April 26, 2024 • 36 mins
Five kilometers outside town, around a bend, near the monument of the fallen masses near a landslide is where we are told we will find the place Lorenza died. En route, we simply cannot outrun the mafia lore - from the caves in the craggy hills above us that were used as hideouts for bandits to the alleged pizza shop where the last don of Sicily was finally arrested.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Quest for grand started working.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I didn't say Febrio Martino, Nicolo Martino. Nicolo Martino is
the name of Niccolo, last name Nicola?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Last time and.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Again, why course is the same day at the same time,
so maybe.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
The same place. He thinks they're.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Connected at the great check. That's unusual because there weren't
so many deads in the same day in a small
town like this in nineteen sixteen, the same place Postelos test.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
So they'll cico.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
In contra.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Contra smat, you have a why would they be murdered together?
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Nicolo Martino?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Who are you?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Nikomo Martino?
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Who is this guy that she was killed?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
What the fuck? That was? Last time?
Speaker 5 (01:14):
On the Sicilian Inheritance this week the scene of the
crime from Kaleidoscope and iHeart I'm Joe Piazza. Picture it.
(01:44):
Here we are in Sicily. We've just had our Columbo
moment where we say to the town clerk in Cultaboa.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Just one more thing?
Speaker 5 (01:54):
Can you do just one more thing for us? Will
you look for any more deaths? Or just after my
great great grandmother Lorenzo Marsala's death, and what there's this
other guy right there in the book of Deaths. Niccolo
Martino a stranger who died on the very same day
(02:16):
in the exact same spot, and he may have been
her brother in law. Now we're looking to investigate a
double homicide. I actually had to sit down.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Now.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
You'd think that the Big Book of Deaths would contain
actual information about the death, something about what actually happened
to a person. But no, there is zero information in
there about the cause of death. All we have in
this entry is an insane amount of information about where
(02:53):
it happened. I guess in nineteen sixteen, the record keepers
were just very invested.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
In the world, says the area fight kilometers before entering
on the left side of the road.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
The area where she died five kilometers outside of town,
around a bend near the Monument of the Fallen Masses,
right next to a place where there may have been
a landslide.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
He suggested to stop in a place where she probably
died that area, But why she does that matter?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
He thinks that she could have something could have happened.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
No, he's not.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
He's not sure, but he's just trying to show us
where she died. We should stop and see where she died. No,
of course, we've got to go to the place where
it happened. Because we are running down every lead, every
half baked theory, and every single potential clue. I'm gonna
warn you we will be in the car on poorly
paved hairpins switchbacks that take us down the side of
(03:56):
this ridiculously steep mountain. I had to take an arama mean,
so you might want to too. The road is tiny,
it's super narrow, and only one car can pass at
a time. In most places there's no guardrail at all,
So one false turn of the wheel and that's it.
You're going over the edge.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
All right.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
So now now we're searching for the spot where she
was murdered. Signor Grotto was very specific about where it was.
What did detail by detail? So what did he tell us?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Yes, it's all about this place where there's this fountain,
kind of fountain where the caddles horses is to drink.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, five kilometers five kilometers outside of the side.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah, there's a small hallway in the middle of the
and there's also an house. I asked him, is it
abandoned house? No, there's some hunters leaves.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
There, so some hunters that live there. What do people
hunt here and four boars.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
That's e Torre. He's translator, who's driving, and he's answering
every single inane question that I have.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
There's just one thing we could do to solve the mystery.
Take take time machine back in time.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
No no, no, no no.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
You have to hire a medium, a psychic to talk
to the dead.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Oh yeah, it will be too easy.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Right, So I watch you Torre cut the wheel from
one direction to the other. I can't help but think
about this land that we're traveling across. You can see
olive fields and vineyards and the ocean. It's freaking gorgeous.
But the roads are perilous, mostly because the mountain is
steep and the top of it is covered in these
(05:39):
massive rocks that are filled with caves. The cliffs are
majestic but also imposing. And there's history here, history that
I only discovered while I was reporting this podcast. At
one point, these caves were actually filled with hundreds of
criminal bandits who use them as a hideout and a
(06:00):
layer over one hundred years of past since Lorenzo Marsala
died from what we now know is unnatural causes.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
The book told us that.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
But the description also has us looking for landmarks that
are one hundred years old, and no matter how good
that description is, obviously things have changed since then, or
at least that's what I'm imagining. It makes me think
of those pictures of New York City where there used
to be beautiful buildings in a town square and now
(06:33):
it's a panera. And that's what I was expecting, except
Caltabalota really has barely changed in a century.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Oh oh, okay, here's here's the cattle. Yes, here's the cattle.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
The fountain that the Book of Death described, the lean cattle,
the road that winds passed an outpost, they're all still there.
The pastures are not condos, they're still pastures. Stone cottages
are completely untouched. And that's part of the charm. But
(07:07):
it also makes it easier to see why so many
Sicilians had to leave here. When Antonino Piazza left Lorenza
to go to America, it was a very difficult time
to be living in Sicily. In fact, more than a
million Sicilians fled because it was impossible to make a
living wage and support a family, and most peasants and
(07:29):
wage workers had absolutely no rights. The people who lived
and worked the land. Here were small scale farmers who
usually grew just enough to feed their families, and as
Chiro likes to point out as our family tour guide,
life has never been easy for Sicilians. This is an
(07:50):
island that has been conquered over and over again ever
since ancient times.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
The Greek surviving city in the sixth century before cry So,
our culture basically came from the Greeks, but then we
have had a lot of other population, the Roman, the
Arabs for the seventh century, the Spanish, the Norman, the French.
