Joe Valachi, a mobster turned government informant, described Buster as a "college boy" in appearance and claimed he carried a Tommy gun inside a large violin case.
[4] While working with the unknown assassin, Valachi noted his exceptional skill with a wide range of weaponry including pistols, shotguns and machine guns.
Some accounts claim that Albert Anastasia and Frank Scalise were the shooters that day,[6] although Valachi wrote that Buster was responsible.
[5] Buster was also responsible for the deaths of top Masseria lieutenants Alfred Mineo and Steve Ferrigno, gunning them down with his guitar-cased shotgun as they walked through the courtyard of a Bronx apartment complex on November 5, 1930.
As his accomplices, Girolamo "Bobby Doyle" Santuccio and Nick Capuzzi, fled the scene, Buster allegedly ran into an investigating patrolman who had heard the gunfire.
[7] On February 3, 1931, Buster was stationed in a basement apartment on Belmont Avenue in the Bronx in order to watch for Giuseppe Catania aka Joe the Baker.
Bastiano's older brother Tony was a member of a small fraternity of Castellammare families that sold illegal alcohol in the Benton Harbor area.
On December 31, 1925, Bastiano's six-year-old niece Matilda was accidentally shot and killed by her ten-year-old uncle Leo DiMaria, who had been playing with a revolver he found in the cushions of a couch.
On October 22, 1927, Bastiano's sister-in-law Mary Domingo was killed by a car bomb apparently meant for her estranged husband Tony.
Crime author Allan May argues that Buster was a character invented by Valachi to avoid acknowledging his role in the killings of Mineo and Ferrigno.
Maranzano had a strong motive to induct Domingo into his crime family in late 1930 after observing his highly effective role in the murders of Manfredi Mineo and Steve Ferrigno, top men in the Masseria mob.