May 31, 2024 • 36 mins
The clock is ticking. We rush to Sicily to dig into the mafia and homicide records from 1916 before they are destroyed. Jo’s best friend comes along for the adventure as the archives reveal two massive holes in the Piazza family legend.
Want your own taste of Sicily – grab a bottle of The Sicilian Inheritance inspired OLIVE OIL direct from Sicily to BUY - GO HERE .
Snag your copy of THE SICILIAN INHERITANCE, the novel!
Like what you hear? Follow us @kscope_nyc on Twitter and Instagram.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
If you're gonna solve a century old murder in Sicily,
you might as well take advantage of it. I booked
a flight and told all of my people that I
was going. Then I got a text message from my
very best girlfriend in the entire world, who said, you
know what, I need an adventure. I need a break,
and I'm coming with you. I do want to say,
(00:36):
I traveling without my kids is so amazing. It's so easy.
I was saying yesterday, how nimble I feel like, I
feel so light. I'm so nimble. I'm so I mean
you just I woke up this morning, I washed my face,
I got in the car and I went somewhere and
(00:56):
no one touched me, no one asked me for anything.
I feel so free. So I'm back in Sicily, but
this time without my husband and kids, and along for
the ride is my best friend Jackie. Oh look at
those ruins up on top of that.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I think the best part is actually just us being
in the car together. For sure, this is my favorite part.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I think we were imagining like a recreation of our
epic Qy West spring break.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We were Yeah, but alas, this is much better. This
is better this is better lust debauchery. So far, so far,
so far. We've got to solve this murder. Guys. We
mentioned in the last episode that I needed to get
access to the homicide and mafia trial records from nineteen sixteen.
(01:47):
This was no easy feat. To do it. We had
to petition the president of the Tribune Nale in Shaka,
which is the nearest city to Caltabolota. I had to
write a letter, I had to have the letter translated.
We had to get the letter to the president, and
we had to prove that this reporting was important, that
learning about how one woman died might just matter to
(02:10):
the legions of Italian Americans who have questions about their
own family histories and mysteries. And eventually, months and months later,
we finally heard back. I could come. I could get
into these homicide and mafia records, but it had to
be soon, very soon. And it's a good thing that
(02:31):
we got here when we did, because right after we landed,
I found out why time was up. The essence these records,
the murder triald transcripts and documents that might just tell
us what happened to Lorenza. They're scheduled to be destroyed
any day. So if we're ever going to get to
the bottom of this mystery, it has to be Now.
(02:54):
I'm Joe Piazza, and this is the Sicilian inheritance in
the mouth of the Wolf. All right, here we go.
We're walking to the Tribune alley. This is where I'm
(03:19):
meeting Laura, our translator. Oh well, I'm at the wrong building. Aha,
she's at the Tanaki across the street. Jackie and I
arrived yesterday. We checked into a lovely hotel overlooking the
ancient temple of Athena in Agrigento. Right around sunset, we
(03:41):
strolled up to the temple and said a prayer to
the Goddess of Wisdom that I would actually gain some
insight and wisdom on this trip. Then I had a
negroni and fell asleep for twelve hours. Twelve hours. It's
just another blessing of this adult spring break that I'm on.
Then this morning, I left Jackie at the hotel and
(04:03):
now I'm scurrying around trying to find our researcher, Laura. Hi.
Laura Lee is pretty much my savior here. She's an
archivist and a translator, but more than that, she's my
Sicilian fixer. She's basically done a ton of legwork before
(04:24):
I even got here, or what she calls pre connaissance.
She's been getting us all of these appointments because if
there's one thing that I've learned, Italian bureaucrats love its appointments.
So now we've got meetings set up for us at
all of the offices for land archives, notary archives, criminal
(04:45):
murder records. But we're starting at this brutalist building overlooking
the sea, the Tribunale in Shaka. Everyone here is very
good looking.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Do you like yourself an Italian man?
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Well, I think it's now.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
No. Actually, they're not my type. They're not my type.
Everyone outside really does look great. They're in tailored clothes,
well fitting suits, all smoking cigarettes. They are very Sicilian,
and when they've stamped out their sigbats, they line up
to go through the metal detectors. We joined them in
the queue. That's say, we're here to look for court
(05:22):
documents about my great great grandmother Lorenza.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
The idea i'd printed off.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Okay, any record at all relating to that fateful day
in February nineteen sixteen, when Lorenzo's body was found with
Niccolo Martino five kilometers outside of Caltabolota. We especially want
to know if there was a trial for those responsible
for their deaths. If you recall, many of my family
(05:49):
members insist that the perpetrators were arrested and tried, but
then they got off Pasport. At the metal detectors, we
get stopped. All of my recording equipment is taken away.
I got some of it back, but I start hiding
(06:09):
it in my purse because I'm that kind of reporter.
I'm not gonna lie. My excitement at this point is
at a fever pitch, and I haven't smoked a cigarette
in five years, but I feel like I just need
to run outside and bum one just to calm myself down.
Because inside this building, inside these concrete walls, there might
(06:32):
just be one piece of paper that describes exactly what
happened to Lorenza. But more than anything, I need some closure,
or even just one more clue. We finally make it
through security. We're worn to wear both masks and gloves
(06:52):
to protect us from the dust and dirt in the
sub basement where the archives are kept.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
So he was saying, a dealer little digging in advance.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Oh good. We go downstairs and then down some more
and the archives the BA. It's pitch black down here.
The lights only flicker on when we enter the room.
There's a procession of hallways and heavy doors. Oh, it
smells like archives in here, smells old paper. It's beautiful.
(07:23):
Tables are lined against the walls, heaped with old files
thrown around halphazardly, covering pretty much every available surface. Dusty.
