The Gravedigger Who Ate Carrots

New York City, 1947—detectives collar a quiet mob handyman named Lester “Bugs” Milano. Everyone on Arthur Avenue knew him: the guy chewing carrots like cigars, dirt always under his nails. He wasn’t a hitman; he was the Tremont crew’s disposer. No one ever saw him with a weapon—just a shovel and a vegetable sack. NYPD followed him to Van Cortlandt Park, unearthed 17 shallow graves—each ringed with gnawed carrot stumps, as if Bugs snacked while he buried the bodies. One pit contained a crude tunnel system, suggesting long-term practice. In court he grinned: “Digging beats going underground the other way.” Sentenced to life at Sing Sing, he escaped six months later by tunneling under the prison garden—leaving a single carrot wedged between the bars of his empty cell. Seventy-eight years later the FBI still fields tips: sightings of an elderly man buying carrots in northern Catskills, rumors of fresh tunnels under defunct Tremont properties. Forensically, Bugs Milano should be long dead. Yet Crime Scene Unit still lists him “Unrecovered.” Was he just a grave-digging enforcer—or the most patient fugitive in mob history? Listen to the evidence and decide how deep Milano’s tunnels really go.