That's why all our culture, in the architecture, in the food,
(08:21):
it's a mix of all this population. Also our DNA.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
It's kind of what makes Sicily Sicily. As we drive,
I imagine myself in the landscape of Lorenzo's time. The
one thing that snaps me back to the twenty first
century is the wind turbines.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
There are these massive.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
White structures just whirring along the top of the mountain side.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
So many wind farms has been one of the big
big business where the mafia put today ends since about
the Pentias.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
There's the mafia.
Speaker 6 (09:02):
They call it lot No, but you know it's a
big business, so also immediate expensive.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
There are wind turbines truly everywhere, like more wind turbines
than I've ever seen. And yes, what Chiro just said
caught me by surprise to could it be that the
Mafia has dipped its shiny shoes into the world of
renewable energy. The Mafia today is very different than it
was when Lorenzo was alive, and it's not so much
(09:34):
Tony Soprano or Don Corleone either.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
But the Mafia still exists, right, It's just there like
it's very.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Connecting with the Russia Mafia, with the Calibris Mafia, the
American right, right.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
I read the story about the forestry that they burned
down part of the Madoni Mountain.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
Yes see, but it's just it's not big, big business,
the big busy of the mafia, or the public constraction
or the wind the means the big public construction.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
They do. Drugs.
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Drugs, yes, of course, drug is always.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
As we drive, we cannot seem to outrun the topic
of the mafia. Just a few years ago, the Mafia
was actually accused of setting massive forest fires by tying
petrol soaked burning rags to cats and releasing them in
national parks. Apparently this was all part of a scam
(10:44):
of European Union funds.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
What's Therano is the town or the last? All the
style of big mafia boss. It was arrested a few
months ago.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
After forty years. He was hiding a pizza shop.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
Right Matteo Messina, Dan, I don't know. He was arrested
in the hospital in Palermo because he is a concert.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Don't you love that?
Speaker 5 (11:09):
I thought it was a pizza shop, that one of
the very last Sicilian dawns was arrested that and in
my head it still is either way. Matteo Messina was
considered the last godfather of Sicily, and he'd been in
hiding since the early nineteen nineties. While he was at large,
he infamously claimed to have filled a cemetery all by himself.
(11:33):
He evaded capture for decades, and when they got him,
it turned out that he'd spent most of his life
in a small town near his mother's house. Sicilian men
love staying close to their mamas. I was explaining all
of this to Kate as we nearly flew off the
side of the cliff during one of the ridiculous turns
around the side of the mountain and suddenly we'd arrived. Oh,
(11:58):
here's a fountain. Oh my gosh, there's a guy peeing
right there, just taking a pie and gathering some water,
getting some water. Wait, there's a like memorial here.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
If you have numbers of ste there's some pictures.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
There's some pictures. That's guys, what would you do if
she was in a picture? Oh, I'm gonna ask this man.
That's the question.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
The same wist the Virgin Jesus on.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
These are what this memorial is for.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Do you want to ask westerlementary for.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
That's literally not quick mar next one, the next one, okay,
the next it's it's not another fountain, another fountain.
Speaker 5 (13:21):
Or maybe we weren't at the scene of the crime
at all. I'm finding it very hard to be patient.
I mean, Colombo really would have wrapped this up by now.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
They said it's a place where in the past we
may use it to came here to wash the bull
the other ship.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
But as we pile back in the car, continuing on
our quest for Lorenza and mystery man Nicolo Martino's crime scene,
I can't get the mafia out of my head. I
mean it is Sicily, and the truth is you're never
that far from some mafia. More that's coming up after
(14:10):
the break.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Do you hear that? Do you hear that?
Speaker 5 (14:27):
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Speaker 1 (15:46):
What do you think they were doing out here? Was this?
The farm had been out here? Well, that's what I
want to know. Do you think that was her land?
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
My god? If she was killed on the land, then
there's a house down.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
There spot as detailed as the description is from one
hundred years ago, and even though things haven't changed all
that much, it is not entirely easy to find my
great great grandmother's death site, which gives a bit of
an opportunity to take you down a mafia's side street,
(16:18):
to delve just a little bit deeper into what I'd
assumed was a family fantasy connecting Lorenza's death to the
Black Hand. Now, from what every family member has told me,
the Marsala Piazza clan were farmers.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
They had maybe.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Olive groves or lemon trees, same as almost everyone else
in this region.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
But it was tricky business.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
If a family grew too much product, if they started
making any money off of that product, they were very
heavily taxed, and then the sales were often controlled by
the local criminal bandits. The beginnings of what we now
call the mafia. The thing is the mafia as we
like to think about it today, It didn't just appear
(17:06):
out of nowhere. There were lots and lots of political
and social and economic elements here in Sicily that led
to its formation, starting with the fact that Sicilians really
didn't have any form of self governance. They were constantly
being governed by conquering forces. As Chiro pointed out, Sicilians
(17:28):
were always controlled by a new power over and over again,
each one of them treating the peasants like total craft,
and over time the criminal bandits grew in number. In movies,
it often seems like the mafia is all part of
one large secret society. It's quote unquote organized crime for
(17:50):
a reason. But back then it really was many different
groups of peasants occasionally organizing together in criminal activities, often
referred to as the association. These bands of criminals were
opportunistic and they didn't always stay together long. But was
the mafia here during Lorenz's time, and if so, what
(18:14):
were they doing.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
If she was killed on her land, that adds a
whole other layer to it.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
So the next thing I think we need to figure
out is if we can do you think there would
be land records for what she owned or no loand
of records like records of whom what the family signed is.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
To say, some office somewhere.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, it's still well if this, if this is her land,
like what is there? Is there a record of who
owned here's goots?
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Go To get a better sense of the truth, I
had to do some research, so I got a copy
of the diary of a man named Caesar Maury, also
known as the Iron Prefect. Maury got that nickname because
of his iron campaigns against the mafia, of which there
were several. In his diary, Maury talks about being ordered
(19:07):
to go to Sicily in the spring of nineteen sixteen.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
He wrote that he was.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Going there to quote assist in a special service which
was being organized with the aim of remedying the deplorable
state of public safety. According to accounts at the time,
the island, in the wake of World War One, had
become virtually lawless, with gangs of bandits operating with impunity.