It's a Jenga tower of brittle papers spilling out of
torn file folders, occasionally held in place by a wisp
(07:44):
of string. And it's just rows and rows of books.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
See this is this is.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
So. They're organized by.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
Town everything by towns, and they're like cloth starts up
here and it goes down cloth bound books.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yes, and they're about two feet tall.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It is? Yeah. Oh someone At each appointment you're given
a guide. And our guide today is Giovanni Vacanti. And
I can't say enough good things about Giovanni. I love
this man. But he is not at all what I
was expecting. I think it's because all of the bureaucracy
(08:35):
that I had to go through, I was expecting my
guide to be some stodgy old official determined to say
no to me at every turn. But no, that's not Giovanni.
Giovanni's own excitement about solving this mystery is palpable.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I feel less of emotion when I'm neared a very
important do documents. I have to to take a brief silence.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
What is your official job here? Like?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
What about this kind of instances? The quest case, the
strange things, the strange things.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
You deal with, the strange requests from people like me.
Have you ever had anyone come asking to find the
murder of their great great grandmother?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
No? No, no no.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I was sort of honored to be Giovanni's first murder case.
And I am really glad that we got here when
we did, because inside this room, on the exact aisle
of shelves where the documents that we need are located,
there's a sticky note right on the side of the
shelves saying that these files are to be eliminated.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Unfortunately, there is you can see someone in the past
the idea to destroy this side of what archived. But
now we are young, we are new workers, and that
we will maintain.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
You want to you want to save that. Giovanni explains
to me that over the last few years, different administrators
have had different priorities about these hundred year old archives.
A lot of them just don't see the point and
digitizing them would be insanely expensive, so why not destroy
them to make room for something new. But there's a
(10:29):
whole generation of young archivists like Giovanni who have a
different view. What does that say that.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Because it's difficult to understand the importance of who didn't
know exactly the history of CCD.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Seeing all of these folders misfiled or just thrown on
the floor or laying out on our random table, it's
giving me intense and anxiety. The piece of paper that
we need could be anywhere. What if that one record,
that one document that could tell us about Lorenzo's death
(11:13):
is sitting right there or over there, or over there,
or in that nook of stacked high documents that could
topple over at any second and maybe just be thrown
in the trash. It is not unthinkable that maybe someone
pulled a piece of paper out and then just put
it back in the wrong pile or left it on
(11:37):
a table somewhere, and then it floated onto the floor
and there's no way to ever find it. Again, all
of that is definitely possible here in the chaos of
the records.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
What are you gonna do if we don't find what
you're looking for?
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I mean, it's the journey, it's the jury, it's the journey. Yaya, Yeah,
of course, So we dive in. We start by paging
through murder trials from the year nineteen sixteen, but we
(12:17):
expand our search by five years because sometimes that's how
long it took for things to go to trial. If
the case went to trial, that would tell us who
was charged with Lorenza and Nicolo's murder. One problem here,
these cases aren't organized by victim. They're organized by defendant,
(12:40):
and we have no idea who that is. So what
we have to do is go through the entire book
and search the victim column on every single page, looking
for the names Lorenza Marsala or Nicolo Martino. I'm here
(13:02):
because I want to be I'm here because I want
to know what happened to Lorenzo Marsala so bad that
it hurts in my bones. But I am choking on
the dust and practically cross eyed. After pouring over five
different ledgers through nearly a decade trying to read this
(13:22):
teeny tiny handwriting, and I'm coming up blank. Luckily, Giovanni
thinks he might have a lead. Okay, so these are
the folders of bloody crimes, of bad crimes. Yes, but
there's no there's no folio for nineteen six Also mafia.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
When you means association about mafia, and.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
There's a lot of it. There's a lot of mafia
RECORDSA well, there was a bit mafia case. They got
a lot of people in Caltablota in nineteen sixteen.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Caselota is one.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, there's two. There's two books here for calt Blota.
Four books. Giovanni keeps bringing books. My white gloves are
black with grime and dirt, and with every turn of
the page, I just keep hoping and hoping and hoping
and nothing. I keep looking for Lorenza's name in all
(14:34):
of the mafia records, but there's no trial that involves
anyone named Lorenza Marsala. Hours went by. Giovanni encouraged me
to take a break and brought me upstairs for an espresso.
Everyone here seemed to know who I was and why
I was there, because gossip travels fast in Sicily. Giovanni
(14:57):
walked me around like a proud father, and he introduced
me to all of the judges and the lawyers. Everyone
shook my hand. They were so kind, and they murmured
in Bocca al lupo. It's how Sicilians wish you good luck.
May you be in the mouth of the wolf. I
(15:18):
sipped my espresso and then another one. I'm not gonna lie.
I bummed a cigarette off Giovanni and I went back down.
But after hours and hours of feverishly looking through the archives,
those blessings felt empty. There's no paper trill. It'll be
(15:39):
interesting because if I go back to my family and
I'm like, there's no records, they'll be like, well, you know,
maybe it was like all hidden. I'm like, no, there's
records for everything. It looks like most crimes were recorded. Yes,
So it's strange that there's no mention of Nicolo Martino,
Lorenzo Marsala, or de Seppi Piazza coming back and killing anyone.
There's enough homicides that you're like picking up people for homicide.
(16:01):
It's not going unnoticed exactly, and that that was important.
If we didn't find any other homicide records for the
time period around nineteen sixteen. We could say, Okay, well
they just don't keep good records. But the records are
(16:24):
good from Calta Bolota and they're so precise.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So how do you feel about that job?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I'm disappointed. I came all this way wanting to find
like a court document, right, but there's nothing nothing about
him or her in these court documents, which had so
much other stuff. Right.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
The story is low versus we have Ponzo lastorian An.
That translation is the history is not written with maybe
or with but. But I believe the opposite it. In
my opinion, the history is written with maybe.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
The history is written with maybe. I love that so much.
