April 4, 2024 • 33 mins
Most families send their kids to summer camp in July. Jo has packed up her entire brood of five to travel to Sicily to solve this century-old murder. Travel with us across the Atlantic to the gorgeous and dangerous island of Sicily.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I actually have no idea what's going to happen when
we get there, and I think we have to prepare
ourselves to.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Go with the flow.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I know in a way that we don't usually.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Go with the fly. I've been to Sicily many times,
and I can tell you that traveling in Sicily is
not easy. It's not like traveling in the rest of Europe.
It is often something of a comedy of errors. So
even before we got here, our accommodations kept getting messed up,
and by messed up, I mean one hotel just didn't exist.
(00:46):
Our guide was constantly confusing the day we were going
to meet, and no one could tell me if our
rental car had car seats. Uh No. I'd rolled my
eyes when my uncle Jimmy said that he was scared
I might reopen a family vendetta one hundred years later.
It seemed far fetched.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
You always have to be careful when you're digging up,
when you're sifting through the ashes.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Let's say, but I am taking my kids, and you
can never be too sure. So I wanted to talk
to an expert in these things.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
You know, you may end up stumbling upon something that
someone doesn't want you to find out about.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
I'm not trying to scare you. I just you just
have to be vigilant.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
That's Barbie Lazza Nado. Barbie's been reporting on organized crime
in Italy for decades.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
She's covered the mafia, the Camora.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
She's written books about everything from the mafia trafficking women
from Nigeria and about the role of women in the
mom and she made the things that I'd written off
as Italian American mafia fantasies sound very, very real. Is
there still a danger in digging up these kinds of
old stories And should I be concerned or he's a
(01:53):
ancient history.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
You always have to be concerned because the mafia is
still existing and murders still haven't so you always have
to be concerned. I remember when I was doing the
book on the Nigerian sex trafficked women and the Kamora,
and I was staying in this little place with these
nuns who are trying to save these women off the street,
and my tires got slashed, and so I went to
(02:15):
the police and I said, I'm I'm a journalist, I'm
working on the story.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
And they said, well, you're lucky.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Your break line wasn't cut and I said, oh okay,
and they're like, this is just a warning, so next.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Time, don't always come in the same car.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
That seems like such almost paranoia, But you have to
be vigilant.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
You just have to be vigilant.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
One of the things I always think that's so important
about covering organized crime is just is not romanticizing it
in your head.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Like I've said, my dad was all about romanticizing the mob.
So some part of me hadn't really taken it seriously.
Mafia sh mafia, like, surely if Lorenzo was killed by
the mob, that wouldn't matter today. But just as I
started picturing everything that could go wrong, Arbie tempered my worry.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I think something so old and that relates to your
own family. You probably have a certain level of protection
in the sense that you are trying to find out
something about your family. You're not trying to find something
about someone else's family, and so that protects you to
some extent.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And then she said something that convinced me I needed
to make this trip, something that convinced me that if
I was going to find some answers, I needed to
be on the ground digging through these files.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
It's just not a digital place.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So there's still like a folder somewhere about the murder
of your grandmother, a great grandmother, for sure. It's like
in a file cabinet in some courthouse, and so you're
going to have to figure out where that is and
then you can get it. I mean, they're really helpful
once you figure out what you need.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So off we went.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
On Joe Piazza from Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. This is
the Sicilian Inheritance, Chapter two, summer vacation. Do you need
our hot parks one, two, three, four, five five. So
(04:23):
one day in June last year, we packed eight bags,
a stroller, three kids, and we hopped on a plane
to Palermo. As we got closer, I got so excited.
My heart was pounding faster. I was a little sweaty.
I grabbed the kids' hands and squeezed them because it
felt like we were getting closer to something.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
From above.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The boot of Italy looks like it's kicking sicily out
into the Mediterranean Sea. The sunburnt red roofs of Palermo
trickled down white craggy cliffs into the turquoise ocean. It
just might be the most beautiful place that you've ever
seen from above. We land at Falcone Borsolino Airport, named
(05:15):
after Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borslino, two judges who went
after the mafia and were murdered for it. Fitting the
Palermo airport is madness. It is chaos. It's not even
organized chaos. It is just people everywhere, screaming in your face.
(05:36):
We rent a car. We'd asked for car seats, but
all of them seemed to be broken in some different,
unfixable way. We finally found a couple of them, literally
tossed behind the rental car office. We start driving west.
Most tourists go east to Taramina. That's where White Lotus
was filmed. We're going the other way into what I
(05:57):
like to call the real Sicily on the west coast.
The highway is as chaotic as the airport. There are
no rules on this highway. Mopheads and smart cars weave
in and out of lanes like they're playing Frogger. But
it's worth it because when we get to the seaside
town as Capello, it's like something out of a movie set.
(06:18):
We're in a hotel set high on a cliff overlooking
the ocean. There's a picturesque piazza with very good looking
people sipping espresso and wine. There are four different gelato shops.
It would be idyllic, except.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
So this is how it is, Ladies and gentleman.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
For the first couple of nights, we're going to be
staying in this small town, my whole family and my
dear friend.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Slash producer Kate.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I love it is to ditch my kids with Nick
and an Italian babysitter and travel to Caltabalota, the village
where Lorenzo lived and died. Hi, Charlie, Bye, guys, away
from you. Oh my gosh, look at this Virgin Mary
(07:19):
shrine by the sea. The scenery in sicily quickly switches
between insanely gorgeous and completely busted out and vaguely concerning.
You're gonna get perfect sea views with an ancient ruin
peeking over a dusky mountain side speckled with olive groves,
right next to a burnt down construction site filled with
trash eating sheep. But as we drive, I try to
(07:40):
focus on the beautiful bits.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
This coastline is so pretty.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
Oh, it's so cute, isn't it cute?