(19:32):
Maury arrived with his men to stamp out a few
of these heavily armed gangs. One of Maury's very first
targets was Paolo Grisafi, Grisafi and his men worked on horseback,
plaguing the western part of the province of Agrigento, right
in Calta Balota. According to Maury's diary, Grisafi ruled like
(19:58):
a king and enjoyed tremendous local prestige. He fixed the
taxes and exacted tribute from everyone with any pretension of wealth.
Maury's diary is also quick to point out that Krisafi
was ferocious, ruthless, and cunning, and yeah, he was a Caltabalotan.
(20:21):
People around the village actually whispered that Paolo Grissafi was
mato or bewitched, but Maury wasn't intimidated, no, no. He
set up camp on quote the beach in Shaka, a charming,
hospitable little town. It was a savvy location because it's
(20:41):
about twenty kilometers away from Coultavalota, but it's pretty easy
from there to keep an eye on the three peaks
of the mountain. Before long, Maury was arresting anyone acquainted
with Grisafi, putting them.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
On display, pressuring them to talk.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Maury hoped that the spectacle would cause the bandit king
to turn him in, but Grasafi had a different idea.
According to Maury's diary, on the dawn of the third
day after the arrests, a large black flag fixed to
a mast on the highest of the three peaks overlooking Kaltabalota,
(21:16):
appeared fluttering in the mountain breeze. The fight became openly declared.
It was a brazen declaration of war. Maury and his
men chased Grassafi across the caves, and ultimately they discovered
they had shifted their operations to a little cottage in town.
(21:36):
The cottage looked like a small fortress and was no
easy thing to get into. I ordered fire to be
opened simultaneously, so that a hail of bullets was poured
into the house from all sides. The bandits made a
vigorous reply, and the fight raged fiercely in full view
of the population. Realizing that the jig was up, the
(21:57):
bandits traded their black flag for a white one and
signaled surrender. As we rushed in. Grisafi, followed by four companions,
appeared unarmed with his hands up. It was the end
of a rain. Ultimately, Grisafi and many others were executed.
The press hailed the cleanup as a lethal blow to
(22:20):
the mafia.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Caesar.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
Maury, on the other hand, felt that what he had
really done was due away with disparate foot soldiers and gangs.
He believed that the real mafia was much harder to see,
but also much more dangerous, seeping into business, government, and
even the local police. And here's the thing about that story.
(22:49):
It happened in nineteen sixteen, the very same year that
my Lorenza was killed. Maury was chasing mafia band and
it's mere months after she was found dead. It must
mean something, right. For a long time I thought this
mafia story was complete bullshit, But they were here. The
(23:15):
bullet shells from this shootout are probably still buried in
the dirt of this mountain.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Oh, let me count three kilometers, three kilometers one point
six miles?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Means how far are we now? What's our kilometer count?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
One and a half?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Okay? Oh, oh, there's another fountain.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
No, it's close to the house.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, there's a house.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Details sell and set in place? Right, it should be
the other.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
When you get out on these country roads, everything kind
of looks the same. They're gorgeous us, but it's very similar.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Do you have a contact?
Speaker 6 (24:22):
So I think that the only way maybe to know
something is asking Grado if he can go to the
Caribbiniti station, because the only that could do have some report.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
At the.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
Has been all all over Italy, also the small village,
and usually they should have the report.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
If you don't know what the carabinieri are, you're not alone.
Kate asked me the same thing.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
The national place.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
You an't sound that is non local. It is a
been any station all over this movie. So asking him,
you see that you can ask. We're gonna be if
they have records from the age giving a name and
so what can die?
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Two people died, that seems like that's a big deal
they would have to have.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
So that's another thing that we have to hunt down.
The police report. The carabinieri should have some record because
presumably they had to come out here when someone found
two dead bodies.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Mister said, there's a rock brought fully down.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
And slide, there'side, there's a landslideide.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
This is the Pikes.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
We have the absolutely certainty, one hundred and ten percent.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, I recall this, okay, yeah, so why would they
be here. There's nobody wearing that house. They could have
been in that house.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
Another traveling Okay, to keep the voices straight. We've got
a crew with us. It's me Kate of course, Torre
our translator, Cheero, our family guide. My cousin Laura and
her husband.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
They were traveling on the mules. They stopped here to drink.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
They were just together, they're just friends. He's helping her out.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
They're going to Tropany to buy some salt and boom
the rocks rocks.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Slide elementary Watson Elementary.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
The rocks fell on them here. When was the rock slide?
Because that is an accident.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
That is an accident.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
The stories that we have as if it was trying
to a landslide is a good story. They would say
she got killed by an act of God.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
Yeah, maybe with the mule the don king.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
They would say that. They wouldn't say, they wouldn't say yeah.
So I think that in that video these don't have
to tink.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
There was this road.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
So here's the scene. We're on the side of the
main paved modern road. There's a steady waterfall cascading into
a small pool among the rocks. Just over the side
of it, we can see what appears to be a
well traveled path in the fields. This might just be
the original road.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
That they would have been on.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
I try to picture them. Would they be walking, riding
a mule? Could they have been struck by a landslide here?
Waylaid by bandits?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
This is it's only good land.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
There's an olive grove right here, there's water right here,
or potentially caught in the ass.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
Well, they just went a distant through the town, twaving
a romantic.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Spa Cher's end of the story.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Again, Cheiero is really pushing this hanky panky theory. It's
his favorite thing about this whole story, that maybe Lorenza
and her potential brother in law Nicolo Martino were doing
it and that's why someone killed them.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Maybe the spring beauty in the growth. Oh yeah, but
then who followed her and killed her? Somebody killed them though,
somebody killed both of them. And also he was an
old man, but not really Jill think about him. Yeah,
seventy one. I mean the men live here, live forever here.
