Title: Westies - Wikipedia
Headings: Westies
Westies
Contents
History
Spillane years
Irish–Italian war of the 1970s
Spillane–Coonan wars
Trouble with the Genovese family
Coonan and Featherstone
The Yugo era
See also
References
Further reading

Content: Cummiskey had apparently switched sides to the Coonan camp after they both killed and dismembered Patrick "Paddy" Dugan for killing Cummiskey's best friend, but Salerno and Sullivan were not aware of the switch. Devaney and Cummiskey were killed in late 1976, and Kapatos was killed in January 1977. Spillane was out of the picture, and Coonan was the undisputed boss of Hell's Kitchen. It was felt that Spillane still had to die. Roy DeMeo, a Gambino crime family soldier, murdered Spillane as a favor to Coonan. Mickey Featherstone stood trial for the murder and was found not guilty. Coonan and Featherstone
During the late 1970s, Coonan tightened the alliance between the Westies and the Gambinos, then run by Paul Castellano. Coonan's main contact was Roy DeMeo. In 1979 both Coonan and Featherstone were acquitted of the murder of a bartender, Harold Whitehead. Another Westie (and top enforcer), James McElroy, was acquitted of the murder of a Teamster in 1980.