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I love Cecily. I'm constantly enchanted by Cecily. And this
is what I was thinking at three in the morning
when I was regarding my marriage and my children and
everything about my life. You forget and I knew this.
As a traveler list, travel is supposed to be hard,
and that's why it's good for us, and that's why
(08:07):
it's good for our souls. Writers have been visiting Sicily
forever and waxing poetic about it. Gerta said, Without Sicily,
Italy creates no image on the soul.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Here is the key to everything.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I have Lorenza's death circu for good, which does not
have a cause of death on it would have I
don't know. That's what I want to ask, right or
what other records do they have in the town that
they can give us, And then we'll check. We'll go
to the church and we'll check the graveyard. I don't
(08:43):
even know if she has a grave. First we have
to meet our guide, Chierro Grillo, our man in Sicily,
show htic show hikay. When my dad started making these
heritage trips over twenty years ago, he got connected with Chiero.
I think it was probably on Facebook. Chiero doesn't remember.
(09:05):
Every time my dad came back, he'd hire Chiero to
take him around.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
He'd be a.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Guide, a translator, a driver. I'm pretty sure a drinking buddy.
Cicily was different twenty years ago. Tourism has really taken
off since then, and while you should probably still hire
a translator and a guide, back then, you really needed
a guy, So Chero became our guy. He also visited
my dad in the US. He brought his son over
(09:29):
for a college tour. My dad liked to call Chiero
his Kujino, his cousin, even though we are not at
all related. You took cousin Tony's family around too, and
Maddie had her.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
Wedding the lawyer Tony he wasn't.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
The Chiero has also done this trip with pretty much
everyone else in my extended family.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Who's come here, Kiera?
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Where are you from?
Speaker 6 (09:53):
I was born in small town in the province of Palermo.
One hour called it the Ventivia Nice please.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Taking around Americans obsessed with their Sicilian roots is kind
of Chio's whole thing these days.
Speaker 6 (10:11):
I worked always in the tourist business. The main focus
from American from Sicily is going to visit the town
of the ancestors, and then of course all the other
classic pala d'armina, all the Sicilian we have some relative
(10:31):
in the US, so there are really many, many many
friend Sinadra, Frank Capra for the Coppola, they are all Franz.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
A lot of US tourists make a pilgrimage to the
epitome of Italian americanness, the Godfather.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
So the movie now is VPD as all DearS.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Actually spoiler, Corleon the town is not that much to
look at. That's sort of why Francis Ford Coppola shot
most of the movie in other parts of the island.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Whatever I went done to make it a trade new
service was fatifully.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
My dad was less into visiting Corleone, despite his love
for The Godfather.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
He just wanted to see where his people came from.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I'm not even sure if he ever really learned about
the true mafia history in Cultavolota. What I've learned is
that about one hundred years ago, the fascist Caesar Maury
was on a campaign to rid Sicily of both bandits
and the mafia, both of which were apparently very plentiful
(11:34):
at the time. In nineteen sixteen, the same year that
Lorenzo was killed, Caesar Moury took aim on the tiny
town of Caltabolota. He had shootouts with the bandits, who
were holed up in caves and in the busy square.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
In the center of town. The bandits ended up flying this.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Large black flag at the highest peak in Culta Bolota,
right before Maury drove over three hundred of them out
of town. And again, the same year that Lorenzo was killed.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Your father to him, and he talked to me about
this story, but he he didn't know too much.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
No, he didn't know too.
Speaker 6 (12:14):
Much, That's what.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
So I'm trying to find out more I have. What
do you remember, Chiro about the story?
Speaker 6 (12:23):
Something about the was the grandmother.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
My great great grandmother. My family's prevailing theory of Lorenzo's
death has always been that she was killed over a
land dispute, that the so called black hand murdered her
for her property, or maybe maybe that she sold some
land and was killed over the money. But through his trips,
(12:48):
my dad arrived at an alternate theory. And I don't
know exactly what he found out or how, but he
came back from Sicily convinced that it might not have
been about the land, that the murder actually had to
do with Lorenza being a healer of some kind.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
And she was annoying the past. In these small viellage
there were some women doing I don't know in English
their name, but you know it was a mix between
magic ritual but also practical things that really can have,
(13:32):
especially babies, like a medwife. See I'm the wife.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
My dad used the words witch and healer almost interchangeably. Now,
witch is a very particular word, and it has been
used all over the world to cut down women who
do things to help other women. And of course calling
a woman a witch has been an age old excuse
to murder her. In Sicily, there's another word strega, which
(14:02):
encompasses healer, apothecary, midwife, some other quote unquote witchy things.
Because let's not forget organized healthcare is a rather modern
luxury in rural areas like most of Sicily, these women
were often the healthcare providers.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
I remember when I was a kid. Now I am
sixty six. I remember when I was maybe four or five,
but I mean many many years ago. I mother a
couple of times she sent to me into one of
these old woman in my home town. And they do,
for example, something if you had the stomach cake, putting
(14:45):
a glass with some olive oil inside the candle, and
then a massage with some oil. I remember, sometimes it
work it They are in some place still now, but
of course most of the people they don't choose anymore.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
So she was one of those.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
See this was her in mind that by something happened,
maybe with the baby that she was taking care, like.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
The family was upset that the child dies.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Ye, my dad somehow came to believe that something had
happened to a child in Lorenza's care, and maybe that's
why she was killed in revenge.
Speaker 6 (15:37):
I don't remember if you say that probably die though
there's a baby and so probably then she had some trouble,
but really remember more than that.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
So this is Lorenza.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Yeah, she's severe.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
She's severe, right, she.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
The eyes and the face it looks letely like him.