He was seventy one and she was fifty four. I'm
(28:34):
going to be seventy one in six months, that's true. Yeah,
And she's going to be fifty four and you're going
to be fifty four.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
It turns out that my cousin Laura and her husband
are the exact same ages as Lorenza and Nicolo Martina
were when they died right here on this spot.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
So just saying, I think maybe it was the he
was in the wrong place and she was the and
she was the person they were trying to kill. I
think we don't know that's true. I think there's a
lot of theories right now. Guy, I think we don't know. Okay,
it's been this any way you want, we could send it.
As Mike White said, you just need to start with
(29:14):
the body. You can have a but.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
It's true, everyone has a theory. Kate thinks that maybe
Lorenzo was the target and Nikolo just happened to be
with her. Chio keeps chirping about the affair. He's obsessed
with the affair. Laura and her husband are very concerned
about the value of the property. I mean, we don't
(29:40):
know what happened.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
We still don't know.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
We can't know, not yet at least, but the evidence
is finally starting to come together, and shock of all shocks,
my family's gossip is actually turning into pretty good intel.
The historic record does line up to suggest that Lorenza
could have been killed in mafia activity, But.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Why kill her?
Speaker 5 (30:07):
Why kill a fifty year old mother of seven children
and him him? Why kill Nicolo Martino too? Something Cheerio
said earlier rings in my ears. 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
(30:29):
true that is, or if Americans.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Just like to talk about it.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
You know, really, the mafia kill a woman is very unusual.
I never heard about that. I could be more if
she really was connected with some problem about some baby
or something. But the mafia usually they don't go to
(30:54):
kill the normal people. They They is a quilla the
between the you know, other families, other mafia family. But
I know if she was not part or some mafia family,
I don't think that could be, and I don't.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Think she was.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
I said at the time that I do not think
that she was involved in the mafia. But when I
was researching for this episode, something stood out. About a
decade after his big sweep of mafioso bandits in Sicily,
Caesar Moury was sent back to the island. This time
it was by Elduque himself. Benito Mussolini Mussolini knew that
(31:40):
he had to get rid of the Cosa Nostra for
political reasons. It would bring a lot of support his way.
During an almost four year campaign starting in nineteen twenty five,
with Maury as the lead investigator, Mussolini was able to
claim credit for eradicating the mob in Italy. Morey's tactics
were harsh. He laid siege to entire tame hounds, dragged
(32:01):
people from their beds into the town squares, and obtained
information by torture. Eleven thousand arrests were made during his time,
and many of the mafiosi who evaded his capture were
said to have fled to the United States. Among those
thousands was one who caught my eye. I found this
(32:22):
story in a New York Times article from the nineteen twenties,
and it said, after a century of unobstructed lawlessness of
the mafia or black hand in Sicily has finally, at
last been brought to justice. One of the most defiant
of these bandits recently brought to justice was a woman
past sixty, known as the Queen of Guachi. She is
(32:46):
the mother of six children, has spent her life among outlaws,
and according to official reports, has not stopped at any
crime to gain her end the perpetuation of the mafia.
Her name, which the Times didn't even print, is Lorenza Marsala.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
That would be amazing, though, wouldn't it. It's not that
it's not that Queen of Guachi's name was Giuseppa Salvo,
the queen bandit, mother of a ferocious brood of six.
Just like Lorenza, Juseppa apparently spent a good part of
her life in the saddle dressed in men's clothes. Her
(33:31):
entire life was spent among the outlaws. Her father, her husband,
and then her eldest son led the Guatchy Gang. It's
said that at times she even commanded the gang, meeting
out judgments and fixing the price of ransoms. When they
arrested her, she was sixty two with snow white hair,
but age hadn't softened her. As the article reads, she
(33:53):
was quote not devoid of a certain dignity of bearing,
yet her sinister look and the evil leer permanently distorted
her features to make your blood run cold. Jesseppa apparently
listened to her sentence with perfect composure. Letting on only
a ferocious leer at the judge as he announced prison
(34:16):
sentences that totalled two thousand years for her and her
posse of bandits. It's got to make you wonder, right,
Men are the ones who are always written into history books.
Men are the ones they make movies about. But that
doesn't mean they were the only ones at it. What
(34:36):
was Lorenza up to at the turn of the century
and could she have been involved in what these bandits
were doing? Was it dangerous for women to do this?
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And that? Yes, very dangerous.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
That's next time. The Sicilian Inheritance is a Kaleidoscope production
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series is produced by Jenkinney,
Kate Osborne, Dara Potts and me Joe Piazza, with key
help from Laura Lee Watson of Digging Up Your Roots
(35:15):
in the Boot and Chiro Grilow of Sicily Roots. Many
thanks to Julia Paravaccini and the Ancestry dot com research department.
You can get your copy of The Sicilian Inheritance the
novel right now at truly anywhere 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 sucks. Also,
(35:38):
do not forget to get a taste of Sicily in
the form of delicious Sicilian olive oil at Cardena'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. Our Executive producers are Kate Osborne
Manga Chetikador costas Lino's and Oz Walloshan from iHeart. Executive
(36:01):
producers are Katrina Norvelle and Nikki Etore.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
We also want to
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Thank Will Pearson, connel Byrne, Bob Pittman, and John Mary
Napolis
Quest for grand started working.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I didn't say Febrio Martino, Nicolo Martino. Nicolo Martino is
the name of Niccolo, last name Nicola?
