Correcting the Vegas Record: No Mob Car Bombing Targeted Reporter Ned Day

A story repeated for decades in mafia circles holds that the mob ordered the firebombing of Las Vegas crime reporter Ned Day's car in the predawn hours of July 8, 1986. According to Casino.org News, this is not true.

Ned Day was one of the most aggressive crime reporters in Las Vegas history. From 1981 through 1987, he exposed the mob's hidden influence over casinos, including Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal’s skimming at the Stardust and three other Argent Corporation properties, plus the Hole in the Wall Gang tied to Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro.

These events later inspired Nicholas Pileggi’s book and Martin Scorsese’s film Casino. Day openly showed contempt for some of his subjects as a columnist. He once called Spilotro “a fireplug who walks like a man.”

The Burning Lie

Day’s car was not firebombed. The Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald initially reported it that way, as did police, but authorities later amended their findings. Someone poured a flammable liquid around Day’s 3-year-old Volvo, parked near his apartment complex, and set it ablaze. No explosive device was involved.

The incident came four years after a bomb exploded beneath Rosenthal’s car. That memory led many to assume a bombing. Day’s vehicle was destroyed, but he was not near it. “Mob sets reporter’s unattended car on fire” lacks the drama of a bombing tale.

Who Did It and What Followed

Not Spilotro. He and his brother Michael disappeared on June 14, 1986—24 days before the fire—and their bodies were found in an Indiana cornfield eight days later. Even if Spilotro had issued an order, his own murder would have canceled it. No one was ever arrested or charged. The case remains unsolved.

Day suspected surviving Spilotro associates. He told The Associated Press: “I wrote a goodbye column to Tony Spilotro that I understand his friends didn’t like.” That column was headlined “In death, sinister Tough Tony Spilotro was Trivial” and described Spilotro’s remains as “not even a worthy sack of fertilizer.”

Day died Sept. 3, 1987—13 months and 26 days after the fire—while snorkeling in Hanauma Bay, Hawaii. He was 42. The Honolulu coroner ruled it a fatal heart attack. Authorities found no evidence of foul play. Day’s friend George Knapp, a veteran KLAS reporter, agreed, noting Day was a heavy smoker and drinker at high risk for heart disease. Knapp said: “There were many people who may have wanted him dead, but they were not to blame for what happened at Hanauma Bay.”