A wisas I think, a wizard, right.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I mean I wouldn't mess with her now.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Those cheekbones are to die, thuse, cheekbones are to.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Die for.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
How old do you think she is?
Speaker 7 (16:15):
There?
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I mean let's figure out how old she was when
she died. Fifty four, so I bet she's like she's
in her forties there, late forties, not that much older
than me.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
I'm forty two, forty two, I'm forty two, So she
looks older.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, I think people looked a lot older back then.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
It's hard living.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Despite spending all that time with my dad, Chiero is
not at all bought into this mystery. He doesn't seem
to think that Lorenzo was murdered at all. Well, part
of the story is that she was murdered here and
that it might have been the mafia, But I don't
know how true that is, or if Americans just like
(17:00):
to talk about it.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
You know, really, that the mafia heal a woman is
very unusual. I never heard about that. Could be more
if she really was connected with some problem about some
baby or something. But the mafia usually they don't go
(17:22):
to kill normal people.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
They the other theory, there's all these theories. Everyone has
a different story. Is that she was killed to get
money for her land.
Speaker 6 (17:36):
Could be and maybe it's more trustable this one.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
More after the break.
Speaker 7 (17:56):
Do you hear that?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
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(18:22):
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(19:02):
do check out the show notes now and thank you.
Also enjoy with something delicious. All I knew was like
dad right, being like she was murdered for the money
(19:22):
and because she was a witch.
Speaker 8 (19:24):
That's all he told me. And your father had his
story that she was like the witch doctor. But he
knew that the money was stolen.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, he knew the money was stolen. And then when
he went to Sicily and started investigating it, he's like
she was murdered because she was a witch. My dad's
witch theory hadn't come out of nowhere. When I called
my other relatives, some of them had heard it too.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Okay, this is what I know. It was at Tony's
cabin a family reunion in Aunt Dana. He told us
that our great grandmother was a faith dealer what do
they call where you put the hands them somewhere and
she could heal people.
Speaker 8 (20:04):
Now, your father said that she killed the mayor's son
or daughter whatever with her stuff, and that's why they
killed her.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Period, his daughter died and he took it out on
my great grandmother and killed her, murdered her.
Speaker 8 (20:21):
Maybe that's true, but we were told she was killed
for the money from the sale of the farm.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Most were pretty skeptical, though.
Speaker 7 (20:30):
Jeremy mentioned you were thinking of doing it. I don't
like the word which.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
The thing about both of these theories is that We've
gotten no proof, no proof of the land sale, no
proof of the stolen money, no proof that Lorenzo was
a midwife or God forbid a strega. We've just got
her death certificate, which I found on ancestry dot com,
and that doesn't list a cause of death. It's funny
(20:56):
because the Piazzas have made trekking the cat and trying
to find family documents a sort of rite of passage.
But it seems like all of them had a very difficult,
or I should probably say weird time getting any more
info about Lorenza, even when they weren't trying to solve
(21:19):
her murder.
Speaker 9 (21:20):
When we were there and I was asking somebody about her,
and they just looked at me and they kept saying morte,
morte no, and they're like they shut it down.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
They wouldn't talk.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Really mm hmmm, you just said name, You're like Lorenzo
Marsala Piazza and they were like, morte.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
My aunt Gail and uncle Jimmy they took a trip
a few years ago in which they tried to see
the old archives.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
We went right to the business office. It's just such
a tiny, little, you know, village on the top of
the mountain and the clerk was there and we asked
if we could see the history book.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It's not a history book, but there are these massive
physical books that most small towns in Italy keep and
they list things like births and deaths and they go
back hundreds of years.
Speaker 8 (22:13):
And so the guy, but the clerk, brought it out
and we went flipping through this thing. It was huge
and you know, crinkly paper. So and we were going
through the book and then the mayor of the town
came in, came in and.
Speaker 7 (22:30):
He was somewha bitch. He found out what we were doing,
lamed the goddamn book closed and started yelling us at
the clerk. And so we have at least thought we
worked too welcome.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
So what you're saying is I have to get to
that book. So I have my work cut out for
me trying to get access to these record books.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
Oh that ahead of.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Us, Look they're all uh see, I think that all
these are olive trees in the valley because big.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Fin of a rock.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
Oh yeah, so it's high up in the mountain.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
After about two hours in the car finally comes into view.
It's the only town for miles a tiny village spilling
down from the top of a single mountain, rising above
the golden brown hills.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
They're terraced with olive trees.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
It's so high up and has such a good vantage
point over the ocean. The locals claim you can see
all the way to Africa on a clear day. This
was a natural place for many, many conquerors of Sicily
to build their forts and castles.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
This town is spectacular every time I come here.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
I mean it's.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
It's carved into the side of the mountains.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Yeah, yeah, see I look into We're chining to go
the city hall morning sheep.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
That's the way we had to go up close.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Really is a maze of teeny tiny streets that most
cars won't be able to fit down. I remember driving
up here with my mom and dad in their tank
of a rental car because neither of my parents could
drive stick and they destroyed, destroyed the exterior of that thing,
banging into the stone walls.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
Of the town. Okay, didn't sell that, ya yats seem
in this.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Way, we make our way to the Commune that's the
town's municipal office, where Chiro has made us an appointment
to go through the records. These records are apparently the
same history book that got slammed in front of Aunt
Gail and Uncle Jim. And I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I'm a little worried we might be told to get
the hell out too.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
There's a book for everything, and look at look, look,
there's just books. There's a book for every It's a
handwritten list of everyone.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Who died.