I mean, I also hate it because it means we
don't have answers. But it is beautiful because this story
is filled with maybe's. Maybe she wasn't murdered at all.
We still don't have a cause of death. Or maybe
(17:32):
what happened to her wasn't seen as murder. Maybe it
was an honor killing or a crime of passion, something
that wouldn't be prosecuted. But something still doesn't add up.
According to that Book of Death, two bodies were found
dead outside of town, killed by unnatural causes. We know
(17:55):
that is true, we just still don't know why, and
that is killing me. Ayall, Joe here, you may have
(18:17):
noticed that this show is a sort of travelog 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
(18:38):
you've gone on both vacation and a fact finding mission
with me, traveling across the Atlantic to the gorgeous Mediterranean
island of Sicily, all through the magic of podcasting. For me,
Cicily 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
(19:00):
with this podcast. I do 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
(19:22):
olive oil. I have actually 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 with a taste of fresh
(19:45):
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 tap room. You can check the
(20:06):
show notes for the link and the details, and of course,
thank you, thank you, and remember to enjoy this podcast
with something delicious.
Speaker 7 (20:28):
For me.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Today is another day in the archives, another chance to
find a clue. Jackie is going to take off for
some shopping and some more day drinking because somebody needs to.
But while we're driving, while we're off to our next destination,
Jackie lands a gut punch of a question, the kind
that only someone who knows you so goddamn well can
(20:51):
actually do. So, how does it feel to be in
your ancestral homeland?
Speaker 4 (20:58):
You feel connected to your.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Dad, I do. I do. I mean, I feel more
connected to my dad than I have since he died,
which is kind of crazy to me. In a lot
of ways. It feels like this is the story. He
wanted me to both write as a novel and report
as a journalist, and those were both those were both
his dreams, Like that's what he wanted to be, that's
(21:19):
what he wanted to do. He wanted to be the
great American novelist and he wanted to be a journalist.
But yeah, I mean, I get to live his dream
and that's pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
He was so smart, and he loved you so much.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I know, Jackie and I both lost our dads too soon,
and so we've talked a lot over the years about
families and legacies and fathers and this this question, It's
exactly what I needed at this point in the investigation.
I needed this reminder that I wasn't just doing all
(21:53):
of this to get an answer to a mystery. I'm
also doing it because of my dad. I hadn't grieved,
and I'm doing a lot of this to feel his
presence again, to see this place the way he did,
to let my fingers work through the archives in a
way that he never got to. I've gotten to make
(22:15):
his investigation this Sicilian inheritance that he bequeathed me my own.
I think he always wanted a bigger life. Yeah, he
wanted this bigger life than you know, being a small
time claims attorney in Yardley, Pennsylvania. So yeah, I mean
I get to do all these things that he wanted
(22:35):
to do, traveled around the world solving this fucking mystery.
(23:03):
Another day, a new set of archives. Now, I'm gonna
tell you, archival research can be boring, or at least
the looking can be boring, but the finding that's electric.
That is a high my friends. Today we're at the
(23:25):
land records office in Agrigento. The hope here is that
maybe maybe we can find something about land ownership or
land transfer that will put more of these pieces together
about what Lorenzo was doing in the time before her death.
Was the land that they died on?
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Her land?
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Did it belong to Niccolo Martino? So what is this?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
This is the land record. This shows that there's land
in this place right here.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
The record we're looking at is one of succession. It
shows how a parcel of land was passed down who
inherited it or purchased it over the years.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Okay, So let me try to explain this as best
you can from the beginning here.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
So there were these three different pieces of land, three
pieces of land, three pieces of life years. This was
starting in eighteen thirty to eighteen forty. It started with
colo Jero, okay, who's Francesco's father, and then Colojuro passed
it down to Francesco, and then Francesco passed it down
(24:32):
to all of his children. This piece right here was
passed off to Lorenza Marsala.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Now this feels insanely confusing. Even though these are property records,
there are absolutely no clear locations for the land. Much
like a death record that doesn't include a cause of death,
these are land records that don't include an address. This
piece was passed off to Lorenzo Marsa.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Okay, so she bought the lad She bought it from
one of the peasants.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Now it turns out this piece of land, it wasn't inherited.
Lorenza bought it. She bought it with her own money,
under her own name. Why would she buy land if.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
She was leaving, well, did she know she was leaving it?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Feels kind of crazy to me that this land wasn't
jointly owned with her husband, and it doesn't seem to
be connected to any other land that they owned together.
This was hers, So why was she buying her own
land when she was supposed to be leaving for America.
(25:42):
I don't think she was ever going to go.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
She might not have had plans to go. Okay, in
nineteen thirteen, she.
Speaker 7 (25:52):
Bought the land.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
She buys the land in nine certain to see the number.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
Okay, So then here it says that she died just so,
she died got in nineteen sixteen, and it was transferred
to Vito Piazza, her son.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Which is her son.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I think it turns out that our hunch was true. Vito,
the son that we learned about in the last episode,
he was here in Sicily, either right before or right
after she died, because for the land to officially be
transferred to him, as we are seeing documented in this book,
(26:32):
he had to be physically present in Sicily.
Speaker 7 (26:39):
Okay, Okay, So he said basically, they were also married here,
so it was showing that he was married with Vincenza
Leo and they had two children, Lorenza and Anton Antonino
so named after his parents.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
To these records, Veto didn't just inherit this land from
his mother, he also passed it down to his children.
See Veto moved back to Celtabalota, he got married in Sicily,
he had two children in Sicily. And this is problematic
for my family's story. This blows a hole through everything
(27:22):
that my family has been talking about. See they love
that story about the uncle Joe who drew the short straw,
the son who went back to Sicily, avenged his mother's murder,
launched a vendetta and disappeared for decades before resurfacing in
a mental hospital. But no one ever talked about Veto.
