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DeSimone was assassinated as a reprisal for having killed two of John Gotti's close friends, specifically Billy Batts and Foxy Jerothe. When Hill became an FBI informant in 1980, he told authorities that DeSimone had been murdered by the Gambino crime family. Despite the oft-given date of death of January 14, 1979, the exact date of DeSimone's murder is uncertain. Henry claimed that in "the week after Christmas" that he and Jimmy Burke had gone down to Florida to straighten out a drug deal gone bad. Tommy had remained behind in New York because he was going to be made. When Jimmy called to see if the ceremony had occurred (the code phrase was to ask if Tommy had seen his godmother yet), Burke was told that it had been called off due to a heavy snowfall. The next day, Burke listened in and found out that DeSimone had been murdered; he slammed the receiver down and began crying, as depicted in the film Goodfellas. Henry also indicated in both the book Wiseguyand the DVD commentary to Goodfellas that DeSimone was already dead when Martin Krugman disappeared on January 6, 1979. In 1994, Henry Hill, in his book Gangsters and Goodfellas, gave an expanded story of the events leading up to DeSimone's death. Hill's wife, Karen, had been having an affair with Hill's boss, Mafia caporegime Paul Vario. When Hill was sentenced to prison, DeSimone approached Karen for sex. When she turned him down, DeSimone attempted to rape her. In retaliation for the attempted rape, Vario approached the Gambino crew and revealed that DeSimone had murdered Jerothe and Devino without first seeking permission from the Gambino crime family, violating Mafia protocol. Sometime in late December 1978/early January 1979, DeSimone was contacted and told that he was going to be "made". Peter Vario and Bruno Facciolo took him to an unknown location, where he was murdered. There are two theories as to who actually killed DeSimone. According to mob informant Joseph "Joe Dogs" Ianuzzi, Thomas Agro claimed in 1985 that he was the driving force behind the murder. Agro also claimed to have murdered DeSimone's brother Anthony after he turned informant. Agro also suggested murdering the eldest and last remaining brother, Robert. According to Ianuzzi, Agro would often laughingly refer to killing the third DeSimone brother, stating that "Maybe it is time to go for the DeSimone trifecta!" Another account, told by Henry Hill in Gangsters and GoodFellas, states that John Gotti himself was the assassin. On May 17, 2007 on the Howard Stern Show, Hill reaffirmed that Gotti had killed DeSimone.

DeSimone was declared legally dead by the FBI in 1990.

He was thought to have been buried at a suspected "Mafia graveyard" on the Brooklyn-Queens border [3] near John F. Kennedy International Airport, where the body of Al Indelicato was found in 1981 and the bodies ofPhilip Giaccone and Dominick Trinchera were recovered by police in 2004.[4] His remains, however, have never been located.

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