June 27, 2024 • 32 mins
No stone unturned. We pull out all the stops to get to the bottom of what happened to Lorenza.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
I do feel like I'm looking behind me, and I
absolutely feel like she said, someone tries to shut me up.
So to me, I'm definitely feeling like there's a confrontation here,
there are men involved. It feels like there's a scenario
(00:32):
here that she finds herself in a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
When I told you that I'd leave no stone unturned
in reporting this podcast, I meant it. I've dug through
dusty courthouse basements. I've interviewed the oldest residents of Caltabolota,
tried to interview every Piazza relative I can possibly get
a hold of, and yet the miss of who may
(01:01):
have murdered Lorenza Marsala remains. In the last episode that
you listened to, I asked Lorenza herself for a sign.
All right, Lorenza, we are trying our best. I stood
in the chapel, on the very ground where her bones
were buried in a mass crypt for the entire town,
(01:23):
and I pleaded with her, we are trying our best
to tell your story. Can you give us a sign.
I don't know if she hurt me, but I can
tell you that ever since I returned from Sicily, I've
been revisiting Cultivalota in my dreams. I'm not a woo
(01:44):
wu person by any means, but there have been mornings
where I've woken up in a cold sweat after walking
through the exact fields below the exact cliffs where Lorenza died.
I never remember much. I have sometimes pain and a
distinct sense of foreboding, and so I've decided to reach
(02:08):
out to the woman herself. I've decided that it's time
to talk to Lorenza.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
It is super old school shit, but I am seeing
her plead for her life. Remember when I said she's
taken like she doesn't see this coming.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I'm Joe Piazza, and this is the Sicilian Inheritance, chapter eight,
a strong mouthed woman. So, as I said, I'm not
that woo wu and I don't exactly have my own
(02:48):
psychic on speed dial, but I do have some experience
with high profile mediums. I've actually written my fair share
of magazine and newspaper articles in the past about both
psychics and mediums. And I mean not to brug but
I got a guy, or actually a lady named Marianne DeMarco.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Oh my god, I'm good. How are you.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
See I met Marianne years ago when I was interviewing
her for Red Book magazine, and I was totally sold
on her ability to detect the unknowable when she actually
told me something that she could not have known. The
last time you get a reading for me, I had
zero children and you told me that I.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Was pregnant, and now I have three freaking kids. Girl,
are you planning on a floor? I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
The last time I interviewed Marianne, she told me I
was pregnant, and I was, but I had no idea
until three days later when I took a pregnancy test.
So yeah, when it comes to psychics and mediums, I've
kind of fallen for her. Marianne knows things. She explained
(04:03):
to me the way that she works. She's not a
psychic in the way that we think about like television psychics,
like those one, nine hundred numbers that were all over
the TV in the eighties and nineties. Marianne doesn't predict things.
She's a medium, and that's different. It means she's extremely
sensitive to the other side. She can converse with the
(04:25):
spirit world, but only if they want to. And as
she's told me many times over, the years. The spirit
world can be picky about when they want to talk. Now,
before we dug into all of this, I didn't tell
her anything in advance about this story. I just said
that I wanted to chat about my great great grandmother's
(04:46):
death in Sicily in nineteen sixteen. And we did this
interview before the podcast episode started dropping and before the
book was released, so there wasn't any information on the
internets that Marianne could peep. Just in case any of
you are skeptics, which I most definitely am. Throughout this
(05:07):
whole year of reporting, I've been dying for more information.
So I brought Marianne in pretty early in my reporting process,
and I wanted to call her before all of this
information was out there in the world. Now I'm going
to revisit that interview for clues. Mary Anne does prefer
to do things in person, because, as she tells me,
(05:27):
the energy is just better. But leaving my house with
my three children and driving all the way to Long
Island is not easy. So we did this the way
that all of us do everything in America these days.
We hopped on a zoom, Marianne from Long Island and
me from.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Philly, there's a lot of moving parts here that this
is more it's even it's like more complicated than you
think it is. And they're talking about somebody's making my
throat hurt, which is very interesting. And I do feel
(06:08):
like I'm looking behind me and I absolutely feel like
she said, someone tries to shut me up. So to me,
I'm definitely feeling like there's a confrontation here. There are
men involved. I'm seeing a connection to them knowing something
(06:30):
that they shouldn't have known, being witnessed to something that
they shouldn't have seen. There's something there now I don't
know if they were like directly involved. I'm not really
seeing that, but I am seeing her plead for her
life and it is super old school shit. But I
feel like when I remember when I said she she's taken,
(06:51):
she doesn't see this coming. So to me, they could
have dragged her out of town, like I just don't
think she knew, or they could have moved her. But
I am definitely at some point she is afraid for
her life, now, don't I don't know that it's at
the time of death because I don't see her facing
this individual, but I know she's scared something's going on
(07:15):
that she's aware. The words that I heard were lawlessness.
I definitely saw like a family that was either mafia
related or ran the town. I heard the mayor was
in on it. And again I'm seeing this plead for
someone's life, and I'm wondering if she's pleading for her
(07:36):
this is her brother or brother in law that she's with,
and they're showing me definitely references to people who try
to take over the land, because I'm wondering if this
is a land thing. Okay, okakay. Her mouth for me,
she's a strong mouthed woman. And your father said to me,
(07:58):
aren't we all so this side of the family. For me,
the women seem to have a voice. Yeah, yeah, okay,
these are not quiet women. These are not women. Didn't
we do not turn the other cheek? Somebody just said
to me like that, We face we Oh, this is
really good, holy shit show, We face vengeance head on.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Oh. I have to pause Marianne here because this is
a lot. The hairs on the back of my neck
are standing up. My entire body is on high alert.