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Last time and.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Again, why course is the same day at the same time,
so maybe.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
The same place. He thinks they're.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Connected at the great check. That's unusual because there weren't
so many deads in the same day in a small
town like this in nineteen sixteen, the same place Postelos test.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
So they'll cico.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
In contra.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Contra smat, you have a why would they be murdered together?
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Nicolo Martino?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Who are you?
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Nikomo Martino?
Speaker 5 (01:08):
Who is this guy that she was killed?
Speaker 1 (01:11):
What the fuck? That was? Last time?
Speaker 5 (01:14):
On the Sicilian Inheritance this week the scene of the
crime from Kaleidoscope and iHeart I'm Joe Piazza. Picture it.
(01:44):
Here we are in Sicily. We've just had our Columbo
moment where we say to the town clerk in Cultaboa.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Just one more thing?
Speaker 5 (01:54):
Can you do just one more thing for us? Will
you look for any more deaths? Or just after my
great great grandmother Lorenzo Marsala's death, and what there's this
other guy right there in the book of Deaths. Niccolo
Martino a stranger who died on the very same day
(02:16):
in the exact same spot, and he may have been
her brother in law. Now we're looking to investigate a
double homicide. I actually had to sit down.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Now.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
You'd think that the Big Book of Deaths would contain
actual information about the death, something about what actually happened
to a person. But no, there is zero information in
there about the cause of death. All we have in
this entry is an insane amount of information about where
(02:53):
it happened. I guess in nineteen sixteen, the record keepers
were just very invested.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
In the world, says the area fight kilometers before entering
on the left side of the road.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
The area where she died five kilometers outside of town,
around a bend near the Monument of the Fallen Masses,
right next to a place where there may have been
a landslide.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
He suggested to stop in a place where she probably
died that area, But why she does that matter?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
He thinks that she could have something could have happened.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
No, he's not.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
He's not sure, but he's just trying to show us
where she died. We should stop and see where she died. No,
of course, we've got to go to the place where
it happened. Because we are running down every lead, every
half baked theory, and every single potential clue. I'm gonna
warn you we will be in the car on poorly
paved hairpins switchbacks that take us down the side of
(03:56):
this ridiculously steep mountain. I had to take an arama mean,
so you might want to too. The road is tiny,
it's super narrow, and only one car can pass at
a time. In most places there's no guardrail at all,
So one false turn of the wheel and that's it.
You're going over the edge.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
All right.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
So now now we're searching for the spot where she
was murdered. Signor Grotto was very specific about where it was.
What did detail by detail? So what did he tell us?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Yes, it's all about this place where there's this fountain,
kind of fountain where the caddles horses is to drink.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, five kilometers five kilometers outside of the side.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
Yeah, there's a small hallway in the middle of the
and there's also an house. I asked him, is it
abandoned house? No, there's some hunters leaves.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
There, so some hunters that live there. What do people
hunt here and four boars.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
That's e Torre. He's translator, who's driving, and he's answering
every single inane question that I have.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
There's just one thing we could do to solve the mystery.
Take take time machine back in time.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
No no, no, no no.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
You have to hire a medium, a psychic to talk
to the dead.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Oh yeah, it will be too easy.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
Right, So I watch you Torre cut the wheel from
one direction to the other. I can't help but think
about this land that we're traveling across. You can see
olive fields and vineyards and the ocean. It's freaking gorgeous.
But the roads are perilous, mostly because the mountain is
steep and the top of it is covered in these
(05:39):
massive rocks that are filled with caves. The cliffs are
majestic but also imposing. And there's history here, history that
I only discovered while I was reporting this podcast. At
one point, these caves were actually filled with hundreds of
criminal bandits who use them as a hideout and a
(06:00):
layer over one hundred years of past since Lorenzo Marsala
died from what we now know is unnatural causes.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
The book told us that.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
But the description also has us looking for landmarks that
are one hundred years old, and no matter how good
that description is, obviously things have changed since then, or
at least that's what I'm imagining. It makes me think
of those pictures of New York City where there used
to be beautiful buildings in a town square and now
(06:33):
it's a panera. And that's what I was expecting, except
Caltabalota really has barely changed in a century.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Oh oh, okay, here's here's the cattle. Yes, here's the cattle.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
The fountain that the Book of Death described, the lean cattle,
the road that winds passed an outpost, they're all still there.
The pastures are not condos, they're still pastures. Stone cottages
are completely untouched. And that's part of the charm. But
(07:07):
it also makes it easier to see why so many
Sicilians had to leave here. When Antonino Piazza left Lorenza
to go to America, it was a very difficult time
to be living in Sicily. In fact, more than a
million Sicilians fled because it was impossible to make a
living wage and support a family, and most peasants and
(07:29):
wage workers had absolutely no rights. The people who lived
and worked the land. Here were small scale farmers who
usually grew just enough to feed their families, and as
Chiro likes to point out as our family tour guide,
life has never been easy for Sicilians. This is an
(07:50):
island that has been conquered over and over again ever
since ancient times.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
The Greek surviving city in the sixth century before cry So,
our culture basically came from the Greeks, but then we
have had a lot of other population, the Roman, the
Arabs for the seventh century, the Spanish, the Norman, the French.
That's why all our culture, in the architecture, in the food,
(08:21):
it's a mix of all this population. Also our DNA.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
It's kind of what makes Sicily Sicily. As we drive,
I imagine myself in the landscape of Lorenzo's time. The
one thing that snaps me back to the twenty first
century is the wind turbines.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
There are these massive.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
White structures just whirring along the top of the mountain side.
Speaker 6 (08:49):
So many wind farms has been one of the big
big business where the mafia put today ends since about
the Pentias.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
There's the mafia.