Speaker 10 (25:06):
Led to a very normal de jio.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
We're standing in the open foyer of the commune me Kate,
our translator. The building itself outside is gorgeous, It's like
a Beaux Arts fantasy. On the inside, it has that
could be anywhere in the world bureaucratic. Look, you could
be at the DMV, okay, or even more boring than
(25:32):
the DMV.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
It's sort of a.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Town hall but also the registrar for the municipality. So
it's got records dating back hundreds of years. It has
records for everyone in the area, truly from birth to death,
going back centuries, all of them handwritten. The Romans, of course,
were very well known for keeping lots and lots of
(25:56):
written records, and well, the Fascists weren't so bad at
it either. I mean the fact that we were just
able to like walk into city hall. There's just one
dude here. We hand him the death certificate and now
he's back there. We can see into this back room
where the books are kept, and it's lined floor to
(26:17):
ceiling with metal cabinets stacked with enormous fabric covered books.
I ask our translator what they are like?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Is this the history book? And he explains that one.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Of the shelves has the big book of death, and
there's one of these big books of death for every
single year. So we asked the town administrator, Senior Garado,
through the translator, of course I can't do this. We
ask to see the records pertaining to all deaths in
(26:49):
nineteen sixteen, to see if there's actually a record for
Lorenzo Marsala there.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And he's got the book.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
He's got the book.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
We ask him, well, can we can?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
We ask if we can go back and see the book?
Speaker 5 (27:04):
Can we can we go back?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Here?
Speaker 10 (27:06):
Are we allowed the book?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Can we see it?
Speaker 10 (27:10):
Libro?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So the book describes how everyone in town died, Yes.
Speaker 10 (27:22):
When when it died, when they died, and when it died.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
No, he said, because of privacy that we can't bring
the book's bring the book, Senior Grotto pages through the book.
He looks very disinterested. He's got that same look of
every bureaucratic official since the beginning of time.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
So that goes from when went when.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Quest Most of us in the room do not speak Italian,
and so we are not sure what's happening at first,
gradas flipping through the beginning of the book, going back
and forth with our translator, Yeah, I.
Speaker 11 (27:59):
Ask you about because of that, and the first time
he said that he could have died home, but then
he realized that he sured that he it's a lot ends.
Speaker 10 (28:10):
Sorry.
Speaker 11 (28:11):
She she should have died in the hospital because there's
another party, says to be to be mince when it's
just one means and was she was died at home.
Speaker 10 (28:24):
She died at the age of fifty four.
Speaker 11 (28:31):
Got young, Yeah, young, especially in small towns and the
people in average she lives from eighty five ninety years
really wow.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
So does he think he has more records or no?
Speaker 10 (28:45):
Yes, he stopped checking. Whether you have more records or no?
Speaker 1 (28:49):
No luck, no, Lorenza, he hasn't been able to find
her death record. We're trying to piece together their conversation
using my very very bad Italian. And then then we
grasp that he was looking in section A of the book,
Seria A of the book.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And there's two parts to this book, and all we
know now is that Lorenzo wasn't in the first part.
So what does that mean? What is the second part
of the book?
Speaker 11 (29:25):
There are the documents report that says the real cause
of the dean.
Speaker 10 (29:31):
The record doesn't have that, So what is he telling us.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I didn't realize this at the time, but in that
last bit, our translator Ettore was just speculating with Senor
Gatto about how neither of them think this was a murder,
and that I am just some crazy American with a
crazy idea about my crazy family. They are just humoring
us right now. And to be honest, I'm starting to
(30:04):
doubt it too. She's not even in the Book of Death.
Maybe my family has never found anything here because there
is nothing to find, and maybe I've dragged my husband,
my children, and Kate across an ocean on a wild
goose chase for nothing.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
But then.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Senior Grotto flips to the back of the book.
Speaker 11 (30:34):
Okay, she didn't die at home because war, maybe to
an accident, because there's no.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Turns out that the Book of Death has two sections
Saria A and Saria B. Grotto and our translator, because
they did not believe that this was a murder only
looked in section A. Section A is for deaths by
natural causes, death's happened in the home, deaths that were expected.
(31:04):
Section B Sarah B is for deaths by unnatural causes
like an accident or a murder. And when Grado flips
to the section of unnatural deaths February twenty sixth, nineteen sixteen,
(31:24):
end writing Lorenz of Marsala. There's her name right there.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
That's next time on The Sicilian Inheritance.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The Sicilian Inheritance is a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with
iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
The series is.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Produced by Jen Kinney, kid Osborne, Darah Potts and me
Joe Piazza, with key help from Laura Lee Watson of
Digging Up Your Roots in the Boot and Chiro Grilow
of Sicily Roots. Many thanks to Julia Paraviccini and thencestry
dot Com Research Department. You can get your copy of
The Sicilian Inheritance the novel right now at truly anywhere
(32:14):
that you get your books anywhere you get your books.
It's got the same name as the podcast, but with
more food, wine, and sex. Also, do not forget to
get a taste of Sicily in the form of delicious
Sicilian olive oil at Prodana's tap room. Make sure to
check out our show notes for a link to buy it,
or if you find yourself in Philly just stop by.
(32:36):
Our Executive producers are Kate Osborne, mangesh Hetikador Costas Linos,
and Oz Walloshan from iHeart.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
And executive producers are Katrina Norbel and Nikki Etour.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
We also want to thank Will Pearson, Connel Vern, Bob Pittman,
and John Mary novelists
I actually have no idea what's going to happen when
we get there, and I think we have to prepare
ourselves to.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Go with the flow.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
I know in a way that we don't usually.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Go with the fly. I've been to Sicily many times,
and I can tell you that traveling in Sicily is
not easy. It's not like traveling in the rest of Europe.
It is often something of a comedy of errors. So
even before we got here, our accommodations kept getting messed up,
and by messed up, I mean one hotel just didn't exist.