She's a strong mouthed woman, a woman who faces vengeance
head on. I mean, I kind of love that I
(08:47):
tell Marianne I need a beat. I go to the bathroom,
I splash some water on my face, and then I
come back.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
She tells me I am taken, I am dragged. She said,
this is a this is a dispute over land, and
so to me, she's taken outside of town, yes alive
where Oh my god, there's the m R. We always talking,
you said in m A R. Yes, Nicolo Martino. So
(09:16):
the ma A R, the first one that I said,
is in connection to her, and then the MR se
that sounded like a mark in my head. That's the
other family.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
At this point, I am truly spooked because mari Anne
keeps saying m A R m A R m A R.
And there's no way that she could know anything about
Nicolo Martino.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
I hear I'm dragged out account and when she's dragged,
when they're dragged out account, Joe, everybody. So let's just
say there's arguments, takes. There's people around, right, they show
me like people around, but everybody turns their back. It's
like no one thought because this was the way I thought.
I wondered, like, is this over a man? Is this no?
(10:02):
This is all over lamb. I had an obligation. She says,
they dishonored my sister.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Oh my god, it's nacinating.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
They dishonored my sister. I said it again. This woman,
this Lorenza.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Mm hm, she is.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Really such a firecracker. So because the Mayor's in on it,
the whole town feels corrupt. I thought time. Yeah, she
claims herself as a heroine. She doesn't claim herself as
any type of victim. Mm hmm. So it's like she
talks about, like dying with honor. I do feel like
(10:53):
she tried to protect, you know, her children from what
was going on here. For sure, for sure, no doubt
about it.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I'm weirdly drained. Is it weird that I'm drained even
though you're the one talking to the spirit.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
No, it's not at all, Because you know, you have
to remember something you can channel, and this whole story
is being channeled through you, and channeling is draining, especially
when you're really trying to channel with purpose behind it.
(11:27):
There's more to be discovered, and I'm looking at documents,
and for some reason, I feel like the documents either
aren't telling the whole story or they were altered in
some way.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Of course, this reminded me of what Giovanni are sweet
and wonderful handler in the Shaka homicide Archives. It reminds
me of what he told me about things being buried
in the sandy.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
We have a wonderful war that is in Sabia. It's
a verb, but that means when someone didn't want to
find the truth about crime or about any question. Also
cover up the second.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Buried in the sand, buried in the sand. Hey, y'all,
Joe here, you may have noticed that this show is
(12:40):
a sort of travelogue. Throughout this series, I am truly
hoping that you feel like you've gone on an expedition,
adventure journey with me to solve my great great grandmother's
century old murder. Our true intention is that by the
end you actually feel like you've gone on both vacation
(13:02):
and affect finding mission with me, traveling across the Atlantic
to the gorgeous Mediterranean island of Sicily, all through the
magic of podcasting. For me, Sicily has some real main
character energy, and I hope you feel it too. So
to help drop you even more into that experience, we
want to offer a warning with this podcast. I do
(13:24):
not want you listening to this without some delicious food.
And so what better way for me to continue to
follow in my father's sometimes haphazard footsteps and also be
a champion of one of Sicily's best exports, then by
bringing you some actual Sicilian olive oil. I have actually
(13:45):
partnered with Philadelphia's own Cardinis Gourmet Foods. It is a
woman owned and operated shop to bring you the Sicilian
inheritance olive oil. I like to call it a flavor
journey from the volcanic soil of ancient groves through the
special terhraar that family secrets and inherited stories provide. Yeah
(14:05):
with a taste of fresh off the vine tomatoes and
a hint of almonds. It is not only an incredible
olive oil, but we know that it is going to
transport you to the beautiful and sometimes dangerous island of Sicily.
So join us get even more into this journey by
getting your very own bottle today at Cardinis taproom. You
(14:27):
can check the show notes for the link and the details,
and of course, thank you, thank you, and remember to
enjoy this podcast with something delicious. I need to take
(14:48):
a step back after talking to Marianne. I need to
think about what I know to be true. Before I left,
Cecily Giovanni from the archives confirmed a couple of things
for me. We now know for certain that Nicolo Martino
was definitely Lorenza's brother in law. He married her sister,
Giuseppa later in life. Giuseppa was in her forties. She'd
(15:11):
never been married before. Nicolo was in his fifties when
his first wife passed away. He had two kids from
that first marriage, and one of them married a woman
named Giseppa Grotto, who is weirdly also my great aunt.
So that means that Nicolo Martino was related to Lorenza
twice over. And for the past six months, I have
(15:34):
desperately been trying to track down anyone in the Martino line.
