Night of the Devil The Untold Story of Thomas Trantino and the Angel Lounge Killings

On the evening of Sunday, August 25, 1963, a group of revelers drove into the small town of Lodi, New Jersey, bound for a local tavern called the Angel Lounge. Hours later, bullets ripped through the smoky air of the bar. When the carnage ended, two Lodi police officers were dead. Their killers had escaped. The close-knit community of Lodi, shattered by the crime, would never be the same. Nor would the families of the victims: Sergeant Peter Voto, who left behind a wife and three children, and 22-year-old Gary Tedesco, whose career in law enforcement had barely begun when his life was brutally cut short. The people of Lodi vowed that the killers would pay for what they had done. One of the hoodlums was shot and killed two days after the murders. The other, Thomas Trantino, was imprisoned and sentenced to die for his crime. But Trantino would not be put to death in New Jersey; nor would he spend the rest of his life in prison. After being incarcerated for almost 40 years, and earning the distinction of being the longest-serving prisoner in the New Jersey penal system, Thomas Trantino ultimately walked out of prison a free man.