(27:44):
What about Veto. He's there either when or right after
Lorenza dies, and he's the one taking care of her property.
Why would anyone need to go back to get revenge
if someone was going to go murder some people to
avenge your mother's staff. You're not gonna live here with
two children. No, no, like this is a wrinkle in
(28:07):
the story. This is a big wrinkle in the story.
Some people in my family do believe that Lorenza's story
has been buried in the sand. Or see I told
you they're all hiding something, and sure that's possible, but
(28:28):
is it actually likely.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
People don't want skeletons in their closet, but they like
to talk about having skeletons in their closet. Everybody wants
a good story about their history.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Many of my relatives have been here before, including my dad,
and they love to talk about how the town shut
them down, how the book was closed on them, how
they were told to leave, how lightning struck the church.
When they mentioned Lorenza's name. They all assumed that it
was because the family story was so juicy, a conspiracy
(29:04):
or a vendetta just waiting to be unlocked. But maybe
it was something much less exciting.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Well, I think they're What happens is is communication barrier,
because if your relatives came here not speaking Italian, well,
they may have misunderstood the miscommunication for being shut down.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I agree. I agree. They may just not understand the
fact that no one wants to open the town hall.
After lunchtime, Laura and I left the archives and we
went to go have another long lunch with Jackie Cornett
(29:44):
delicious pasture I've ever had in my life. We told
her everything that we learned one of the sons freaking
did come back here in nineteen sixteen. If you don't
come back and murder someone and then move back to
the town, and.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You also don't settle back in the town where your
mother was murdered.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You don't go back to me. If everyone in the town,
in the town is in on it and covering it up.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
You don't come and spend ten years of your life
with them.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
But like if you came back and really then to
avenge the death and there was like a vendetta, that's
a story this town I wouldn't want to talk about
if there was an actual vendetta, right, Yes, there's no vendetta. No.
(30:24):
The three of us spent the night in Caltlota. We
asked everyone we could find about the piazzas and the marsalas.
The whole town became very invested in this story. Everyone
from waiters to bartenders to the host of our Airbnb
wanted to help us figure out what happened to Lorenza.
(30:48):
They all called up their oldest relatives on the spot
and asked them to meet us in the town square
in the morning the next day. We asked everyone if
they knew any stories about Lorenza Marsala or any double
homicide on the land right outside of town Marsala, Marcella
Marsala and Martina. Right before we left, we decided to
(31:11):
walk into the Democratic Society. It's like a little gathering
hall in the center of town, and it's a place
where the old men go to have their coffee, to
play their cards and to gossip. One of the guys
we ran into was a former carabinieri. For years, he
worked to take down the mafia, and he knows something
(31:33):
about crime. These guys told us plenty of stories, but
not a single one had ever heard of the murder
of Lorenza Marsilla. What is.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
He said, If the way this town is the way
that people talk of something that scandalous happened, be's speaking
about it?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
What we needed to know? Yeah, we talked for hours.
The old men told me they thought it had to
be an accident. I asked, how how do two people
die at the same time, especially in a time before cars,
horses fall over? They said, rock slides, fires, plenty of
(32:20):
things can kill two people. They also told me one
thing that really stuck with me. They said, the piazzas
and the Marsalas have good names in the town, meaning
that when people do bad things or bad things happen
to them, this is a place that doesn't forget. I
(32:47):
had an incredible week in Sicily. I felt closer to
my dad than ever before, but I still didn't get
the answers spelled out for me. I think I'm getting
more comfortable with the Maybes. There was one last thing
we had to do in call Tabelota. We had to
(33:07):
find Lorenza. I wanted to see her grave. I don't
know what I thought that would do. It's not like
the answer to this mystery would be written on her headstone,
but I just had to see it. I had to
be where she was, so we made our way to
the beautiful cemetery on the edge of the village. We're
(33:30):
in the cemetery in Calpebelota, and we're trying to find
Lorenzo's grave. But we don't have a map of the cemetery,
so we're just going We're just remember last name first, guys,
last name first. We split up and searched for We
had no map, no guide. The three of us ran
up and down the rows of raised graves and monuments,
(33:53):
searching for Marsala's and piazzas and even Martino's. This is
a scavenger hunt in the cemetery. I mean, these graves
are beautiful, They're massive, they're above ground, and there's photographs
on them. Finally, Laura found a groundskeeper who gave her
a little bit of intel on the cemetery. He said
that the graves we could see above ground are mostly
(34:15):
from the nineteen sixties. Before then, people got buried in
the church, and as the church got full, older burials
got moved to the crypt, an underground collection of bones.
That's where Lorenza must be. So she's right under us,
right now, Yes, right under here. He gave us this
(34:37):
key to walk in.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Oh wow, all right, Lorenza. We are trying our best.
We are trying our best to tell your story. Can
you give us a suck? Can you give us a sign?
Are we on the right track? I stood on top
(35:02):
of my great great grandmother's bones and I asked her
for a sign. And maybe that's what we need to do.
Maybe we need to talk to her directly.
Speaker 8 (35:12):
I'm definitely feeling like there's a confrontation here. There are
men involved. She finds herself in a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
That's next week on The Sicilian Inheritance. The Sicilian Inheritance
is a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The
series is produced by Jen Kinney, Kate Osborne, Dara Potts
(35:46):
and me Joe Piazza, with key help from Laura Lee
Watson of Digging Up Your Roots in the Boot and
Chiro Grillow of Sicily Roots. Many thanks to Julia Parravuccini
and the ancestry dot com research department. Get your copy
of The Sicilian Inheritance the novel right now at Truly
anywhere that you get your books. Anywhere you get your books.