No luck so far. Now we still haven't confirmed that
Lorenzo was killed on the land that she owned. This
piece was passed off to Lorenzo Marsala.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Okay, so she bought the word. She bought it from
one of the peasants.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
But I have been able to ascertain from old maps
and land deeds that the land she owned, that she
bought by herself in nineteen thirteen without her husband under
her own name, was pretty close by to the land
where she was murdered, if not the same fraught, she thought,
why would she buy land if she was leaving?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Well did she know she was leaving?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
And this is important because many family members truly believe
that Lorenzo was killed for her land, and apparently so
did Marianne.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
She said, this is a dispute over land. She talks
about dying with honor. She tried to protect her children
from what was going on here, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
But if it was a dispute overland, if someone was
trying to take it, they didn't win. The records that
I found in Agrigento show us that everything she owned
was passed down to her son Veto.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Okay, So then here it says that she died.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Just so she died and it was transferred to Vito Piazza,
her son.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Which is her son. I think who her was coming
after her? If someone really did commit violence against her,
If that's true, they did not get what they wanted
because all that land, it stayed in our family. And
maybe what Marianne said is true, Maybe our family kept
that land because Lorenza stood her ground. Now what else
(17:21):
do we know?
Speaker 4 (17:22):
So what is this this is the land record.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
This is we know that Vito, the second oldest son,
he was in Caltiblota. He was there, he got his
mother's land and he stayed. He married a young woman
named Vincenza Leo and settled in Cultibalota in a house
near his aunt Jiseppa Nicolo Martino's wife. We also know
(17:46):
that Vito had two children in the village that he
named after his mother and father, Antonino and Lorenza.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
The children. The children this is interesting, which means that
they were also married here. So it was showing that
he was married with Vincenzo Leo and they had two children,
Lorenza and Antonino, so named after his parents.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
After all of my research, there's no evidence of a trial,
there's no evidence of a continuing vendetta, and there is
absolutely no evidence that the other son, Giuseppe, returned and
avenged his mother. Now it's time to bring all of
(18:44):
this information back to the rest of the family. It's
time to tell them what I learned, because through all
of this I've started to build out some of my
own theories, and in classic Piazza fashion, I can't prove
all of them, but hey, maybe I am part Sicilian witch.
Maybe I know a few things, because Marianne was very
(19:07):
clear about one thing. She did tell me that she
believed that she could feel, that she could hear that
the Sicilian women who've passed the ghosts of those who
came before me, that they've been watching and helping me
along the way with both this true story and with
(19:27):
my novel, The Sicilian Inheritance. She told me that these
women have been desperate to have their real stories told,
the stories about their actual lives and not just the
ones that male relatives often chose to pass down. I
love it when the ghosts were helpful.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
The hope they're very helpful. They are just here to
help us out with little things like murders.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Okay, so let's call the family. I'm going to start
with my cousin Laura. Remember Laura. She was with me
in callt Balota when we went to the commune for
the first time and found Lorenzo's name in the death book. So, so, Laura,
I got to tell you, and I think I'm most
excited to talk to you about this because you were
with me. I don't think she was I don't think
(20:14):
she was murdered. I think it could have been an accident.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
So I don't think happened and something natural event.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
So all right. So I've interviewed so many people in
the town and I mean the thing that left the
biggest impression on me is they're like, the Piazzas and
Marsalas have good names.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Let me just I was so happy to hear that.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, And they're like, if something crazy happened, we would
still know about it, we'd still be talking about it.
There's five hundred of us in this village and we're
pretty much all related. Yeah, So I don't know. I mean,
here's the thing, Laura. You were with me in the
town hall, and the place where they died was a
(20:52):
place where there were commonly landslides. It could have been
an accident.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
When I don't meant to though, what how did they
I wanted to ask you this on the other death certificates,
when you saw things in the books, do they have
the reasons for others' deaths?
Speaker 6 (21:11):
No?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Okay, so that was not no, right, wether than that that? Okay?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, yeah, because I checked all the things that were
there to see what might be missing.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Right, I don't know, I really there's so many inconsistencies.
Joe I did the oral history on Aniana, and I
kind of feel that she would be the most reliable
since she was the oldest and she was closest to Grandpa,
and she didn't know and she didn't know it, right,
I know, he said the land. She was more towards
(21:44):
the land. And she didn't say mafia killed her. She
said she died over a land because she couldn't she
wouldn't sell the land. But there was the other theory
out there about her being some sort of healer. I
never heard about that Uncle Joe thing until way later.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Like, well, so all right, here's my theory on that.
I have a theory on that. No one seems to
know the Avenging Brother story until he comes back and
tells it himself.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
So I think it's bull.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I think it's bold. I think that he I think
he went to war, and you know, war is hard,
and bad things, bad things probably happened, Yeah, and he
I think he wanted to come back a hero when
he returned to his family. Maybe yeah, and made that
story up, because I mean one the biggest thing is
(22:40):
Vito Piazza, Lorenza's son was back in Calta, marrying a
local girl and had two kids there during the time
period when Joe apparently went back and murdered someone. You
don't live in a town where your brother comes and
murders someone. So I contacted Vito's relatives all the way
down to like my my level. Right, they know nothing
(23:05):
about this story, and they were their ancestors were born
in Callablota like after ours, and they also don't know
about the murder. No other line of the family except
for ours, has any information about the murder. Then my
cousin Adrian hopped on the call and we filled her in,
(23:26):
and she agreed that maybe the whole family has been
twisting and turning and concocting. The story that they wanted
to tell about Lorenza just be a.
Speaker 7 (23:36):
Story that they're telling each other, like for why she
didn't come back and why she never joined them, Like
this is just a story. It kind of got passed
around and then, like you said, like grew into this
bigger thing, and you know, she was started this guy
who may have been helping her. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I think one day we will figure this out. I
do genuinely believe one day we will figure this out.