(00:46):
Our guide was constantly confusing the day we were going
to meet, and no one could tell me if our
rental car had car seats. Uh No. I'd rolled my
eyes when my uncle Jimmy said that he was scared
I might reopen a family vendetta one hundred years later.
It seemed far fetched.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
You always have to be careful when you're digging up,
when you're sifting through the ashes.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Let's say, but I am taking my kids, and you
can never be too sure. So I wanted to talk
to an expert in these things.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
You know, you may end up stumbling upon something that
someone doesn't want you to find out about.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
I'm not trying to scare you. I just you just
have to be vigilant.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
That's Barbie Lazza Nado. Barbie's been reporting on organized crime
in Italy for decades.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
She's covered the mafia, the Camora.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
She's written books about everything from the mafia trafficking women
from Nigeria and about the role of women in the
mom and she made the things that I'd written off
as Italian American mafia fantasies sound very, very real. Is
there still a danger in digging up these kinds of
old stories And should I be concerned or he's a
(01:53):
ancient history.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
You always have to be concerned because the mafia is
still existing and murders still haven't so you always have
to be concerned. I remember when I was doing the
book on the Nigerian sex trafficked women and the Kamora,
and I was staying in this little place with these
nuns who are trying to save these women off the street,
and my tires got slashed, and so I went to
(02:15):
the police and I said, I'm I'm a journalist, I'm
working on the story.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
And they said, well, you're lucky.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Your break line wasn't cut and I said, oh okay,
and they're like, this is just a warning, so next.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Time, don't always come in the same car.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
That seems like such almost paranoia, But you have to
be vigilant.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
You just have to be vigilant.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
One of the things I always think that's so important
about covering organized crime is just is not romanticizing it
in your head.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Like I've said, my dad was all about romanticizing the mob.
So some part of me hadn't really taken it seriously.
Mafia sh mafia, like, surely if Lorenzo was killed by
the mob, that wouldn't matter today. But just as I
started picturing everything that could go wrong, Arbie tempered my worry.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
I think something so old and that relates to your
own family. You probably have a certain level of protection
in the sense that you are trying to find out
something about your family. You're not trying to find something
about someone else's family, and so that protects you to
some extent.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And then she said something that convinced me I needed
to make this trip, something that convinced me that if
I was going to find some answers, I needed to
be on the ground digging through these files.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
It's just not a digital place.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So there's still like a folder somewhere about the murder
of your grandmother, a great grandmother, for sure. It's like
in a file cabinet in some courthouse, and so you're
going to have to figure out where that is and
then you can get it. I mean, they're really helpful
once you figure out what you need.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
So off we went.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
On Joe Piazza from Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. This is
the Sicilian Inheritance, Chapter two, summer vacation. Do you need
our hot parks one, two, three, four, five five. So
(04:23):
one day in June last year, we packed eight bags,
a stroller, three kids, and we hopped on a plane
to Palermo. As we got closer, I got so excited.
My heart was pounding faster. I was a little sweaty.
I grabbed the kids' hands and squeezed them because it
felt like we were getting closer to something.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
From above.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
The boot of Italy looks like it's kicking sicily out
into the Mediterranean Sea. The sunburnt red roofs of Palermo
trickled down white craggy cliffs into the turquoise ocean. It
just might be the most beautiful place that you've ever
seen from above. We land at Falcone Borsolino Airport, named
(05:15):
after Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borslino, two judges who went
after the mafia and were murdered for it. Fitting the
Palermo airport is madness. It is chaos. It's not even
organized chaos. It is just people everywhere, screaming in your face.
(05:36):
We rent a car. We'd asked for car seats, but
all of them seemed to be broken in some different,
unfixable way. We finally found a couple of them, literally
tossed behind the rental car office. We start driving west.
Most tourists go east to Taramina. That's where White Lotus
was filmed. We're going the other way into what I
(05:57):
like to call the real Sicily on the west coast.
The highway is as chaotic as the airport. There are
no rules on this highway. Mopheads and smart cars weave
in and out of lanes like they're playing Frogger. But
it's worth it because when we get to the seaside
town as Capello, it's like something out of a movie set.
(06:18):
We're in a hotel set high on a cliff overlooking
the ocean. There's a picturesque piazza with very good looking
people sipping espresso and wine. There are four different gelato shops.
It would be idyllic, except.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
So this is how it is, Ladies and gentleman.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
For the first couple of nights, we're going to be
staying in this small town, my whole family and my
dear friend.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Slash producer Kate.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I love it is to ditch my kids with Nick
and an Italian babysitter and travel to Caltabalota, the village
where Lorenzo lived and died. Hi, Charlie, Bye, guys, away
from you. Oh my gosh, look at this Virgin Mary
(07:19):
shrine by the sea. The scenery in sicily quickly switches
between insanely gorgeous and completely busted out and vaguely concerning.
You're gonna get perfect sea views with an ancient ruin
peeking over a dusky mountain side speckled with olive groves,
right next to a burnt down construction site filled with
trash eating sheep. But as we drive, I try to
(07:40):
focus on the beautiful bits.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
This coastline is so pretty.
Speaker 5 (07:44):
Oh, it's so cute, isn't it cute?
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I love Cecily. I'm constantly enchanted by Cecily. And this
is what I was thinking at three in the morning
when I was regarding my marriage and my children and
everything about my life. You forget and I knew this.
As a traveler list, travel is supposed to be hard,
and that's why it's good for us, and that's why
(08:07):
it's good for our souls. Writers have been visiting Sicily
forever and waxing poetic about it. Gerta said, Without Sicily,
Italy creates no image on the soul.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Here is the key to everything.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I have Lorenza's death circu for good, which does not
have a cause of death on it would have I
don't know. That's what I want to ask, right or
what other records do they have in the town that
they can give us, And then we'll check. We'll go
to the church and we'll check the graveyard. I don't
(08:43):
even know if she has a grave. First we have
to meet our guide, Chierro Grillo, our man in Sicily,
show htic show hikay. When my dad started making these
heritage trips over twenty years ago, he got connected with Chiero.
