I Heard You Paint Houses

Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: This classic true crime account about the mafia hitman who claims he killed Jimmy Hoffa inspired Scorsese’s epic gangster movie, The Irishman. Now updated with substantial post-publication corroboration of Sheeran’s confessions to the killings of Jimmy Hoffa and Joey Gallo. “I heard you paint houses” are the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly 5 years of recorded interviews, Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than 25 hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. He also provided intriguing information about the Mafia’s role in the murder of JFK. Sheeran learned to kill in the US Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually Sheeran would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit the US government would name him as one of only 2 non-Italians in conspiracy with the Commission of La Cosa Nostra, alongside the likes of Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano and Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno. When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, the Irishman did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself. Charles Brandt’s page-turner has become a true crime classic. “Sheeran’s confession that he killed Hoffa . . . is supported by the forensic evidence . . . and solves the Hoffa mystery.” — Michael Baden M.D., former Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York