But I don't know. I don't feel disappointed because I
think the coolest thing was like the story brought everyone
kind of back together to talk about it, and we've
learned about her life in a really cool way.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
In a really cool way, maybe she really was killed
over land, and maybe maybe maybe if they did gin
they didn't want to. They did it secretly. Who knows,
they did.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
It secretly, who knows? But we do know no one
else got the land because veto her son inherited the land.
So if they killed her because of land, they didn't
win and they didn't get it.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I was so worried through all of this that my
family was going to be pissed off that they wouldn't
accept the things that I learned, that they wouldn't like
it if the story got changed. And that wasn't the
case at all.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Yeah, maybe it was an affair, Like Cheryl said, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I mean, we're also dealing with old Sicilians. Maybe just
didn't want to talk about it period.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
That was my cousin, Chris Piazza. He just had a
newborn baby named Luca, not because Luca is a character
in my book, but because it is a good Sicilian
name and one day Chris really wants to retire to Sicily.
Everyone was just curious in a really wonderful way, and
(25:21):
intrigued and open to new possibilities for what this story
can tell us about our family and best of all.
Best of all, I got reconnected to these cousins that
(25:41):
I haven't talked to in years. Now we are all
on a family text chain, some of us are on
a WhatsApp and we're planning a meetup. It's reinvigorated a
lot of us to actually spend more time together in
real life. I feel more connected to my extended family
than I have in a very very long time, and
(26:05):
I feel more connected to being an Italian American now.
I'm not gonna lie. It would have been really nice
to walk into that courthouse in Shaka, after we had
been petitioning them for a year to get into their
homicide records, to just pluck the smoking gun document for
(26:25):
a trial that detailed everything that happened to Lorenza and
exactly who killed her. Was a part of me imagining
some kind of emotional call with the defendants descendants where
we all waxed poetic on the importance of forgiveness maybe,
(26:48):
but that's not what this story was about. A couple
of weeks ago, I went to Milwaukee to speak at
an Italian American festival, and to my surprise, First Lady,
(27:12):
Doctor Jill Biden was speaking right before me. I did
not know that she was Sicilian American.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
So even though my grandparents' names had changed, they brought
their values across the Atlantic and they stayed the same,
the values that we all hold loyalty, generosity, kindness, faith,
and I brought my Italian values to with.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Me to the White House.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
And it is the absolute honor to serve as the
first Italian American First Lady.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
As I was listening to doctor Biden talk about her heritage,
I was seeing all of these other Italian Americans in
the crowd nodding along, their eyes welling up. I started
getting kind of teary. I felt more connected to my
roots and to my own family stories in our legacy
than I ever have before, and that's not nothing for
(28:15):
a third generation American. Mut By the time that doctor
Biden left that stage, I was snop crying, and I
gave my daughter, who does not look Italian at all,
this huge hug, and I was just so happy to
get to pass this legacy of Lorenza's story down to her.
(28:38):
When I got on that stage and I told this
story of the Sicilian inheritance, I imagined my dad watching
me give this speech to an entire festival of Italian Americans,
many of them Sicilians, from a massive stage in front
(28:58):
of one of the great lakes, And all I could
think was he would have been so proud. John Piazza,
I really feel like I made you proud. I did you,
good man. I did my family. All of my family members,
(29:20):
they know her name now. They know her name was Lorenza.
All of you know her name now. We told the
story of her life instead of the story of how
she died. Together, we went to her house, We learned
about her family. We know that she was an independent,
bad ass woman, buying her own land, paying for each
(29:44):
of her children to set sail for America. How many
women like Lorenza have had their stories forgotten because they
never had the power to share them too many? That
that is my real Sicilian inheritance.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Wangoo, very night.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I have a lot of people to thank for this podcast.
I should probably start with my dad, John Piazza. I
want to thank my entire family. There's too many of
you to name, but you all know who you are.
You Piazzas and Marsala's, you storytellers and you scoundrels. I
want to say a big thanks to Chiro Grillo for
being my guide and my family's guide for all of
(30:46):
these years, even if you didn't believe us in the
beginning until we found out about Nikolo Martino. But now
you're bought in, aren't you. I want to say thanks
to the entire town of Cadovalota. Thank you to my husband,
Nick Aster for entertaining the idea of taking our three
young children to Sicily to solve a murder mystery. And
Kate Osborne, our fearless producer who came on our family
(31:07):
vacation without ever having met us. You will be our
friend for the rest of our lives. You're stuck with us.
Thank you to Mengesh Heitikidor, who knew from the very
beginning that this would be a wonderful story. To our
entire wonderful production team. You really made this show sing.
And finally, thank you to Laura Lee, our intrepid researcher
of Laura Lee at Digging up Roots in the Boot
(31:30):
and Giovanni Vacanti from the Shaka Archives. He's still digging, guys,
he is still digging. 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
(31:51):
Your Roots in the Boot and Chiro Grillow of Sicily Roots.
Many thanks to Julia Paraviccini 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,
(32:12):
wine and sets. Also, 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 Shatikador costas Lino's and
(32:34):
Oz Walloshan from iHeart Executive producers are Katrina Norvell and
Nikki Etour. We also want to thank Will Pearson, connel Byrne,
Bob Hitman and John Mary novelists
I do feel like I'm looking behind me, and I
absolutely feel like she said, someone tries to shut me up.