I think it was probably on Facebook. Chiero doesn't remember.
(09:05):
Every time my dad came back, he'd hire Chiero to
take him around.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
He'd be a.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Guide, a translator, a driver. I'm pretty sure a drinking buddy.
Cicily was different twenty years ago. Tourism has really taken
off since then, and while you should probably still hire
a translator and a guide, back then, you really needed
a guy, So Chero became our guy. He also visited
my dad in the US. He brought his son over
(09:29):
for a college tour. My dad liked to call Chiero
his Kujino, his cousin, even though we are not at
all related. You took cousin Tony's family around too, and
Maddie had her.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
Wedding the lawyer Tony he wasn't.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
The Chiero has also done this trip with pretty much
everyone else in my extended family.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Who's come here, Kiera?
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Where are you from?
Speaker 6 (09:53):
I was born in small town in the province of Palermo.
One hour called it the Ventivia Nice please.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Taking around Americans obsessed with their Sicilian roots is kind
of Chio's whole thing these days.
Speaker 6 (10:11):
I worked always in the tourist business. The main focus
from American from Sicily is going to visit the town
of the ancestors, and then of course all the other
classic pala d'armina, all the Sicilian we have some relative
(10:31):
in the US, so there are really many, many many
friend Sinadra, Frank Capra for the Coppola, they are all Franz.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
A lot of US tourists make a pilgrimage to the
epitome of Italian americanness, the Godfather.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
So the movie now is VPD as all DearS.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Actually spoiler, Corleon the town is not that much to
look at. That's sort of why Francis Ford Coppola shot
most of the movie in other parts of the island.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Whatever I went done to make it a trade new
service was fatifully.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
My dad was less into visiting Corleone, despite his love
for The Godfather.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
He just wanted to see where his people came from.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I'm not even sure if he ever really learned about
the true mafia history in Cultavolota. What I've learned is
that about one hundred years ago, the fascist Caesar Maury
was on a campaign to rid Sicily of both bandits
and the mafia, both of which were apparently very plentiful
(11:34):
at the time. In nineteen sixteen, the same year that
Lorenzo was killed, Caesar Moury took aim on the tiny
town of Caltabolota. He had shootouts with the bandits, who
were holed up in caves and in the busy square.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
In the center of town. The bandits ended up flying this.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Large black flag at the highest peak in Culta Bolota,
right before Maury drove over three hundred of them out
of town. And again, the same year that Lorenzo was killed.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
Your father to him, and he talked to me about
this story, but he he didn't know too much.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
No, he didn't know too.
Speaker 6 (12:14):
Much, That's what.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
So I'm trying to find out more I have. What
do you remember, Chiro about the story?
Speaker 6 (12:23):
Something about the was the grandmother.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
My great great grandmother. My family's prevailing theory of Lorenzo's
death has always been that she was killed over a
land dispute, that the so called black hand murdered her
for her property, or maybe maybe that she sold some
land and was killed over the money. But through his trips,
(12:48):
my dad arrived at an alternate theory. And I don't
know exactly what he found out or how, but he
came back from Sicily convinced that it might not have
been about the land, that the murder actually had to
do with Lorenza being a healer of some kind.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
And she was annoying the past. In these small viellage
there were some women doing I don't know in English
their name, but you know it was a mix between
magic ritual but also practical things that really can have,
(13:32):
especially babies, like a medwife. See I'm the wife.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
My dad used the words witch and healer almost interchangeably. Now,
witch is a very particular word, and it has been
used all over the world to cut down women who
do things to help other women. And of course calling
a woman a witch has been an age old excuse
to murder her. In Sicily, there's another word strega, which
(14:02):
encompasses healer, apothecary, midwife, some other quote unquote witchy things.
Because let's not forget organized healthcare is a rather modern
luxury in rural areas like most of Sicily, these women
were often the healthcare providers.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
I remember when I was a kid. Now I am
sixty six. I remember when I was maybe four or five,
but I mean many many years ago. I mother a
couple of times she sent to me into one of
these old woman in my home town. And they do,
for example, something if you had the stomach cake, putting
(14:45):
a glass with some olive oil inside the candle, and
then a massage with some oil. I remember, sometimes it
work it They are in some place still now, but
of course most of the people they don't choose anymore.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
So she was one of those.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
See this was her in mind that by something happened,
maybe with the baby that she was taking care, like.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
The family was upset that the child dies.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Ye, my dad somehow came to believe that something had
happened to a child in Lorenza's care, and maybe that's
why she was killed in revenge.
Speaker 6 (15:37):
I don't remember if you say that probably die though
there's a baby and so probably then she had some trouble,
but really remember more than that.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
So this is Lorenza.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Yeah, she's severe.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
She's severe, right, she.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
The eyes and the face it looks letely like him.
A wisas I think, a wizard, right.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I mean I wouldn't mess with her now.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Those cheekbones are to die, thuse, cheekbones are to.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Die for.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
How old do you think she is?
Speaker 7 (16:15):
There?
Speaker 6 (16:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I mean let's figure out how old she was when
she died. Fifty four, so I bet she's like she's
in her forties there, late forties, not that much older
than me.
