Religion: Sinners' Friend

The boys lay in state in true gangster tradition. Undertaker Pete Lapetina supplied two solid copper 900-lb. caskets that cost $1,500 apiece. The crowd that came to see the mortal remains of Kansas City's murdered Northside boss, Charley Binaggio, and his gun-toting henchman, Charles Gargotta, was bigger than the funeral home's large "chapel" could accommodate. Each body was laid to rest with a Requiem Mass.

But at Binaggio's funeral, before the cortege departed for St. Mary's Cemetery, something more needed saying. The Rev. Raymond Jackson, vice-chancellor of the Kansas City Roman Catholic Diocese, stepped forward and read an official statement to...

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