So to me, I'm definitely feeling like there's a confrontation here,
there are men involved. It feels like there's a scenario
(00:32):
here that she finds herself in a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
When I told you that I'd leave no stone unturned
in reporting this podcast, I meant it. I've dug through
dusty courthouse basements. I've interviewed the oldest residents of Caltabolota,
tried to interview every Piazza relative I can possibly get
a hold of, and yet the miss of who may
(01:01):
have murdered Lorenza Marsala remains. In the last episode that
you listened to, I asked Lorenza herself for a sign.
All right, Lorenza, we are trying our best. I stood
in the chapel, on the very ground where her bones
were buried in a mass crypt for the entire town,
(01:23):
and I pleaded with her, we are trying our best
to tell your story. Can you give us a sign.
I don't know if she hurt me, but I can
tell you that ever since I returned from Sicily, I've
been revisiting Cultivalota in my dreams. I'm not a woo
(01:44):
wu person by any means, but there have been mornings
where I've woken up in a cold sweat after walking
through the exact fields below the exact cliffs where Lorenza died.
I never remember much. I have sometimes pain and a
distinct sense of foreboding, and so I've decided to reach
(02:08):
out to the woman herself. I've decided that it's time
to talk to Lorenza.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
It is super old school shit, but I am seeing
her plead for her life. Remember when I said she's
taken like she doesn't see this coming.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I'm Joe Piazza, and this is the Sicilian Inheritance, chapter eight,
a strong mouthed woman. So, as I said, I'm not
that woo wu and I don't exactly have my own
(02:48):
psychic on speed dial, but I do have some experience
with high profile mediums. I've actually written my fair share
of magazine and newspaper articles in the past about both
psychics and mediums. And I mean not to brug but
I got a guy, or actually a lady named Marianne DeMarco.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Oh my god, I'm good. How are you.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
See I met Marianne years ago when I was interviewing
her for Red Book magazine, and I was totally sold
on her ability to detect the unknowable when she actually
told me something that she could not have known. The
last time you get a reading for me, I had
zero children and you told me that I.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Was pregnant, and now I have three freaking kids. Girl,
are you planning on a floor? I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
The last time I interviewed Marianne, she told me I
was pregnant, and I was, but I had no idea
until three days later when I took a pregnancy test.
So yeah, when it comes to psychics and mediums, I've
kind of fallen for her. Marianne knows things. She explained
(04:03):
to me the way that she works. She's not a
psychic in the way that we think about like television psychics,
like those one, nine hundred numbers that were all over
the TV in the eighties and nineties. Marianne doesn't predict things.
She's a medium, and that's different. It means she's extremely
sensitive to the other side. She can converse with the
(04:25):
spirit world, but only if they want to. And as
she's told me many times over, the years. The spirit
world can be picky about when they want to talk. Now,
before we dug into all of this, I didn't tell
her anything in advance about this story. I just said
that I wanted to chat about my great great grandmother's
(04:46):
death in Sicily in nineteen sixteen. And we did this
interview before the podcast episode started dropping and before the
book was released, so there wasn't any information on the
internets that Marianne could peep. Just in case any of
you are skeptics, which I most definitely am. Throughout this
(05:07):
whole year of reporting, I've been dying for more information.
So I brought Marianne in pretty early in my reporting process,
and I wanted to call her before all of this
information was out there in the world. Now I'm going
to revisit that interview for clues. Mary Anne does prefer
to do things in person, because, as she tells me,
(05:27):
the energy is just better. But leaving my house with
my three children and driving all the way to Long
Island is not easy. So we did this the way
that all of us do everything in America these days.
We hopped on a zoom, Marianne from Long Island and
me from.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Philly, there's a lot of moving parts here that this
is more it's even it's like more complicated than you
think it is. And they're talking about somebody's making my
throat hurt, which is very interesting. And I do feel
(06:08):
like I'm looking behind me and I absolutely feel like
she said, someone tries to shut me up. So to me,
I'm definitely feeling like there's a confrontation here. There are
men involved. I'm seeing a connection to them knowing something
(06:30):
that they shouldn't have known, being witnessed to something that
they shouldn't have seen. There's something there now I don't
know if they were like directly involved. I'm not really
seeing that, but I am seeing her plead for her
life and it is super old school shit. But I
feel like when I remember when I said she she's taken,
(06:51):
she doesn't see this coming. So to me, they could
have dragged her out of town, like I just don't
think she knew, or they could have moved her. But
I am definitely at some point she is afraid for
her life, now, don't I don't know that it's at
the time of death because I don't see her facing
this individual, but I know she's scared something's going on
(07:15):
that she's aware. The words that I heard were lawlessness.
I definitely saw like a family that was either mafia
related or ran the town. I heard the mayor was
in on it. And again I'm seeing this plead for
someone's life, and I'm wondering if she's pleading for her
(07:36):
this is her brother or brother in law that she's with,
and they're showing me definitely references to people who try
to take over the land, because I'm wondering if this
is a land thing. Okay, okakay. Her mouth for me,
she's a strong mouthed woman. And your father said to me,
(07:58):
aren't we all so this side of the family. For me,
the women seem to have a voice. Yeah, yeah, okay,
these are not quiet women. These are not women. Didn't
we do not turn the other cheek? Somebody just said
to me like that, We face we Oh, this is
really good, holy shit show, We face vengeance head on.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Oh. I have to pause Marianne here because this is
a lot. The hairs on the back of my neck
are standing up. My entire body is on high alert.
