Louis R. Litif (December 5, 1934 – April 12, 1980), also known as Nicholas Noonan and Louis Woodward, was an American bookmaker from South Boston, Massachusetts. After running afoul of neighborhood Irish Mob boss Whitey Bulger, Litif was murdered by the Winter Hill Gang in 1980. His body was left in a car trunk in the South End, Boston. The murder remained unsolved for decades.
Family background
He was born "Louis R. Lataif-Litif", and carried the nicknames "Little Louis" and "Disco Louie". He was the son of Francophone Lebanese parents who were immigrants from what was then known as the Lebanese Republic. His last name was shortened and Americanized upon his parents' arrival in America. Louis' parents emigrated from Lebanon in 1934 after France took over the colony. They settled in Somerville, Massachusetts, where Litif was born. Litif was born and raised in the same South End-Roxbury neighborhood that had spawned Patriarca crime family captain Ilario Zannino, Stephen Flemmi, and Vincent Flemmi.
Criminal career
During the 1950s, Litif married an Irish American woman named Anna (nee Duggan) They had 2 children, a daughter and a son. Litif made himself a fixture on the handball courts at the L Street Bathhouse, playing all comers for $25 or $50 a game. His reputation as an earner made him popular with South Boston's criminal elite, and at one point police believed he was essentially running the neighborhood gambling rackets, taking in as much as $20,000 a week.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Litif was considered, in official circles, to be one of the top bookmakers in South Boston. He was one of the few prominent Arab Americans active in Boston's criminal underworld other than the brothers.
Before 1976, when he began associating with the Winter Hill Gang, little is known about Louis, except that he was the leader of a large scale sports gambling operation. Partnered with a fellow bookie known as "Joe the Barber," the operation was one of the biggest moneymakers for neighborhood boss Donald Killeen and his successors.
According to former South Boston mob informant Kevin Weeks, who was then the bouncer in the Triple O's saloon,
Litif became more violent beginning in the late 1970s. In 1975, he was arrested and convicted for pistol whipping an individual with a .357 Magnum which he carried in the waistband of his pants and pulled out whenever he had the urge.
Eventually, Boston newspapers reported that Litif was suspected of shooting a man named Lip Mongelio six times after an argument, in the alley outside Hap's Lounge, the bar Litif co-owned with fellow bookmaker, James Matera. The doctors at Boston City Hospital were able to save Litif's alleged victim. According to Weeks, Litif had never shot anyone before and began walking toward the police station, intending to turn himself in. However, he was intercepted by Bulger, who calmed him down and drove him home. It was alleged Bulger sent an associate of his to convince Mongolia to not press charges against Litif.
According to Weeks,
The murders of Matera and Conrad
According to Kevin Weeks Litif began stealing from his partners in the bookmaking operation and using the money to traffic cocaine. To the fury of Bulger, Litif refused to pay a cut of the profits. Litif also became addicted to the drugs he was selling.
According to Weeks,
But a month or so later, Louie made things more complicated again when he got into an argument during another cardgame, this time with his partner, Jimmy Matera. Matera caught Louie cheating and slapped him in the face during the game. About a week later, they were having problems at the bar with an outrageous water bill, and Louie convinced Matera that there must be something wrong with the water meter. When the two of them went into the cellar, Louie told Jimmy to look at the water meter, which he said was broken. While Matera was staring at the meter, Louie shot him in the head for slapping him.
Unfortunately, for Litif, bartender Robert Conrad was working that night and witnessed the crime. Shortly thereafter, Conrad disappeared. According to Kevin Weeks,
Conrad, who was about fifty, was a nervous wreck over what he had seen, so Louie wined and dined him in Las Vegas. Then he took him up to a little place he had in Nova Scotia, where he promised to hide him until everything blew over, assuring him that everything would be alright and that there was nothing to worry about. He killed him there, took him to the back of the house in a wheelbarrow, and buried him. He ended up hiding him so well that thanks to the law in Canada limiting their access to search for bodies, the DEA and the State Police couldn't find him.