Speaker 6 (16:26):
I'm forty two, forty two, I'm forty two, So she
looks older.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, I think people looked a lot older back then.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
It's hard living.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Despite spending all that time with my dad, Chiero is
not at all bought into this mystery. He doesn't seem
to think that Lorenzo was murdered at all. Well, part
of the story is that she was murdered here and
that it might have been the mafia, But I don't
know how true that is, or if Americans just like
(17:00):
to talk about it.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
You know, really, that the mafia heal a woman is
very unusual. I never heard about that. Could be more
if she really was connected with some problem about some
baby or something. But the mafia usually they don't go
(17:22):
to kill normal people.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
They the other theory, there's all these theories. Everyone has
a different story. Is that she was killed to get
money for her land.
Speaker 6 (17:36):
Could be and maybe it's more trustable this one.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
More after the break.
Speaker 7 (17:56):
Do you hear that?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Do you hear that? That's the gen the laughing of
the Mediterranean Sea on the fine golden sand. By the
magic of podcasting, you can almost feel the heat of
the sun, the cool of the water, and the smell
of the orange blossoms. Now, with a few short clicks,
you can taste it too, because we have actually imported
the finest Sicilian olive oil. Inspired by this very podcast,
(18:22):
We've partnered with Philadelphia's own Cardanus Gourmet Foods to bring
you the Sicilian Inheritance Olive Oil, a flavor journey from
the volcanic soil of the ancient groves through special tear
wir that family secrets and inherited stories provide. It's got
a taste of fresh off the vine, tomatoes and a
(18:42):
hint of almonds. You can get your own bottle today
at Cardenas Taproom. Check the show notes for the link
and all the details to buy. It's not only an
incredible olive oil, but it will completely transport you to
the beautiful and sometimes dangerous island of Sicily. So please
(19:02):
do check out the show notes now and thank you.
Also enjoy with something delicious. All I knew was like
dad right, being like she was murdered for the money
(19:22):
and because she was a witch.
Speaker 8 (19:24):
That's all he told me. And your father had his
story that she was like the witch doctor. But he
knew that the money was stolen.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, he knew the money was stolen. And then when
he went to Sicily and started investigating it, he's like
she was murdered because she was a witch. My dad's
witch theory hadn't come out of nowhere. When I called
my other relatives, some of them had heard it too.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Okay, this is what I know. It was at Tony's
cabin a family reunion in Aunt Dana. He told us
that our great grandmother was a faith dealer what do
they call where you put the hands them somewhere and
she could heal people.
Speaker 8 (20:04):
Now, your father said that she killed the mayor's son
or daughter whatever with her stuff, and that's why they
killed her.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Period, his daughter died and he took it out on
my great grandmother and killed her, murdered her.
Speaker 8 (20:21):
Maybe that's true, but we were told she was killed
for the money from the sale of the farm.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Most were pretty skeptical, though.
Speaker 7 (20:30):
Jeremy mentioned you were thinking of doing it. I don't
like the word which.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
The thing about both of these theories is that We've
gotten no proof, no proof of the land sale, no
proof of the stolen money, no proof that Lorenzo was
a midwife or God forbid a strega. We've just got
her death certificate, which I found on ancestry dot com,
and that doesn't list a cause of death. It's funny
(20:56):
because the Piazzas have made trekking the cat and trying
to find family documents a sort of rite of passage.
But it seems like all of them had a very difficult,
or I should probably say weird time getting any more
info about Lorenza, even when they weren't trying to solve
(21:19):
her murder.
Speaker 9 (21:20):
When we were there and I was asking somebody about her,
and they just looked at me and they kept saying morte,
morte no, and they're like they shut it down.
Speaker 8 (21:31):
They wouldn't talk.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Really mm hmmm, you just said name, You're like Lorenzo
Marsala Piazza and they were like, morte.
Speaker 7 (21:41):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
My aunt Gail and uncle Jimmy they took a trip
a few years ago in which they tried to see
the old archives.
Speaker 8 (21:48):
We went right to the business office. It's just such
a tiny, little, you know, village on the top of
the mountain and the clerk was there and we asked
if we could see the history book.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It's not a history book, but there are these massive
physical books that most small towns in Italy keep and
they list things like births and deaths and they go
back hundreds of years.
Speaker 8 (22:13):
And so the guy, but the clerk, brought it out
and we went flipping through this thing. It was huge
and you know, crinkly paper. So and we were going
through the book and then the mayor of the town
came in, came in and.
Speaker 7 (22:30):
He was somewha bitch. He found out what we were doing,
lamed the goddamn book closed and started yelling us at
the clerk. And so we have at least thought we
worked too welcome.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
So what you're saying is I have to get to
that book. So I have my work cut out for
me trying to get access to these record books.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
Oh that ahead of.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Us, Look they're all uh see, I think that all
these are olive trees in the valley because big.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Fin of a rock.
Speaker 5 (23:08):
Oh yeah, so it's high up in the mountain.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
After about two hours in the car finally comes into view.
It's the only town for miles a tiny village spilling
down from the top of a single mountain, rising above
the golden brown hills.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
They're terraced with olive trees.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
It's so high up and has such a good vantage
point over the ocean. The locals claim you can see
all the way to Africa on a clear day. This
was a natural place for many, many conquerors of Sicily
to build their forts and castles.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
This town is spectacular every time I come here.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
I mean it's.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
It's carved into the side of the mountains.
Speaker 6 (23:52):
Yeah, yeah, see I look into We're chining to go
the city hall morning sheep.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
That's the way we had to go up close.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Really is a maze of teeny tiny streets that most
cars won't be able to fit down. I remember driving
up here with my mom and dad in their tank
of a rental car because neither of my parents could
drive stick and they destroyed, destroyed the exterior of that thing,
banging into the stone walls.
Speaker 6 (24:23):
Of the town. Okay, didn't sell that, ya yats seem
in this.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Way, we make our way to the Commune that's the
town's municipal office, where Chiro has made us an appointment
to go through the records. These records are apparently the
same history book that got slammed in front of Aunt
Gail and Uncle Jim. And I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I'm a little worried we might be told to get
the hell out too.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
There's a book for everything, and look at look, look,
there's just books. There's a book for every It's a
handwritten list of everyone.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Who died.