She's a strong mouthed woman, a woman who faces vengeance
head on. I mean, I kind of love that I
(08:47):
tell Marianne I need a beat. I go to the bathroom,
I splash some water on my face, and then I
come back.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
She tells me I am taken, I am dragged. She said,
this is a this is a dispute over land, and
so to me, she's taken outside of town, yes alive
where Oh my god, there's the m R. We always talking,
you said in m A R. Yes, Nicolo Martino. So
(09:16):
the ma A R, the first one that I said,
is in connection to her, and then the MR se
that sounded like a mark in my head. That's the
other family.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
At this point, I am truly spooked because mari Anne
keeps saying m A R m A R m A R.
And there's no way that she could know anything about
Nicolo Martino.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
I hear I'm dragged out account and when she's dragged,
when they're dragged out account, Joe, everybody. So let's just
say there's arguments, takes. There's people around, right, they show
me like people around, but everybody turns their back. It's
like no one thought because this was the way I thought.
I wondered, like, is this over a man? Is this no?
(10:02):
This is all over lamb. I had an obligation. She says,
they dishonored my sister.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Oh my god, it's nacinating.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
They dishonored my sister. I said it again. This woman,
this Lorenza.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Mm hm, she is.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Really such a firecracker. So because the Mayor's in on it,
the whole town feels corrupt. I thought time. Yeah, she
claims herself as a heroine. She doesn't claim herself as
any type of victim. Mm hmm. So it's like she
talks about, like dying with honor. I do feel like
(10:53):
she tried to protect, you know, her children from what
was going on here. For sure, for sure, no doubt
about it.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I'm weirdly drained. Is it weird that I'm drained even
though you're the one talking to the spirit.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
No, it's not at all, Because you know, you have
to remember something you can channel, and this whole story
is being channeled through you, and channeling is draining, especially
when you're really trying to channel with purpose behind it.
(11:27):
There's more to be discovered, and I'm looking at documents,
and for some reason, I feel like the documents either
aren't telling the whole story or they were altered in
some way.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Of course, this reminded me of what Giovanni are sweet
and wonderful handler in the Shaka homicide Archives. It reminds
me of what he told me about things being buried
in the sandy.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
We have a wonderful war that is in Sabia. It's
a verb, but that means when someone didn't want to
find the truth about crime or about any question. Also
cover up the second.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Buried in the sand, buried in the sand. Hey, y'all,
Joe here, you may have noticed that this show is
(12:40):
a sort of travelogue. Throughout this series, I am truly
hoping that you feel like you've gone on an expedition,
adventure journey with me to solve my great great grandmother's
century old murder. Our true intention is that by the
end you actually feel like you've gone on both vacation
(13:02):
and affect finding mission with me, traveling across the Atlantic
to the gorgeous Mediterranean island of Sicily, all through the
magic of podcasting. For me, Sicily has some real main
character energy, and I hope you feel it too. So
to help drop you even more into that experience, we
want to offer a warning with this podcast. I do
(13:24):
not want you listening to this without some delicious food.
And so what better way for me to continue to
follow in my father's sometimes haphazard footsteps and also be
a champion of one of Sicily's best exports, then by
bringing you some actual Sicilian olive oil. I have actually
(13:45):
partnered with Philadelphia's own Cardinis Gourmet Foods. It is a
woman owned and operated shop to bring you the Sicilian
inheritance olive oil. I like to call it a flavor
journey from the volcanic soil of ancient groves through the
special terhraar that family secrets and inherited stories provide. Yeah
(14:05):
with a taste of fresh off the vine tomatoes and
a hint of almonds. It is not only an incredible
olive oil, but we know that it is going to
transport you to the beautiful and sometimes dangerous island of Sicily.
So join us get even more into this journey by
getting your very own bottle today at Cardinis taproom. You
(14:27):
can check the show notes for the link and the details,
and of course, thank you, thank you, and remember to
enjoy this podcast with something delicious. I need to take
(14:48):
a step back after talking to Marianne. I need to
think about what I know to be true. Before I left,
Cecily Giovanni from the archives confirmed a couple of things
for me. We now know for certain that Nicolo Martino
was definitely Lorenza's brother in law. He married her sister,
Giuseppa later in life. Giuseppa was in her forties. She'd
(15:11):
never been married before. Nicolo was in his fifties when
his first wife passed away. He had two kids from
that first marriage, and one of them married a woman
named Giseppa Grotto, who is weirdly also my great aunt.
So that means that Nicolo Martino was related to Lorenza
twice over. And for the past six months, I have
(15:34):
desperately been trying to track down anyone in the Martino line.
No luck so far. Now we still haven't confirmed that
Lorenzo was killed on the land that she owned. This
piece was passed off to Lorenzo Marsala.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
Okay, so she bought the word. She bought it from
one of the peasants.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
But I have been able to ascertain from old maps
and land deeds that the land she owned, that she
bought by herself in nineteen thirteen without her husband under
her own name, was pretty close by to the land
where she was murdered, if not the same fraught, she thought,
why would she buy land if she was leaving?
