On the night of November 12, 2016, 26‑year‑old Joseph “Joey” Comunale went into Manhattan to the Gilded Lily in the Meatpacking District after friends invited him, and he disappeared. Joey’s friends last saw him leaving the club early Sunday morning, talking with three women and two men who had joined them. Stephen Naso, a friend who had Joey’s phone, later watched building surveillance and saw Joey and one of the men, Lawrence “Larry” DiLione, walk the women to an Uber and then return to 418 East 59th Street — the Grand Sutton, a luxury Sutton Place condo. DiLione told Joey’s father and friends different stories about what happened there, and when Joey didn’t come home his father, Pat, filed a missing‑person report.
Joey’s friends immediately turned to social media to retrace his steps. Max Mancinelli used Instagram location tags from the Gilded Lily to find people who had posted that night. From a photo he traced a woman who had been at the post‑club gathering; she said she and her friends left in an Uber, and she thought Joey waved and went back inside with DiLione. DiLione, however, told friends Joey did not go back into the building. That inconsistency heightened alarm.
On building surveillance, Pat and NYPD Detective Yeoman Castro saw Joey and DiLione walk the women out and then walk back into the building — contradicting DiLione’s initial claims. Pat asked police to search the building trash. Inside a bag they found Joey’s bloody pants, shirt, driver’s license and a chain his father had given him. Pat feared Joey had not left the building alive.
Detectives tracked a white Mercedes Benz registered to 25‑year‑old James Rackover driving from Manhattan toward New Jersey early that morning. DiLione agreed to speak to police and, after questioning, began to detail a violent sequence inside apartment 4C. He told investigators that an argument had broken out, that he and Rackover (“James”) assaulted Joey and that Rackover stabbed Joey. According to DiLione’s account, the two wrapped Joey in a comforter, pushed him out a fourth‑floor window and loaded him in a car. DiLione told police he and Rackover drove Joey’s body to Oceanport, New Jersey, where they dug a shallow pit behind a florist and left the body; DiLione said Rackover poured gasoline and set the body on fire. Police found a burned, partially dismembered body in a wooded area where DiLione had said it would be. DiLione was arrested and charged, and Rackover and another man who had been at the apartment, Max Gemma, were later arrested; Gemma was charged with hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence.
The victim was identified as Joseph Comunale. The brutal details in the case — a post‑club pickup, surveillance of the return to apartment 4C, bloody clothes in the building trash and a confession from DiLione that implicated Rackover — set off a widely followed investigation and trial. DiLione’s statements to police described escalating violence: an exchange of words, blows, Rackover’s stabbing of Joey and an attempted dismemberment before they discarded the body. Prosecutors relied on DiLione’s admissions and evidence recovered at the Grand Sutton and in New Jersey.
The Courthouse drama intensified when police discovered that “James Rackover” was not who he claimed. Investigators found that the man calling himself James Rackover was actually James Beaudoin from Florida, with a criminal record and no relation to jeweler Jeffrey Rackover, despite public claims that he was Jeffrey’s son. Jeffrey Rackover, a wealthy jeweler with connections to celebrities, had allowed the young man to use the Rackover name and even helped him for a time; after the arrest he supplied legal help and maintained some support, but in court details about their relationship and the young man’s identity complicated the public narrative.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office charged James Rackover (legal name James Beaudoin) with second‑degree murder and other crimes, and he went to trial in 2018. DiLione pleaded guilty to second‑degree murder and other related charges; his cooperation and confession formed a key part of the prosecution’s case against Rackover. Gemma was charged with hindering and tampering with evidence; the DA alleged he helped move and conceal evidence after the killing.
In court, prosecutors portrayed Rackover as the leader of the attack who stabbed Joey to death, while defense lawyers argued Rackover participated in the cover‑up but did not commit the killing. Defense attorneys presented a narrower story: that DiLione had struck Joey and that Rackover helped dispose of the body out of panic. Witness testimony included accounts from the women who had been at the party and from friends who tracked Joey’s last movements on social media. One late, damaging prosecution witness — Louis Ruggiero, a friend of Rackover’s — testified about a jailhouse call in which Rackover allegedly described killing Joey; Ruggiero’s accounts drew skepticism on cross‑examination, with defense attorneys highlighting inconsistencies in his statements and his drug problems.
The trial examined recorded calls, surveillance footage, DiLione’s confessions, building camera logs showing Joey returning to the Grand Sutton and evidence recovered in the building’s trash and in New Jersey. Evidence showed Rackover’s movements after the early morning, including his driving the Mercedes from Manhattan. DiLione’s detailed accounts of the attack, cleanup in the apartment and transport of the body were central to the case.
On November 2, 2018, a jury convicted James Rackover (born James Beaudoin) on all counts related to Joey Comunale’s murder. The verdict delivered relief to Joey’s family and friends, who had spent years seeking answers. Pat and Lisa Comunale — Joey’s parents — and many of his friends attended trial proceedings, their testimony and emotion shaping the courtroom record. In court, relatives described Joey as a bright, athletic, loved son; friends recalled the panic in the days after he vanished when they scoured social media and tracked down leads.
After the murder, DiLione provided detailed information that led police to Joey’s burned body behind a florist shop in Oceanport, New Jersey, where DiLione said he and Rackover had taken the body. DiLione later pleaded guilty and admitted his role; he provided a full account of his actions, which he described as a violent incident that left Joey defenseless. Gemma, who had been at the apartment and later involved in cleanup efforts according to investigators, was charged with hindering prosecution and tampering with evidence; prosecutors alleged he helped dispose of Joey’s belongings and did not come forward.
The case prompted broader attention to the use of social media by friends trying to locate missing people. Joey’s friends’ use of Instagram location tags, messages and digital sleuthing helped piece together the final hours of his life and provided leads for police. The Grand Sutton surveillance footage — showing Joey leaving the club, meeting DiLione and Rackover, and later the group reentering the building — was pivotal.
Those who knew Joey best remember him as a deeply social, spirited young man. Friends and family described the deep hole left by his loss and the months of doubt and searching before arrests were made. In the years since, legal outcomes addressed the participants differently: DiLione’s admissions and cooperation led to his plea and testimony; Gemma faced charges for obstruction; Rackover, after trial, was convicted for his role in the murder.
The investigation and trial revealed overlapping themes: the violence of a night out, the rapid spread of information through social networks, surveillance that can capture fleeting moments, and the complicated lives behind privileged addresses. Joey Comunale’s death transformed a late‑night encounter into a long, public search for truth that ended in criminal convictions, while survivors and loved ones continue to reckon with the consequences.