Speaker 10 (25:06):
Led to a very normal de jio.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
We're standing in the open foyer of the commune me Kate,
our translator. The building itself outside is gorgeous, It's like
a Beaux Arts fantasy. On the inside, it has that
could be anywhere in the world bureaucratic. Look, you could
be at the DMV, okay, or even more boring than
(25:32):
the DMV.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
It's sort of a.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Town hall but also the registrar for the municipality. So
it's got records dating back hundreds of years. It has
records for everyone in the area, truly from birth to death,
going back centuries, all of them handwritten. The Romans, of course,
were very well known for keeping lots and lots of
(25:56):
written records, and well, the Fascists weren't so bad at
it either. I mean the fact that we were just
able to like walk into city hall. There's just one
dude here. We hand him the death certificate and now
he's back there. We can see into this back room
where the books are kept, and it's lined floor to
(26:17):
ceiling with metal cabinets stacked with enormous fabric covered books.
I ask our translator what they are like?
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Is this the history book? And he explains that one.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Of the shelves has the big book of death, and
there's one of these big books of death for every
single year. So we asked the town administrator, Senior Garado,
through the translator, of course I can't do this. We
ask to see the records pertaining to all deaths in
(26:49):
nineteen sixteen, to see if there's actually a record for
Lorenzo Marsala there.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
And he's got the book.
Speaker 6 (26:56):
He's got the book.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
We ask him, well, can we can?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
We ask if we can go back and see the book?
Speaker 5 (27:04):
Can we can we go back?
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Here?
Speaker 10 (27:06):
Are we allowed the book?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Can we see it?
Speaker 10 (27:10):
Libro?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So the book describes how everyone in town died, Yes.
Speaker 10 (27:22):
When when it died, when they died, and when it died.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
No, he said, because of privacy that we can't bring
the book's bring the book, Senior Grotto pages through the book.
He looks very disinterested. He's got that same look of
every bureaucratic official since the beginning of time.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
So that goes from when went when.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Quest Most of us in the room do not speak Italian,
and so we are not sure what's happening at first,
gradas flipping through the beginning of the book, going back
and forth with our translator, Yeah, I.
Speaker 11 (27:59):
Ask you about because of that, and the first time
he said that he could have died home, but then
he realized that he sured that he it's a lot ends.
Speaker 10 (28:10):
Sorry.
Speaker 11 (28:11):
She she should have died in the hospital because there's
another party, says to be to be mince when it's
just one means and was she was died at home.
Speaker 10 (28:24):
She died at the age of fifty four.
Speaker 11 (28:31):
Got young, Yeah, young, especially in small towns and the
people in average she lives from eighty five ninety years
really wow.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
So does he think he has more records or no?
Speaker 10 (28:45):
Yes, he stopped checking. Whether you have more records or no?
Speaker 1 (28:49):
No luck, no, Lorenza, he hasn't been able to find
her death record. We're trying to piece together their conversation
using my very very bad Italian. And then then we
grasp that he was looking in section A of the book,
Seria A of the book.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And there's two parts to this book, and all we
know now is that Lorenzo wasn't in the first part.
So what does that mean? What is the second part
of the book?
Speaker 11 (29:25):
There are the documents report that says the real cause
of the dean.
Speaker 10 (29:31):
The record doesn't have that, So what is he telling us.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I didn't realize this at the time, but in that
last bit, our translator Ettore was just speculating with Senor
Gatto about how neither of them think this was a murder,
and that I am just some crazy American with a
crazy idea about my crazy family. They are just humoring
us right now. And to be honest, I'm starting to
(30:04):
doubt it too. She's not even in the Book of Death.
Maybe my family has never found anything here because there
is nothing to find, and maybe I've dragged my husband,
my children, and Kate across an ocean on a wild
goose chase for nothing.
Speaker 6 (30:24):
But then.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Senior Grotto flips to the back of the book.
Speaker 11 (30:34):
Okay, she didn't die at home because war, maybe to
an accident, because there's no.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Turns out that the Book of Death has two sections
Saria A and Saria B. Grotto and our translator, because
they did not believe that this was a murder only
looked in section A. Section A is for deaths by
natural causes, death's happened in the home, deaths that were expected.
(31:04):
Section B Sarah B is for deaths by unnatural causes
like an accident or a murder. And when Grado flips
to the section of unnatural deaths February twenty sixth, nineteen sixteen,
(31:24):
end writing Lorenz of Marsala. There's her name right there.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
That's next time on The Sicilian Inheritance.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
The Sicilian Inheritance is a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with
iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
The series is.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Produced by Jen Kinney, kid Osborne, Darah Potts and me
Joe Piazza, with key help from Laura Lee Watson of
Digging Up Your Roots in the Boot and Chiro Grilow
of Sicily Roots. Many thanks to Julia Paraviccini and thencestry
dot Com Research Department. You can get your copy of
The Sicilian Inheritance the novel right now at truly anywhere
(32:14):
that you get your books anywhere you get your books.
It's got the same name as the podcast, but with
more food, wine, and sex. Also, do not forget to
get a taste of Sicily in the form of delicious
Sicilian olive oil at Prodana's tap room. Make sure to
check out our show notes for a link to buy it,
or if you find yourself in Philly just stop by.
(32:36):
Our Executive producers are Kate Osborne, mangesh Hetikador Costas Linos,
and Oz Walloshan from iHeart.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
And executive producers are Katrina Norbel and Nikki Etour.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
We also want to thank Will Pearson, Connel Vern, Bob Pittman,
and John Mary novelists
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