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Well did she know she was leaving?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
And this is important because many family members truly believe
that Lorenzo was killed for her land, and apparently so
did Marianne.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
She said, this is a dispute over land. She talks
about dying with honor. She tried to protect her children
from what was going on here, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
But if it was a dispute overland, if someone was
trying to take it, they didn't win. The records that
I found in Agrigento show us that everything she owned
was passed down to her son Veto.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Okay, So then here it says that she died.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Just so she died and it was transferred to Vito Piazza,
her son.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Which is her son. I think who her was coming
after her? If someone really did commit violence against her,
If that's true, they did not get what they wanted
because all that land, it stayed in our family. And
maybe what Marianne said is true, Maybe our family kept
that land because Lorenza stood her ground. Now what else
(17:21):
do we know?
Speaker 4 (17:22):
So what is this this is the land record.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
This is we know that Vito, the second oldest son,
he was in Caltiblota. He was there, he got his
mother's land and he stayed. He married a young woman
named Vincenza Leo and settled in Cultibalota in a house
near his aunt Jiseppa Nicolo Martino's wife. We also know
(17:46):
that Vito had two children in the village that he
named after his mother and father, Antonino and Lorenza.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
The children. The children this is interesting, which means that
they were also married here. So it was showing that
he was married with Vincenzo Leo and they had two children,
Lorenza and Antonino, so named after his parents.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
After all of my research, there's no evidence of a trial,
there's no evidence of a continuing vendetta, and there is
absolutely no evidence that the other son, Giuseppe, returned and
avenged his mother. Now it's time to bring all of
(18:44):
this information back to the rest of the family. It's
time to tell them what I learned, because through all
of this I've started to build out some of my
own theories, and in classic Piazza fashion, I can't prove
all of them, but hey, maybe I am part Sicilian witch.
Maybe I know a few things, because Marianne was very
(19:07):
clear about one thing. She did tell me that she
believed that she could feel, that she could hear that
the Sicilian women who've passed the ghosts of those who
came before me, that they've been watching and helping me
along the way with both this true story and with
(19:27):
my novel, The Sicilian Inheritance. She told me that these
women have been desperate to have their real stories told,
the stories about their actual lives and not just the
ones that male relatives often chose to pass down. I
love it when the ghosts were helpful.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
The hope they're very helpful. They are just here to
help us out with little things like murders.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Okay, so let's call the family. I'm going to start
with my cousin Laura. Remember Laura. She was with me
in callt Balota when we went to the commune for
the first time and found Lorenzo's name in the death book. So, so, Laura,
I got to tell you, and I think I'm most
excited to talk to you about this because you were
with me. I don't think she was I don't think
(20:14):
she was murdered. I think it could have been an accident.
Speaker 4 (20:16):
So I don't think happened and something natural event.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
So all right. So I've interviewed so many people in
the town and I mean the thing that left the
biggest impression on me is they're like, the Piazzas and
Marsalas have good names.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Let me just I was so happy to hear that.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yeah, And they're like, if something crazy happened, we would
still know about it, we'd still be talking about it.
There's five hundred of us in this village and we're
pretty much all related. Yeah, So I don't know. I mean,
here's the thing, Laura. You were with me in the
town hall, and the place where they died was a
(20:52):
place where there were commonly landslides. It could have been
an accident.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
When I don't meant to though, what how did they
I wanted to ask you this on the other death certificates,
when you saw things in the books, do they have
the reasons for others' deaths?
Speaker 6 (21:11):
No?
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Okay, so that was not no, right, wether than that that? Okay?
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, yeah, because I checked all the things that were
there to see what might be missing.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Right, I don't know, I really there's so many inconsistencies.
Joe I did the oral history on Aniana, and I
kind of feel that she would be the most reliable
since she was the oldest and she was closest to Grandpa,
and she didn't know and she didn't know it, right,
I know, he said the land. She was more towards
(21:44):
the land. And she didn't say mafia killed her. She
said she died over a land because she couldn't she
wouldn't sell the land. But there was the other theory
out there about her being some sort of healer. I
never heard about that Uncle Joe thing until way later.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Like, well, so all right, here's my theory on that.
I have a theory on that. No one seems to
know the Avenging Brother story until he comes back and
tells it himself.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
So I think it's bull.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
I think it's bold. I think that he I think
he went to war, and you know, war is hard,
and bad things, bad things probably happened, Yeah, and he
I think he wanted to come back a hero when
he returned to his family. Maybe yeah, and made that
story up, because I mean one the biggest thing is
(22:40):
Vito Piazza, Lorenza's son was back in Calta, marrying a
local girl and had two kids there during the time
period when Joe apparently went back and murdered someone. You
don't live in a town where your brother comes and
murders someone. So I contacted Vito's relatives all the way
down to like my my level. Right, they know nothing
(23:05):
about this story, and they were their ancestors were born
in Callablota like after ours, and they also don't know
about the murder. No other line of the family except
for ours, has any information about the murder. Then my
cousin Adrian hopped on the call and we filled her in,
(23:26):
and she agreed that maybe the whole family has been
twisting and turning and concocting. The story that they wanted
to tell about Lorenza just be a.
Speaker 7 (23:36):
Story that they're telling each other, like for why she
didn't come back and why she never joined them, Like
this is just a story. It kind of got passed
around and then, like you said, like grew into this
bigger thing, and you know, she was started this guy
who may have been helping her. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I think one day we will figure this out. I
do genuinely believe one day we will figure this out.