Speaker 6 (09:02):
They call it lot No, but you know it's a
big business, so also immediate expensive.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
There are wind turbines truly everywhere, like more wind turbines
than I've ever seen. And yes, what Chiro just said
caught me by surprise to could it be that the
Mafia has dipped its shiny shoes into the world of
renewable energy. The Mafia today is very different than it
was when Lorenzo was alive, and it's not so much
(09:34):
Tony Soprano or Don Corleone either.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
But the Mafia still exists, right, It's just there like
it's very.
Speaker 6 (09:45):
Connecting with the Russia Mafia, with the Calibris Mafia, the
American right, right.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
I read the story about the forestry that they burned
down part of the Madoni Mountain.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
Yes see, but it's just it's not big, big business,
the big busy of the mafia, or the public constraction
or the wind the means the big public construction.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
They do. Drugs.
Speaker 6 (10:19):
Drugs, yes, of course, drug is always.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
As we drive, we cannot seem to outrun the topic
of the mafia. Just a few years ago, the Mafia
was actually accused of setting massive forest fires by tying
petrol soaked burning rags to cats and releasing them in
national parks. Apparently this was all part of a scam
(10:44):
of European Union funds.
Speaker 6 (10:46):
What's Therano is the town or the last? All the
style of big mafia boss. It was arrested a few
months ago.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
After forty years. He was hiding a pizza shop.
Speaker 6 (11:00):
Right Matteo Messina, Dan, I don't know. He was arrested
in the hospital in Palermo because he is a concert.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Don't you love that?
Speaker 5 (11:09):
I thought it was a pizza shop, that one of
the very last Sicilian dawns was arrested that and in
my head it still is either way. Matteo Messina was
considered the last godfather of Sicily, and he'd been in
hiding since the early nineteen nineties. While he was at large,
he infamously claimed to have filled a cemetery all by himself.
(11:33):
He evaded capture for decades, and when they got him,
it turned out that he'd spent most of his life
in a small town near his mother's house. Sicilian men
love staying close to their mamas. I was explaining all
of this to Kate as we nearly flew off the
side of the cliff during one of the ridiculous turns
around the side of the mountain and suddenly we'd arrived. Oh,
(11:58):
here's a fountain. Oh my gosh, there's a guy peeing
right there, just taking a pie and gathering some water,
getting some water. Wait, there's a like memorial here.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
If you have numbers of ste there's some pictures.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
There's some pictures. That's guys, what would you do if
she was in a picture? Oh, I'm gonna ask this man.
That's the question.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
The same wist the Virgin Jesus on.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
These are what this memorial is for.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Do you want to ask westerlementary for.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
That's literally not quick mar next one, the next one, okay,
the next it's it's not another fountain, another fountain.
Speaker 5 (13:21):
Or maybe we weren't at the scene of the crime
at all. I'm finding it very hard to be patient.
I mean, Colombo really would have wrapped this up by now.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
They said it's a place where in the past we
may use it to came here to wash the bull
the other ship.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
But as we pile back in the car, continuing on
our quest for Lorenza and mystery man Nicolo Martino's crime scene,
I can't get the mafia out of my head. I
mean it is Sicily, and the truth is you're never
that far from some mafia. More that's coming up after
(14:10):
the break.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Do you hear that? Do you hear that?
Speaker 5 (14:27):
That's the gentle lapping 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. And
with a few short clicks, you can taste it too,
because we have actually imported the finest Sicilian olive oil.
(14:47):
Inspired by this very podcast, We've partnered with Philadelphia's own
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It's got a taste of fresh off the vine, tomatoes
(15:10):
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bottle today at Cardenas Taproom. Check the show notes for
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only an incredible olive oil, but it will completely transport
you to the beautiful and sometimes dangerous island of Sicily.
So please do check out the show notes now and
(15:32):
thank you also enjoy with something delicious.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
What do you think they were doing out here? Was this?
The farm had been out here? Well, that's what I
want to know. Do you think that was her land?
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
My god? If she was killed on the land, then
there's a house down.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
There spot as detailed as the description is from one
hundred years ago, and even though things haven't changed all
that much, it is not entirely easy to find my
great great grandmother's death site, which gives a bit of
an opportunity to take you down a mafia's side street,
(16:18):
to delve just a little bit deeper into what I'd
assumed was a family fantasy connecting Lorenza's death to the
Black Hand. Now, from what every family member has told me,
the Marsala Piazza clan were farmers.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
They had maybe.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Olive groves or lemon trees, same as almost everyone else
in this region.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
But it was tricky business.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
If a family grew too much product, if they started
making any money off of that product, they were very
heavily taxed, and then the sales were often controlled by
the local criminal bandits. The beginnings of what we now
call the mafia. The thing is the mafia as we
like to think about it today, It didn't just appear
(17:06):
out of nowhere. There were lots and lots of political
and social and economic elements here in Sicily that led
to its formation, starting with the fact that Sicilians really
didn't have any form of self governance. They were constantly
being governed by conquering forces. As Chiro pointed out, Sicilians
(17:28):
were always controlled by a new power over and over again,
each one of them treating the peasants like total craft,
and over time the criminal bandits grew in number. In movies,
it often seems like the mafia is all part of
one large secret society. It's quote unquote organized crime for
(17:50):
a reason. But back then it really was many different
groups of peasants occasionally organizing together in criminal activities, often
referred to as the association. These bands of criminals were
opportunistic and they didn't always stay together long. But was
the mafia here during Lorenz's time, and if so, what
(18:14):
were they doing.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
If she was killed on her land, that adds a
whole other layer to it.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
So the next thing I think we need to figure
out is if we can do you think there would
be land records for what she owned or no loand
of records like records of whom what the family signed is.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
To say, some office somewhere.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Yeah, it's still well if this, if this is her land,
like what is there? Is there a record of who
owned here's goots?
