writing, along with misspelling of basic words such as the word "bigger". Also there are alot of unsourced quotes.
1337wesm 02:05, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar etc. 

message: Shouldn't he be referred to as Conway, given the title of the article? It seems inconsistent to then refer to him as Burke throughout the article.
:Conway wasn't his name, the title itself is wrong.
::The situation appears to be this: James Burke was his real name, but in the movie Goodfellas his character was called Conway. (This was presumably because the real person was alive while the movie was being made.) By implying Conway and Burke are two names for the same person, editors (including myself) have blurred the line between fact and fiction. Clearly the article is in need of a major overhaul and renaming. -- FP (talk)(edits) 09:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I have made the move. This page was formerly called Jimmy Conway but is now Jimmy Burke (gangster) with a disambig page at Jimmy Burke. I have updated all links to this article as well. -- FP (talk)(edits) 03:48, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Conway or Burke?

message: "Burke was a mentor of Thomas DeSimone, Franky Fortuna and Henry Hill, who were both teenagers in the 1960s. They carried out errands for Burke, such as selling stolen merchandise. When they were older, the pair helped Burke with the hijacking of delivery trucks." <- this section is inconsistent, as it's either Thomas DeSimone, Franky Fortuna and Henry Hill or a pair. Or it's a trio. Or the pair consists of only two of the mentioned people. Anyway, it's not right. Does anyone know whether it was all three of them to help with the hijackings or just two? If two, which two? My only knowledge of this comes from Goodfellas.
Jimmy Burke hijacked trucks with his best friend Remo (who he later murdered), Tommy DeSimone, Angelo Sepe, and Henry Hill. --LedAstray 17:18, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pair or three people?

message: burke's daughter is mentioned in this NYTimes story, if anyone knows how to add this to the Conway/Burke profile.
(copyright material removed)
Burke's daughter Catherine and her husband Anthony Indelicato actually live in Jimmy Burke's former home in Howard Beach, N.Y. --LedAstray 18:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Conway/burke's daughter

message: I'm just curious but how did you find a mugshot of Burke, because I'm searching for one of William 'Billy Batts' DeVino from his 1964 arrest in Connecticut.
To get a federal mugshot, make a Freedom Of Information Act request to the FBI, the U.S. Marshalls Service or the Bureau of Prisons. You may have to pay a small fee. Requesting a mugshot from a State, County, or City agency is trickier. They may or may not oblige you depending on their laws. It won't hurt to ask. --LedAstray 19:02, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mugshots 

message: This is a highly relevant and important character index to portray the true brutality and borderline insanity of Burke and doesn't refer to specific incidents. 
I would like to indicate that Burke was truly formidable and incredulously disturbed person and that the source of the information about his murder of infants is just as substantiated as any other pieces of evidence in this article. 
If I do not receive correspondence within 2 weeks I'm re-instating the Child Murders section because a person who truly knew aboyt Burke and thus had justification to remove this information will be visiting the page within that time. If they don't I presume that they either have no justification or it was pure malice.
Next time someone's work is deleted could a proper explaination please be provided. 
JBAK
:I don't know if this is   what you're referring to, but: I came to this article tracking other "contributions" by a mindless vandal who hit one of the pages I monitor. He/she made this edit, which I have just reverted. --A. B. 19:45, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Who has editted off the 'Child Murders' section

message: Although the FBI has confirmed it's estimates that he killed upwards of 50 people we need names, we can only say William DeVino, Remo, the 13 Lufthansa people and that's really about it, we need to start working to get some actual names. I don't know if there's a database of deceased lcn- related criminals (lol, it would make putting these articles together a lot easier) but it would help out the article. I've read just about every mob book I can find relating to Burke but it just seems that Henry Hill likes to exaggerate and I think it could, in hindsight, be a little unfair to him to call him a child- killer without any confirmed victims.  
Opinions anyone?
He was gangster, and is dead, so people can say anything. In all probablility, stories are untrue. If he had threatened so many people' children, soeone would have turned him in sooner.  It 's just sensationalizing, as is the 50 person body count attributed to him, but with no names to get near thhat figure.
JBAK 21:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confirmation of his murders 

message: I've seen in that article this paragraph: "It was carried out by Hill, Robert McMahon and Jimmy Burke, on a tip off from McMahon."
But I can't keep wondering why there is no single mention about this robbery in this article about Jimmy Burke. --Vlad|-> 10:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Air France Robbery (1967)]] 

message: I've just gone back to reading my mob books again and once again I've found that Hill, for whom we are relying immensely upon the word of for this article, is contradictory and confusing and unexplanatory, he never provides the entire picture. It wasn't until Gangsters and GoodFellas was released that the true reasons for Billy Batts' death became apparent, until then, under the guidance of GoodFellas the film and Wiseguy, it was thought that only DeSimone's outburst was responsible. 
JBAK88 10:14, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliance upon the unreliable 

message: Both Jesse James Burke and Frank James Burke have birthyears listed as 1960. There's no indication that they were twins, so unless one was born at the start of the year and the other at the end, there's a problem. The original version of Frank's article lists his year of birth as 1954, but that doesn't seem to agree with his age mentioned at various points in his life in other places. Can somebody clear this up? Clarityfiend 16:43, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sons

message: That doesn't make any sense. With all the police attention on these guys, do you really think he would've given a human head to the woman? That's something out of a horror movie, not reality. It's unsourced too, so I think it can be deleted. 86.88.213.176 10:28, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Gave the head as a present?