But I don't know. I don't feel disappointed because I
think the coolest thing was like the story brought everyone
kind of back together to talk about it, and we've
learned about her life in a really cool way.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
In a really cool way, maybe she really was killed
over land, and maybe maybe maybe if they did gin
they didn't want to. They did it secretly. Who knows,
they did.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
It secretly, who knows? But we do know no one
else got the land because veto her son inherited the land.
So if they killed her because of land, they didn't
win and they didn't get it.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I was so worried through all of this that my
family was going to be pissed off that they wouldn't
accept the things that I learned, that they wouldn't like
it if the story got changed. And that wasn't the
case at all.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Yeah, maybe it was an affair, Like Cheryl said, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I mean, we're also dealing with old Sicilians. Maybe just
didn't want to talk about it period.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
That was my cousin, Chris Piazza. He just had a
newborn baby named Luca, not because Luca is a character
in my book, but because it is a good Sicilian
name and one day Chris really wants to retire to Sicily.
Everyone was just curious in a really wonderful way, and
(25:21):
intrigued and open to new possibilities for what this story
can tell us about our family and best of all.
Best of all, I got reconnected to these cousins that
(25:41):
I haven't talked to in years. Now we are all
on a family text chain, some of us are on
a WhatsApp and we're planning a meetup. It's reinvigorated a
lot of us to actually spend more time together in
real life. I feel more connected to my extended family
than I have in a very very long time, and
(26:05):
I feel more connected to being an Italian American now.
I'm not gonna lie. It would have been really nice
to walk into that courthouse in Shaka, after we had
been petitioning them for a year to get into their
homicide records, to just pluck the smoking gun document for
(26:25):
a trial that detailed everything that happened to Lorenza and
exactly who killed her. Was a part of me imagining
some kind of emotional call with the defendants descendants where
we all waxed poetic on the importance of forgiveness maybe,
(26:48):
but that's not what this story was about. A couple
of weeks ago, I went to Milwaukee to speak at
an Italian American festival, and to my surprise, First Lady,
(27:12):
Doctor Jill Biden was speaking right before me. I did
not know that she was Sicilian American.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
So even though my grandparents' names had changed, they brought
their values across the Atlantic and they stayed the same,
the values that we all hold loyalty, generosity, kindness, faith,
and I brought my Italian values to with.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Me to the White House.
Speaker 6 (27:43):
And it is the absolute honor to serve as the
first Italian American First Lady.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
As I was listening to doctor Biden talk about her heritage,
I was seeing all of these other Italian Americans in
the crowd nodding along, their eyes welling up. I started
getting kind of teary. I felt more connected to my
roots and to my own family stories in our legacy
than I ever have before, and that's not nothing for
(28:15):
a third generation American. Mut By the time that doctor
Biden left that stage, I was snop crying, and I
gave my daughter, who does not look Italian at all,
this huge hug, and I was just so happy to
get to pass this legacy of Lorenza's story down to her.
(28:38):
When I got on that stage and I told this
story of the Sicilian inheritance, I imagined my dad watching
me give this speech to an entire festival of Italian Americans,
many of them Sicilians, from a massive stage in front
(28:58):
of one of the great lakes, And all I could
think was he would have been so proud. John Piazza,
I really feel like I made you proud. I did you,
good man. I did my family. All of my family members,
(29:20):
they know her name now. They know her name was Lorenza.
All of you know her name now. We told the
story of her life instead of the story of how
she died. Together, we went to her house, We learned
about her family. We know that she was an independent,
bad ass woman, buying her own land, paying for each
(29:44):
of her children to set sail for America. How many
women like Lorenza have had their stories forgotten because they
never had the power to share them too many? That
that is my real Sicilian inheritance.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
Wangoo, very night.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I have a lot of people to thank for this podcast.
I should probably start with my dad, John Piazza. I
want to thank my entire family. There's too many of
you to name, but you all know who you are.
You Piazzas and Marsala's, you storytellers and you scoundrels. I
want to say a big thanks to Chiro Grillo for
being my guide and my family's guide for all of
(30:46):
these years, even if you didn't believe us in the
beginning until we found out about Nikolo Martino. But now
you're bought in, aren't you. I want to say thanks
to the entire town of Cadovalota. Thank you to my husband,
Nick Aster for entertaining the idea of taking our three
young children to Sicily to solve a murder mystery. And
Kate Osborne, our fearless producer who came on our family
(31:07):
vacation without ever having met us. You will be our
friend for the rest of our lives. You're stuck with us.
Thank you to Mengesh Heitikidor, who knew from the very
beginning that this would be a wonderful story. To our
entire wonderful production team. You really made this show sing.
And finally, thank you to Laura Lee, our intrepid researcher
of Laura Lee at Digging up Roots in the Boot
(31:30):
and Giovanni Vacanti from the Shaka Archives. He's still digging, guys,
he is still digging. 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
(31:51):
Your Roots in the Boot and Chiro Grillow of Sicily Roots.
Many thanks to Julia Paraviccini 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,
(32:12):
wine and sets. Also, 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 Shatikador costas Lino's and
(32:34):
Oz Walloshan from iHeart Executive producers are Katrina Norvell and
Nikki Etour. We also want to thank Will Pearson, connel Byrne,
Bob Hitman and John Mary novelists
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