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Go To get a better sense of the truth, I
had to do some research, so I got a copy
of the diary of a man named Caesar Maury, also
known as the Iron Prefect. Maury got that nickname because
of his iron campaigns against the mafia, of which there
were several. In his diary, Maury talks about being ordered
(19:07):
to go to Sicily in the spring of nineteen sixteen.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
He wrote that he was.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
Going there to quote assist in a special service which
was being organized with the aim of remedying the deplorable
state of public safety. According to accounts at the time,
the island, in the wake of World War One, had
become virtually lawless, with gangs of bandits operating with impunity.
(19:32):
Maury arrived with his men to stamp out a few
of these heavily armed gangs. One of Maury's very first
targets was Paolo Grisafi, Grisafi and his men worked on horseback,
plaguing the western part of the province of Agrigento, right
in Calta Balota. According to Maury's diary, Grisafi ruled like
(19:58):
a king and enjoyed tremendous local prestige. He fixed the
taxes and exacted tribute from everyone with any pretension of wealth.
Maury's diary is also quick to point out that Krisafi
was ferocious, ruthless, and cunning, and yeah, he was a Caltabalotan.
(20:21):
People around the village actually whispered that Paolo Grissafi was
mato or bewitched, but Maury wasn't intimidated, no, no. He
set up camp on quote the beach in Shaka, a charming,
hospitable little town. It was a savvy location because it's
(20:41):
about twenty kilometers away from Coultavalota, but it's pretty easy
from there to keep an eye on the three peaks
of the mountain. Before long, Maury was arresting anyone acquainted
with Grisafi, putting them.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
On display, pressuring them to talk.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Maury hoped that the spectacle would cause the bandit king
to turn him in, but Grasafi had a different idea.
According to Maury's diary, on the dawn of the third
day after the arrests, a large black flag fixed to
a mast on the highest of the three peaks overlooking Kaltabalota,
(21:16):
appeared fluttering in the mountain breeze. The fight became openly declared.
It was a brazen declaration of war. Maury and his
men chased Grassafi across the caves, and ultimately they discovered
they had shifted their operations to a little cottage in town.
(21:36):
The cottage looked like a small fortress and was no
easy thing to get into. I ordered fire to be
opened simultaneously, so that a hail of bullets was poured
into the house from all sides. The bandits made a
vigorous reply, and the fight raged fiercely in full view
of the population. Realizing that the jig was up, the
(21:57):
bandits traded their black flag for a white one and
signaled surrender. As we rushed in. Grisafi, followed by four companions,
appeared unarmed with his hands up. It was the end
of a rain. Ultimately, Grisafi and many others were executed.
The press hailed the cleanup as a lethal blow to
(22:20):
the mafia.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Caesar.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
Maury, on the other hand, felt that what he had
really done was due away with disparate foot soldiers and gangs.
He believed that the real mafia was much harder to see,
but also much more dangerous, seeping into business, government, and
even the local police. And here's the thing about that story.
(22:49):
It happened in nineteen sixteen, the very same year that
my Lorenza was killed. Maury was chasing mafia band and
it's mere months after she was found dead. It must
mean something, right. For a long time I thought this
mafia story was complete bullshit, But they were here. The
(23:15):
bullet shells from this shootout are probably still buried in
the dirt of this mountain.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Oh, let me count three kilometers, three kilometers one point
six miles?
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Means how far are we now? What's our kilometer count?
Speaker 3 (23:39):
One and a half?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Okay? Oh, oh, there's another fountain.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
No, it's close to the house.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah, there's a house.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Details sell and set in place? Right, it should be
the other.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
When you get out on these country roads, everything kind
of looks the same. They're gorgeous us, but it's very similar.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Do you have a contact?
Speaker 6 (24:22):
So I think that the only way maybe to know
something is asking Grado if he can go to the
Caribbiniti station, because the only that could do have some report.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
At the.
Speaker 6 (24:39):
Has been all all over Italy, also the small village,
and usually they should have the report.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
If you don't know what the carabinieri are, you're not alone.
Kate asked me the same thing.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
The national place.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
You an't sound that is non local. It is a
been any station all over this movie. So asking him,
you see that you can ask. We're gonna be if
they have records from the age giving a name and
so what can die?
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Two people died, that seems like that's a big deal
they would have to have.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
So that's another thing that we have to hunt down.
The police report. The carabinieri should have some record because
presumably they had to come out here when someone found
two dead bodies.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Mister said, there's a rock brought fully down.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
And slide, there'side, there's a landslideide.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
This is the Pikes.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
We have the absolutely certainty, one hundred and ten percent.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, I recall this, okay, yeah, so why would they
be here. There's nobody wearing that house. They could have
been in that house.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
Another traveling Okay, to keep the voices straight. We've got
a crew with us. It's me Kate of course, Torre
our translator, Cheero, our family guide. My cousin Laura and
her husband.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
They were traveling on the mules. They stopped here to drink.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
They were just together, they're just friends. He's helping her out.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
They're going to Tropany to buy some salt and boom
the rocks rocks.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Slide elementary Watson Elementary.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
The rocks fell on them here. When was the rock slide?
Because that is an accident.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
That is an accident.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
The stories that we have as if it was trying
to a landslide is a good story. They would say
she got killed by an act of God.
Speaker 6 (26:49):
Yeah, maybe with the mule the don king.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
They would say that. They wouldn't say, they wouldn't say yeah.
So I think that in that video these don't have
to tink.
Speaker 6 (27:04):
There was this road.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
So here's the scene. We're on the side of the
main paved modern road. There's a steady waterfall cascading into
a small pool among the rocks. Just over the side
of it, we can see what appears to be a
well traveled path in the fields. This might just be
the original road.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
That they would have been on.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
I try to picture them. Would they be walking, riding
a mule? Could they have been struck by a landslide here?