message: Added details on the Lufthansa robbery based on what I read in various books and newspapers from that time and made changes to reflect the chronological order of the robbery.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by LedAstray (talk • contribs) 03:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Revisions

message: Here is what i expunged:
When he was thirteen, Burke's foster father died in a car crash—he lost control of the car when he turned around to hit Burke, who was riding in the back seat. The deceased man's widow, who was in the car as well but survived, blamed Burke for the accident and gave him regular beatings until he was taken back into care. This time he was finally adopted by the "Burke" family. Jimmy lived with them in a boarding house located on Rockaway Beach Boulevard and Ocean Promenade in Rockaway Beach, Queens. His time spent there during the beginning of his adolescence was a time of peace and calm. A rumor was spread later that in 1978 Jimmy buried his share of the Lufthansa heist, including that of his murdered accomplices in the vacant lot where the Burke's family homestead used to be. He remained close to the Burke family visiting his adoptive mother and father each Mother's Day, Christmas and on his adoptive parent's birthdays. On a monthly basis he would send them several thousand dollars in an unmarked envelope as appreciation for their attempt at raising him.
It is not sourced and the first part is very confusing.  This whole article needs some sources in a very bad way. 71.56.118.64 (talk) 05:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expunged text and boy is this article in bad shape 

message: The article claims that he was born in 1931 and yet also: " ... he died from this disease on April 13, 1996, aged 69, while being treated at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. Had he lived he would have been eligible for parole in 2004, aged 78." Doing the math, that's impossible. The last sentence about him being eligible for parole in 2004 at age 78 seems like a verbatim statement from the end of the film Goodfellas, which might not be a reliable source. Harry Yelreh (talk) 04:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Age

message: I am a bit unclear regarding this. Paul Vario, a capo of the Lucchese Family controlled the JFK airport terminals. Burke was affiliated with Vario, so why would he have to go and ask Gambinos for their blessing? Wouldn't that be the responsibility of Paul Vario to square that away with his fellow Italians? I have a hard time picturing a paranoid man like Burke informing a rival crew from a different family about a multi-million dollar heist. 
"I come to let you, Tony the Blade, Frankie the Axe and Vinny the Bat know that at 12.30 our boys from the Lucchese Family will steal a few million dollars from Terminal 3, Locker 25. Is that ok with you guys or should we reschedule?"
The only references I can find regarding this supposed event all lead back to Wikipedia statements that are unreferenced. Meishern (talk) 13:10, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Asking Gambinos for Permission to do the Lufthansa Heist

message: I beeive the "Murders that followed the Lufthansa Heist" section of the main page to be misleading and innaccurate, and should be edited or eliminated. The idea of a mid level non Italian associate taking it upon himself to murder numerous higher level Luccese Italian-American associates is virtually impossible, and in fact there are sources (Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss for example) http://www.amazon.com/Gaspipe-Confessions-Mafia-Philip-Carlo/dp/B003F76HIO which say that indeed Tony "Ducks" Corallo was responsible for most of the killings. 144.160.5.25 (talk) 18:51, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Burke's direct involvement in the post Lufthansa murders highly unlikly

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thread_title: File:James burke.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: In what way is Jimmy Conway the antagonist of Goodfellas?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.76.1.83 (talk) 07:45, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antagonist? 

message: "Burke has a second, unidentified, daughter and third son known to Lucchese family associates as "Davey Blue-Eyes".[citation needed]" - Interestingly, a former NYPD detective published a memoir about 3 years back in which he describes trying to nail a dealer named Davey Blue-Eyes. See http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/mike-codella-narcotics-officer-rambo-writes-memoir-battle-heroin-alphabet-city-article-1.453208 - I haven't read the book as yet. If anyone else has, is there any indication that the individual to whom Codella refers is Burke's reputed third son? Irish Melkite (talk) 04:02, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Davey Blue-Eyes 

message: I am surprised this is not up yet.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/feds-charge-mobster-1978-lufthansa-heist-kennedy-airport-article-1.1588523
Majinsnake (talk) 12:32, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  New arcticle on the lufthansa heist 

message: At the top of the article, it says his second daughter is "unidentified" but later in the article, she's identified as "Robin". Which is it? 68.174.47.250 (talk) 22:09, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  The other Burke girl 

message: The article currently says that James Burke died of stomach cancer. Most other sources I've found speak of lung cancer. Can anyone verify what's correct?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.55.220.101 (talk) 13:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed to “cancer” as that’s all the New York Times source states. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 15:28, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cause of death 

message: I can find reports of remains being found at his home in 2013, but absolutely no follow up. What happened? Were they confirmed to be human remains? Harizotoh9 (talk) 00:23, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  2013 remains