(36:08):
It's got the same name as the podcast, but with
more food, 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, Mangash Heitikador Costas Linos,
(36:33):
and Oz Wolloshan. From iHeart executive producers are Katrina Norvelle
and Nikki Etour. We also want to thank will Pearson,
Connell Burn, Bob Pittman, and John Mary Napolis
If you're gonna solve a century old murder in Sicily,
you might as well take advantage of it. I booked
a flight and told all of my people that I
was going. Then I got a text message from my
very best girlfriend in the entire world, who said, you
know what, I need an adventure. I need a break,
and I'm coming with you. I do want to say,
(00:36):
I traveling without my kids is so amazing. It's so easy.
I was saying yesterday, how nimble I feel like, I
feel so light. I'm so nimble. I'm so I mean
you just I woke up this morning, I washed my face,
I got in the car and I went somewhere and
(00:56):
no one touched me, no one asked me for anything.
I feel so free. So I'm back in Sicily, but
this time without my husband and kids, and along for
the ride is my best friend Jackie. Oh look at
those ruins up on top of that.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I think the best part is actually just us being
in the car together. For sure, this is my favorite part.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I think we were imagining like a recreation of our
epic Qy West spring break.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
We were Yeah, but alas, this is much better. This
is better this is better lust debauchery. So far, so far,
so far. We've got to solve this murder. Guys. We
mentioned in the last episode that I needed to get
access to the homicide and mafia trial records from nineteen sixteen.
(01:47):
This was no easy feat. To do it. We had
to petition the president of the Tribune Nale in Shaka,
which is the nearest city to Caltabolota. I had to
write a letter, I had to have the letter translated.
We had to get the letter to the president, and
we had to prove that this reporting was important, that
learning about how one woman died might just matter to
(02:10):
the legions of Italian Americans who have questions about their
own family histories and mysteries. And eventually, months and months later,
we finally heard back. I could come. I could get
into these homicide and mafia records, but it had to
be soon, very soon. And it's a good thing that
(02:31):
we got here when we did, because right after we landed,
I found out why time was up. The essence these records,
the murder triald transcripts and documents that might just tell
us what happened to Lorenza. They're scheduled to be destroyed
any day. So if we're ever going to get to
the bottom of this mystery, it has to be Now.
(02:54):
I'm Joe Piazza, and this is the Sicilian inheritance in
the mouth of the Wolf. All right, here we go.
We're walking to the Tribune alley. This is where I'm
(03:19):
meeting Laura, our translator. Oh well, I'm at the wrong building. Aha,
she's at the Tanaki across the street. Jackie and I
arrived yesterday. We checked into a lovely hotel overlooking the
ancient temple of Athena in Agrigento. Right around sunset, we
(03:41):
strolled up to the temple and said a prayer to
the Goddess of Wisdom that I would actually gain some
insight and wisdom on this trip. Then I had a
negroni and fell asleep for twelve hours. Twelve hours. It's
just another blessing of this adult spring break that I'm on.
Then this morning, I left Jackie at the hotel and
(04:03):
now I'm scurrying around trying to find our researcher, Laura. Hi.
Laura Lee is pretty much my savior here. She's an
archivist and a translator, but more than that, she's my
Sicilian fixer. She's basically done a ton of legwork before
(04:24):
I even got here, or what she calls pre connaissance.
She's been getting us all of these appointments because if
there's one thing that I've learned, Italian bureaucrats love its appointments.
So now we've got meetings set up for us at
all of the offices for land archives, notary archives, criminal
(04:45):
murder records. But we're starting at this brutalist building overlooking
the sea, the Tribunale in Shaka. Everyone here is very
good looking.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Do you like yourself an Italian man?
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Well, I think it's now.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
No. Actually, they're not my type. They're not my type.
Everyone outside really does look great. They're in tailored clothes,
well fitting suits, all smoking cigarettes. They are very Sicilian,
and when they've stamped out their sigbats, they line up
to go through the metal detectors. We joined them in
the queue. That's say, we're here to look for court
(05:22):
documents about my great great grandmother Lorenza.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
The idea i'd printed off.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Okay, any record at all relating to that fateful day
in February nineteen sixteen, when Lorenzo's body was found with
Niccolo Martino five kilometers outside of Caltabolota. We especially want
to know if there was a trial for those responsible
for their deaths. If you recall, many of my family
(05:49):
members insist that the perpetrators were arrested and tried, but
then they got off Pasport. At the metal detectors, we
get stopped. All of my recording equipment is taken away.
I got some of it back, but I start hiding
(06:09):
it in my purse because I'm that kind of reporter.
I'm not gonna lie. My excitement at this point is
at a fever pitch, and I haven't smoked a cigarette
in five years, but I feel like I just need
to run outside and bum one just to calm myself down.
Because inside this building, inside these concrete walls, there might
(06:32):
just be one piece of paper that describes exactly what
happened to Lorenza. But more than anything, I need some closure,
or even just one more clue. We finally make it
through security. We're worn to wear both masks and gloves
(06:52):
to protect us from the dust and dirt in the
sub basement where the archives are kept.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
So he was saying, a dealer little digging in advance.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Oh good. We go downstairs and then down some more
and the archives the BA. It's pitch black down here.
The lights only flicker on when we enter the room.
There's a procession of hallways and heavy doors. Oh, it
smells like archives in here, smells old paper. It's beautiful.
(07:23):
Tables are lined against the walls, heaped with old files
thrown around halphazardly, covering pretty much every available surface. Dusty.
It's a Jenga tower of brittle papers spilling out of
torn file folders, occasionally held in place by a wisp
(07:44):
of string. And it's just rows and rows of books.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
See this is this is.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
So. They're organized by.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
Town everything by towns, and they're like cloth starts up
here and it goes down cloth bound books.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yes, and they're about two feet tall.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It is? Yeah. Oh someone At each appointment you're given
a guide. And our guide today is Giovanni Vacanti. And
I can't say enough good things about Giovanni. I love
this man. But he is not at all what I
was expecting. I think it's because all of the bureaucracy
(08:35):
that I had to go through, I was expecting my
guide to be some stodgy old official determined to say
no to me at every turn. But no, that's not Giovanni.