Waylaid by bandits?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
This is it's only good land.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
There's an olive grove right here, there's water right here,
or potentially caught in the ass.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
Well, they just went a distant through the town, twaving
a romantic.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Spa Cher's end of the story.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Again, Cheiero is really pushing this hanky panky theory. It's
his favorite thing about this whole story, that maybe Lorenza
and her potential brother in law Nicolo Martino were doing
it and that's why someone killed them.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Maybe the spring beauty in the growth. Oh yeah, but
then who followed her and killed her? Somebody killed them though,
somebody killed both of them. And also he was an
old man, but not really Jill think about him. Yeah,
seventy one. I mean the men live here, live forever here.
He was seventy one and she was fifty four. I'm
(28:34):
going to be seventy one in six months, that's true. Yeah,
And she's going to be fifty four and you're going
to be fifty four.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
It turns out that my cousin Laura and her husband
are the exact same ages as Lorenza and Nicolo Martina
were when they died right here on this spot.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
So just saying, I think maybe it was the he
was in the wrong place and she was the and
she was the person they were trying to kill. I
think we don't know that's true. I think there's a
lot of theories right now. Guy, I think we don't know. Okay,
it's been this any way you want, we could send it.
As Mike White said, you just need to start with
(29:14):
the body. You can have a but.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
It's true, everyone has a theory. Kate thinks that maybe
Lorenzo was the target and Nikolo just happened to be
with her. Chio keeps chirping about the affair. He's obsessed
with the affair. Laura and her husband are very concerned
about the value of the property. I mean, we don't
(29:40):
know what happened.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
We still don't know.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
We can't know, not yet at least, but the evidence
is finally starting to come together, and shock of all shocks,
my family's gossip is actually turning into pretty good intel.
The historic record does line up to suggest that Lorenza
could have been killed in mafia activity, But.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Why kill her?
Speaker 5 (30:07):
Why kill a fifty year old mother of seven children
and him him? Why kill Nicolo Martino too? Something Cheerio
said earlier rings in my ears. 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
(30:29):
true that is, or if Americans.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Just like to talk about it.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
You know, really, the mafia kill a woman is very unusual.
I never heard about that. I could be more if
she really was connected with some problem about some baby
or something. But the mafia usually they don't go to
(30:54):
kill the normal people. They They is a quilla the
between the you know, other families, other mafia family. But
I know if she was not part or some mafia family,
I don't think that could be, and I don't.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Think she was.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
I said at the time that I do not think
that she was involved in the mafia. But when I
was researching for this episode, something stood out. About a
decade after his big sweep of mafioso bandits in Sicily,
Caesar Moury was sent back to the island. This time
it was by Elduque himself. Benito Mussolini Mussolini knew that
(31:40):
he had to get rid of the Cosa Nostra for
political reasons. It would bring a lot of support his way.
During an almost four year campaign starting in nineteen twenty five,
with Maury as the lead investigator, Mussolini was able to
claim credit for eradicating the mob in Italy. Morey's tactics
were harsh. He laid siege to entire tame hounds, dragged
(32:01):
people from their beds into the town squares, and obtained
information by torture. Eleven thousand arrests were made during his time,
and many of the mafiosi who evaded his capture were
said to have fled to the United States. Among those
thousands was one who caught my eye. I found this
(32:22):
story in a New York Times article from the nineteen twenties,
and it said, after a century of unobstructed lawlessness of
the mafia or black hand in Sicily has finally, at
last been brought to justice. One of the most defiant
of these bandits recently brought to justice was a woman
past sixty, known as the Queen of Guachi. She is
(32:46):
the mother of six children, has spent her life among outlaws,
and according to official reports, has not stopped at any
crime to gain her end the perpetuation of the mafia.
Her name, which the Times didn't even print, is Lorenza Marsala.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
That would be amazing, though, wouldn't it. It's not that
it's not that Queen of Guachi's name was Giuseppa Salvo,
the queen bandit, mother of a ferocious brood of six.
Just like Lorenza, Juseppa apparently spent a good part of
her life in the saddle dressed in men's clothes. Her
(33:31):
entire life was spent among the outlaws. Her father, her husband,
and then her eldest son led the Guatchy Gang. It's
said that at times she even commanded the gang, meeting
out judgments and fixing the price of ransoms. When they
arrested her, she was sixty two with snow white hair,
but age hadn't softened her. As the article reads, she
(33:53):
was quote not devoid of a certain dignity of bearing,
yet her sinister look and the evil leer permanently distorted
her features to make your blood run cold. Jesseppa apparently
listened to her sentence with perfect composure. Letting on only
a ferocious leer at the judge as he announced prison
(34:16):
sentences that totalled two thousand years for her and her
posse of bandits. It's got to make you wonder, right,
Men are the ones who are always written into history books.
Men are the ones they make movies about. But that
doesn't mean they were the only ones at it. What
(34:36):
was Lorenza up to at the turn of the century
and could she have been involved in what these bandits
were doing? Was it dangerous for women to do this?
Speaker 1 (34:49):
And that? Yes, very dangerous.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
That's next time. The Sicilian Inheritance is a Kaleidoscope production
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The series is produced by Jenkinney,
Kate Osborne, Dara Potts and me Joe Piazza, with key
help from Laura Lee Watson of Digging Up Your Roots
(35:15):
in the Boot and Chiro Grilow of Sicily Roots. Many
thanks to Julia Paravaccini and the Ancestry dot com research department.
You can get your copy of The Sicilian Inheritance the
novel right now at truly anywhere 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 sucks. Also,
(35:38):
do not forget to get a taste of Sicily in
the form of delicious Sicilian olive oil at Cardena'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. Our Executive producers are Kate Osborne
Manga Chetikador costas Lino's and Oz Walloshan from iHeart. Executive
(36:01):
producers are Katrina Norvelle and Nikki Etore.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
We also want to
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Thank Will Pearson, connel Byrne, Bob Pittman, and John Mary
Napolis
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