[2] Released on parole in 1979, he was convicted of trying to sell three pounds of heroin to an undercover police officer in 1980, causing him to spend the next three years in prison.

[2] During his time in prison, Barillaro had bulked up by working out, and upon his release Papalia employed him to extort money from illegal gambling houses in Toronto's Greektown in the Pape-Danforth area.

[2] Considered to be a terrifying figure, Barillaro together with other muscular Mafiosi would raid gambling houses that refused to pay protection money to Papalia to intimidate and rob the gamblers.

[8] One police officer told the journalist Adrien Humphreys that it was universally accepted that Barillaro had killed Iannuzzelli for Papalia, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him with first-degree murder.

[7] In December 1985, Barillaro was arrested and charged with extortion of the gambling houses in Greektown as part of Operation Outhouse, a crackdown by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) on the Papalia family.

[10] Instead, the police contented themselves with charging Barillaro, Enio Mora and several others for the brutal raids that saw numerous patrons beaten up and the ear of one gambling house owner sliced up with a knife.

[4] Barillaro was an exacting and tyrannical manager who beat up a cook who tried to defrost a chicken with cold water instead of a microwave as he had ordered.

[4] He owned the restaurant-bar via a convoluted ownership structure that was meant to pass himself off as a silent partner as his criminal record made him ineligible to have a liquor license in Ontario.

[4] In 1989, Sergeant Reginald King of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) made a listing of all 275 Mafiosi in Ontario in order of importance.

In 1991, he told the police informer Marvin Elkind while he was wearing a wire that the boxer Eddie Melo was working for him as an enforcer.

[4] He was a devout Catholic who was a close friend of his priest, Father Malachy Smith, who called him a model family man.

[4] Barillaro was considered to be friendly man by his neighbors who always greeted others on the street and loved to barbeque in his backyard with his family.

[17] On 31 May 1997, Papalia was fatally shot in the head in the parking lot of 20 Railway Street outside his vending machine business in Hamilton.

[20] Two days after Papalia's murder, Barillaro met with Pat Musitano, a meeting which unknown to both men was secretly recorded by the police.

[19] At a meeting in Buffalo in June 1997 attended by senior Magaddino family leaders, Barillaro received permission to kill Pat Musitano.