Giovanni's own excitement about solving this mystery is palpable.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I feel less of emotion when I'm neared a very
important do documents. I have to to take a brief silence.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
What is your official job here? Like?
Speaker 2 (09:04):
What about this kind of instances? The quest case, the
strange things, the strange things.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
You deal with, the strange requests from people like me.
Have you ever had anyone come asking to find the
murder of their great great grandmother?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
No? No, no no.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I was sort of honored to be Giovanni's first murder case.
And I am really glad that we got here when
we did, because inside this room, on the exact aisle
of shelves where the documents that we need are located,
there's a sticky note right on the side of the
shelves saying that these files are to be eliminated.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Unfortunately, there is you can see someone in the past
the idea to destroy this side of what archived. But
now we are young, we are new workers, and that
we will maintain.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
You want to you want to save that. Giovanni explains
to me that over the last few years, different administrators
have had different priorities about these hundred year old archives.
A lot of them just don't see the point and
digitizing them would be insanely expensive, so why not destroy
them to make room for something new. But there's a
(10:29):
whole generation of young archivists like Giovanni who have a
different view. What does that say that.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Because it's difficult to understand the importance of who didn't
know exactly the history of CCD.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Seeing all of these folders misfiled or just thrown on
the floor or laying out on our random table, it's
giving me intense and anxiety. The piece of paper that
we need could be anywhere. What if that one record,
that one document that could tell us about Lorenzo's death
(11:13):
is sitting right there or over there, or over there,
or in that nook of stacked high documents that could
topple over at any second and maybe just be thrown
in the trash. It is not unthinkable that maybe someone
pulled a piece of paper out and then just put
it back in the wrong pile or left it on
(11:37):
a table somewhere, and then it floated onto the floor
and there's no way to ever find it. Again, all
of that is definitely possible here in the chaos of
the records.
Speaker 4 (11:53):
What are you gonna do if we don't find what
you're looking for?
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I mean, it's the journey, it's the jury, it's the journey. Yaya, Yeah,
of course, So we dive in. We start by paging
through murder trials from the year nineteen sixteen, but we
(12:17):
expand our search by five years because sometimes that's how
long it took for things to go to trial. If
the case went to trial, that would tell us who
was charged with Lorenza and Nicolo's murder. One problem here,
these cases aren't organized by victim. They're organized by defendant,
(12:40):
and we have no idea who that is. So what
we have to do is go through the entire book
and search the victim column on every single page, looking
for the names Lorenza Marsala or Nicolo Martino. I'm here
(13:02):
because I want to be I'm here because I want
to know what happened to Lorenzo Marsala so bad that
it hurts in my bones. But I am choking on
the dust and practically cross eyed. After pouring over five
different ledgers through nearly a decade trying to read this
(13:22):
teeny tiny handwriting, and I'm coming up blank. Luckily, Giovanni
thinks he might have a lead. Okay, so these are
the folders of bloody crimes, of bad crimes. Yes, but
there's no there's no folio for nineteen six Also mafia.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
When you means association about mafia, and.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
There's a lot of it. There's a lot of mafia
RECORDSA well, there was a bit mafia case. They got
a lot of people in Caltablota in nineteen sixteen.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Caselota is one.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, there's two. There's two books here for calt Blota.
Four books. Giovanni keeps bringing books. My white gloves are
black with grime and dirt, and with every turn of
the page, I just keep hoping and hoping and hoping
and nothing. I keep looking for Lorenza's name in all
(14:34):
of the mafia records, but there's no trial that involves
anyone named Lorenza Marsala. Hours went by. Giovanni encouraged me
to take a break and brought me upstairs for an espresso.
Everyone here seemed to know who I was and why
I was there, because gossip travels fast in Sicily. Giovanni
(14:57):
walked me around like a proud father, and he introduced
me to all of the judges and the lawyers. Everyone
shook my hand. They were so kind, and they murmured
in Bocca al lupo. It's how Sicilians wish you good luck.
May you be in the mouth of the wolf. I
(15:18):
sipped my espresso and then another one. I'm not gonna lie.
I bummed a cigarette off Giovanni and I went back down.
But after hours and hours of feverishly looking through the archives,
those blessings felt empty. There's no paper trill. It'll be
(15:39):
interesting because if I go back to my family and
I'm like, there's no records, they'll be like, well, you know,
maybe it was like all hidden. I'm like, no, there's
records for everything. It looks like most crimes were recorded. Yes,
So it's strange that there's no mention of Nicolo Martino,
Lorenzo Marsala, or de Seppi Piazza coming back and killing anyone.
There's enough homicides that you're like picking up people for homicide.
(16:01):
It's not going unnoticed exactly, and that that was important.
If we didn't find any other homicide records for the
time period around nineteen sixteen. We could say, Okay, well
they just don't keep good records. But the records are
(16:24):
good from Calta Bolota and they're so precise.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So how do you feel about that job?
Speaker 1 (16:31):
I'm disappointed. I came all this way wanting to find
like a court document, right, but there's nothing nothing about
him or her in these court documents, which had so
much other stuff. Right.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
The story is low versus we have Ponzo lastorian An.
That translation is the history is not written with maybe
or with but. But I believe the opposite it. In
my opinion, the history is written with maybe.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
The history is written with maybe. I love that so much.
I mean, I also hate it because it means we
don't have answers. But it is beautiful because this story
is filled with maybe's. Maybe she wasn't murdered at all.
We still don't have a cause of death. Or maybe
(17:32):
what happened to her wasn't seen as murder. Maybe it
was an honor killing or a crime of passion, something
that wouldn't be prosecuted. But something still doesn't add up.
