1992-2002 SPECIAL REPORT: "THE DEATH OF JOHN GOTTI"

In 1998, John Gotti was diagnosed with throat cancer and sent to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, for surgery. While the tumor was removed, the cancer was discovered to have returned two years later and Gotti was transferred back to Springfield, where he spent the rest of his life.

Gotti's condition rapidly declined and he died on June 10, 2002, at the age of 61. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn announced that Gotti's family would not be permitted to have a Requiem Mass, but allowed a memorial Mass after the burial.

Gotti's funeral was held in a non-church facility. After the funeral, an estimated 300 onlookers followed the procession, which passed Gotti's Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, to the gravesite. Gotti's body was interred in a crypt next to his son, Frank, who was struck and killed by a car when he was twelve years old in 1980. Gotti's brother, Peter, was unable to attend owing to his incarceration. In an apparent repudiation of Gotti's leadership and legacy, the other New York City families sent no representatives to the funeral. By the turn of the century, due in large part to numerous prosecutions brought on as a result of Gotti's tactics, half of the family's soldiers were in prison.