A backhoe digs a 14-foot hole behind the Lisboa Apartments in East Providence yesterday before uncovering remains believed to be those of Joseph P. “Joe Onions” Scanlon.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

EAST PROVIDENCE –– Joe Onions may finally be able to rest in peace.

The Rhode Island State Police yesterday unearthed what they believe are the remains of Joseph P. “Joe Onions” Scanlon, the onetime hood, police informant and victim of an infamous Rhode Island gangland slaying.

Three decades after mob associate Nicholas S. “Nicky” Pari used a backhoe to inter Scanlon’s remains behind a Riverside apartment complex that was under construction, another backhoe operator uncovered the apparent grave on the third day of digging –– an archaeological dig that has resurrected memories of Rhode Island’s bygone Mafia heyday.

Now it will be up to the state medical examiner to positively identify what’s left of Joe Onions, who earned his nickname because he used to make the ladies cry.

At 2:18 p.m. yesterday, Peter Williams, a backhoe operator for the state Department of Transportation, lifted the fateful scoop from a 14-foot hole about 30 feet behind the Lisboa Apartments at 378 Bullocks Point Ave., hard by the East Bay Bike Path.

Tattered plastic hung from the backhoe’s bucket and a low-cut boot fell to the ground.

When Scanlon was murdered in 1978, he was wearing brown shoe boots.

About half a dozen state troopers raised their arms and told Williams to stop. The digging was halted and the troopers got on their cell phones to alert their superiors. Several detectives shook hands with Williams, who normally digs trenches and used to build foundations for buildings.

“Not much left to him,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of digging, but not this kind of digging.”

Within minutes, an investigator from the state medical examiner’s office arrived and began sifting through the dirt with blue latex gloves. State police detectives laid a white sheet on the ground. The remains were sifted through a mesh screen with a wooden frame. Investigators recovered the boot, several bones and what appears to be a jacket. Scanlon was also wearing a windbreaker when he died.

“We have strong reason to believe that this is the body of ‘Joe Onions’ Scanlon,” said state police Col. Brendan P. Doherty.

The search began here on Monday afternoon, several hours after the state police had rounded up 17 suspects in a wide-ranging mob sweep. One of the accused ringleaders was Pari, 71, of North Providence, who admitted in 1982 to Scanlon’s killing. Facing his own imminent death, to natural causes, the cancer-stricken Pari told the state police where Scanlon was buried and even accompanied them in a wheelchair to the neighborhood where he once lived to show them where to dig up Joe Onions.

In April 1978, Pari and Andrew Merola were arrested for whacking Scanlon in Merola’s Federal Hill social club in Providence. Scanlon’s girlfriend, a prostitute named Sandra Surprise, later testified that Pari punched Scanlon in the face to distract him, while Merola pumped a single shot into the back of his head. She was holding the couple’s three-month-old daughter as she watched.

A Superior Court jury found both men guilty of first-degree murder. The case was significant because it was the first time in Rhode Island history that anyone had been convicted of murder without the victim’s body. They appealed and won a new trial, based on errors by the trial judge, but then pleaded no contest to lesser charges and served substantial prison terms.

But the body’s whereabouts remained a mystery. Authorities had dug up the floor of Merola’s social club, and followed reports that Scanlon’s corpse had been crushed in a Cadillac at a metals-recycling plant. As part of their plea agreement, Scanlon and Merola, who died last year, said that they dumped Scanlon in the ocean off Narragansett. But no body ever washed up, and some investigators remained suspicious as the years passed.

The first backhoe went to work on Monday afternoon, around the same time the state police held a news conference in Scituate to announce the mob arrests. They worked through the afternoon and returned on Tuesday with two backhoes. Again, they came up empty, fueling speculation among the spectators who flocked to the scene that Joe Onions would remain missing. A long-time resident told the state police that neighbors had complained to the City of East Providence years ago about Pari digging in the area without building permits.

Authorities also followed the nose of Maximus, a state police German shepherd who picked up traces of human remains. Scanlon’s body was discovered in a spot that had been excavated on Tuesday, but yesterday detectives brought in a bigger backhoe and used a tape measure to make sure they dug deeper — down at least 12 feet.

This time, backhoe operator Williams struck pay dirt. He planned to celebrate, he said, with the all-you-can-eat Prime Rib special at the Stagecoach Tavern in Glocester.

Meanwhile, the state police were able to contact one of Scanlon’s sisters, who lives in Connecticut, said state police Lt. Col. Steven G. O’Donnell. The women agreed to provide a DNA sample that they can match against her brother’s suspected remains.

According to an old family friend, two of Scanlon’s sisters live in Connecticut.

The fate of the man who would go down in Rhode Island mob annals as Joe Onions may have been sealed during a difficult childhood in Hartford, Conn.

Half-Irish and half-Italian, Scanlon grew up in Hartford’s South End, then a predominantly Italian neighborhood of working-class families, tidy houses, corner markets and bakeries.

He was one of four children, the only son. The family friend, who lives in Connecticut but asked not to be identified because she is nervous about the Mafia connection to his death, said that Scanlon’s father deserted the family when he was young.

Scanlon grew up to be a short-order cook at various Hartford restaurants. He had a winning personality, the family friend said, “and wasn’t so bad looking.”

He was Joe Onions, she said, “because he made the girls cry.”

But he wanted more.

“He always had this dream of joining the Mafia,” said the friend. “I said, ‘Joe, why would you want to belong to the Mafia?’ He said, ‘Because if you belong, they’ll give you anything you want.’ I said, ‘Yeah, Joe, but sometimes they might want you to do them a favor and it might not work out so good.’ ”

Scanlon went to Providence, then the center of the New England rackets under Raymond L.S. Patriarca, and fell into a life of crime. But it all ended abruptly on April 3, 1978, with a bullet through the skull.

Less than a month before Scanlon died, a Providence police detective testified, he had become an informant against Merola and Pari, and began fearing for his life.

The family friend in Connecticut recalls warning Scanlon to be careful getting involved with the Mafia. But he wasn’t concerned, even shrugging off the prospect of a violent death.

“Joe looked up to them,” she said. “He said it was OK. He said, ‘If they decide to kill me, it’ll be over so fast I won’t know it.’ ”

mstanton@projo.com