According to that Book of Death, two bodies were found
dead outside of town, killed by unnatural causes. We know
(17:55):
that is true, we just still don't know why, and
that is killing me. Ayall, Joe here, you may have
(18:17):
noticed that this show is a sort of travelog 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
(18:38):
you've gone on both vacation and a fact finding mission
with me, traveling across the Atlantic to the gorgeous Mediterranean
island of Sicily, all through the magic of podcasting. For me,
Cicily 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
(19:00):
with this podcast. I do 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
(19:22):
olive oil. I have actually 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 with a taste of fresh
(19:45):
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 tap room. You can check the
(20:06):
show notes for the link and the details, and of course,
thank you, thank you, and remember to enjoy this podcast
with something delicious.
Speaker 7 (20:28):
For me.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Today is another day in the archives, another chance to
find a clue. Jackie is going to take off for
some shopping and some more day drinking because somebody needs to.
But while we're driving, while we're off to our next destination,
Jackie lands a gut punch of a question, the kind
that only someone who knows you so goddamn well can
(20:51):
actually do. So, how does it feel to be in
your ancestral homeland?
Speaker 4 (20:58):
You feel connected to your.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Dad, I do. I do. I mean, I feel more
connected to my dad than I have since he died,
which is kind of crazy to me. In a lot
of ways. It feels like this is the story. He
wanted me to both write as a novel and report
as a journalist, and those were both those were both
his dreams, Like that's what he wanted to be, that's
(21:19):
what he wanted to do. He wanted to be the
great American novelist and he wanted to be a journalist.
But yeah, I mean, I get to live his dream
and that's pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
He was so smart, and he loved you so much.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I know, Jackie and I both lost our dads too soon,
and so we've talked a lot over the years about
families and legacies and fathers and this this question, It's
exactly what I needed at this point in the investigation.
I needed this reminder that I wasn't just doing all
(21:53):
of this to get an answer to a mystery. I'm
also doing it because of my dad. I hadn't grieved,
and I'm doing a lot of this to feel his
presence again, to see this place the way he did,
to let my fingers work through the archives in a
way that he never got to. I've gotten to make
(22:15):
his investigation this Sicilian inheritance that he bequeathed me my own.
I think he always wanted a bigger life. Yeah, he
wanted this bigger life than you know, being a small
time claims attorney in Yardley, Pennsylvania. So yeah, I mean
I get to do all these things that he wanted
(22:35):
to do, traveled around the world solving this fucking mystery.
(23:03):
Another day, a new set of archives. Now, I'm gonna
tell you, archival research can be boring, or at least
the looking can be boring, but the finding that's electric.
That is a high my friends. Today we're at the
(23:25):
land records office in Agrigento. The hope here is that
maybe maybe we can find something about land ownership or
land transfer that will put more of these pieces together
about what Lorenzo was doing in the time before her death.
Was the land that they died on?
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Her land?
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Did it belong to Niccolo Martino? So what is this?
Speaker 4 (23:50):
This is the land record. This shows that there's land
in this place right here.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
The record we're looking at is one of succession. It
shows how a parcel of land was passed down who
inherited it or purchased it over the years.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Okay, So let me try to explain this as best
you can from the beginning here.
Speaker 7 (24:11):
So there were these three different pieces of land, three
pieces of land, three pieces of life years. This was
starting in eighteen thirty to eighteen forty. It started with
colo Jero, okay, who's Francesco's father, and then Colojuro passed
it down to Francesco, and then Francesco passed it down
(24:32):
to all of his children. This piece right here was
passed off to Lorenza Marsala.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Now this feels insanely confusing. Even though these are property records,
there are absolutely no clear locations for the land. Much
like a death record that doesn't include a cause of death,
these are land records that don't include an address. This
piece was passed off to Lorenzo Marsa.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Okay, so she bought the lad She bought it from
one of the peasants.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Now it turns out this piece of land, it wasn't inherited.
Lorenza bought it. She bought it with her own money,
under her own name. Why would she buy land if.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
She was leaving, well, did she know she was leaving it?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Feels kind of crazy to me that this land wasn't
jointly owned with her husband, and it doesn't seem to
be connected to any other land that they owned together.
This was hers, So why was she buying her own
land when she was supposed to be leaving for America.
(25:42):
I don't think she was ever going to go.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
She might not have had plans to go. Okay, in
nineteen thirteen, she.
Speaker 7 (25:52):
Bought the land.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
She buys the land in nine certain to see the number.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
Okay, So then here it says that she died just so,
she died got in nineteen sixteen, and it was transferred
to Vito Piazza, her son.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Which is her son.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
I think it turns out that our hunch was true. Vito,
the son that we learned about in the last episode,
he was here in Sicily, either right before or right
after she died, because for the land to officially be
transferred to him, as we are seeing documented in this book,
(26:32):
he had to be physically present in Sicily.
Speaker 7 (26:39):
Okay, Okay, So he said basically, they were also married here,
so it was showing that he was married with Vincenza
Leo and they had two children, Lorenza and Anton Antonino
so named after his parents.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
To these records, Veto didn't just inherit this land from
his mother, he also passed it down to his children.
See Veto moved back to Celtabalota, he got married in Sicily,
he had two children in Sicily. And this is problematic
for my family's story. This blows a hole through everything
(27:22):
that my family has been talking about. See they love
that story about the uncle Joe who drew the short straw,
the son who went back to Sicily, avenged his mother's murder,
launched a vendetta and disappeared for decades before resurfacing in
a mental hospital. But no one ever talked about Veto.
(27:44):
What about Veto. He's there either when or right after
Lorenza dies, and he's the one taking care of her property.
Why would anyone need to go back to get revenge
if someone was going to go murder some people to
avenge your mother's staff. You're not gonna live here with
two children. No, no, like this is a wrinkle in
(28:07):
the story. This is a big wrinkle in the story.
Some people in my family do believe that Lorenza's story
has been buried in the sand. Or see I told
you they're all hiding something, and sure that's possible, but
(28:28):
is it actually likely.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
People don't want skeletons in their closet, but they like
to talk about having skeletons in their closet. Everybody wants
a good story about their history.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Many of my relatives have been here before, including my dad,
and they love to talk about how the town shut
them down, how the book was closed on them, how
they were told to leave, how lightning struck the church.
When they mentioned Lorenza's name. They all assumed that it
was because the family story was so juicy, a conspiracy
(29:04):
or a vendetta just waiting to be unlocked. But maybe
it was something much less exciting.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Well, I think they're What happens is is communication barrier,
because if your relatives came here not speaking Italian, well,
they may have misunderstood the miscommunication for being shut down.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I agree. I agree. They may just not understand the
fact that no one wants to open the town hall.
After lunchtime, Laura and I left the archives and we
went to go have another long lunch with Jackie Cornett
(29:44):
delicious pasture I've ever had in my life. We told
her everything that we learned one of the sons freaking
did come back here in nineteen sixteen. If you don't
come back and murder someone and then move back to
the town, and.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You also don't settle back in the town where your
mother was murdered.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
You don't go back to me. If everyone in the town,
in the town is in on it and covering it up.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
You don't come and spend ten years of your life
with them.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
But like if you came back and really then to
avenge the death and there was like a vendetta, that's
a story this town I wouldn't want to talk about
if there was an actual vendetta, right, Yes, there's no vendetta. No.
(30:24):
The three of us spent the night in Caltlota. We
asked everyone we could find about the piazzas and the marsalas.
The whole town became very invested in this story. Everyone
from waiters to bartenders to the host of our Airbnb
wanted to help us figure out what happened to Lorenza.
(30:48):
They all called up their oldest relatives on the spot
and asked them to meet us in the town square
in the morning the next day. We asked everyone if
they knew any stories about Lorenza Marsala or any double
homicide on the land right outside of town Marsala, Marcella
Marsala and Martina. Right before we left, we decided to
(31:11):
walk into the Democratic Society. It's like a little gathering
hall in the center of town, and it's a place
where the old men go to have their coffee, to
play their cards and to gossip. One of the guys
we ran into was a former carabinieri. For years, he
worked to take down the mafia, and he knows something
(31:33):
about crime. These guys told us plenty of stories, but
not a single one had ever heard of the murder
of Lorenza Marsilla. What is.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
He said, If the way this town is the way
that people talk of something that scandalous happened, be's speaking
about it?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
What we needed to know? Yeah, we talked for hours.
The old men told me they thought it had to
be an accident. I asked, how how do two people
die at the same time, especially in a time before cars,
horses fall over? They said, rock slides, fires, plenty of
(32:20):
things can kill two people. They also told me one
thing that really stuck with me. They said, the piazzas
and the Marsalas have good names in the town, meaning
that when people do bad things or bad things happen
to them, this is a place that doesn't forget. I
(32:47):
had an incredible week in Sicily. I felt closer to
my dad than ever before, but I still didn't get
the answers spelled out for me. I think I'm getting
more comfortable with the Maybes. There was one last thing
we had to do in call Tabelota. We had to
(33:07):
find Lorenza. I wanted to see her grave. I don't
know what I thought that would do. It's not like
the answer to this mystery would be written on her headstone,
but I just had to see it. I had to
be where she was, so we made our way to
the beautiful cemetery on the edge of the village. We're
(33:30):
in the cemetery in Calpebelota, and we're trying to find
Lorenzo's grave. But we don't have a map of the cemetery,
so we're just going We're just remember last name first, guys,
last name first. We split up and searched for We
had no map, no guide. The three of us ran
up and down the rows of raised graves and monuments,
(33:53):
searching for Marsala's and piazzas and even Martino's. This is
a scavenger hunt in the cemetery. I mean, these graves
are beautiful, They're massive, they're above ground, and there's photographs
on them. Finally, Laura found a groundskeeper who gave her
a little bit of intel on the cemetery. He said
that the graves we could see above ground are mostly
(34:15):
from the nineteen sixties. Before then, people got buried in
the church, and as the church got full, older burials
got moved to the crypt, an underground collection of bones.
That's where Lorenza must be. So she's right under us,
right now, Yes, right under here. He gave us this
(34:37):
key to walk in.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Oh wow, all right, Lorenza. We are trying our best.
We are trying our best to tell your story. Can
you give us a suck? Can you give us a sign?
Are we on the right track? I stood on top
(35:02):
of my great great grandmother's bones and I asked her
for a sign. And maybe that's what we need to do.
Maybe we need to talk to her directly.
Speaker 8 (35:12):
I'm definitely feeling like there's a confrontation here. There are
men involved. She finds herself in a very dangerous situation.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
That's next week on The Sicilian Inheritance. The Sicilian Inheritance
is a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The
series is produced by Jen Kinney, Kate Osborne, Dara Potts
(35:46):
and me Joe Piazza, with key help from Laura Lee
Watson of Digging Up Your Roots in the Boot and
Chiro Grillow of Sicily Roots. Many thanks to Julia Parravuccini
and the ancestry dot com research department. Get your copy
of The Sicilian Inheritance the novel right now at Truly
anywhere that you get your books. Anywhere you get your books.
(36:08):
It's got the same name as the podcast, but with
more food, 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, Mangash Heitikador Costas Linos,
(36:33):
and Oz Wolloshan. From iHeart executive producers are Katrina Norvelle
and Nikki Etour. We also want to thank will Pearson,
Connell Burn, Bob Pittman, and John Mary Napolis
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.