Leoluca Bagarella - Early Career and Personality

Early Career and Personality

Bagarella sided with Luciano Leggio in the late 1950s. Bagarella became the brother-in-law of Salvatore Riina in 1974. Bagarella was an important boss of the Corleonesi and trusted by Riina who had become overlord of the Sicilian Mafia. The powerfully built Bagarella modelled himself on the eponymous character of The Godfather, when he married the attractive niece of a boss he had the movie theme played at a lavish reception.

Tommaso Buscetta, a Mafia boss who turned state witness, knew Bagarella in prison back in the 1970s and had the following to say about Bagarella: "I prefer not to speak about him, I think he doesn't belong to the human species...in prison everybody feared him. I remember we stayed three months together in the prison infirmary and the only words he told me were good morning and good evening." Buscetta said Bagarella had mental problems and has been involved in possibly 300 murders.

Bagarella also killed police chief Boris Giuliano as well as a nephew of Buscetta, one of many of Buscetta's relatives to die since he betrayed the Mafia. Two of Bagarella's brothers were also Mafiosi; his elder brother, Calogero Bagarella, was shot dead on December 10, 1969, in the Viale Lazio in Palermo, during a shootout with rival mafioso Michele Cavataio and his men, known as the Viale Lazio massacre. A second brother, Giuseppe, was murdered in prison in 1972. Bagarella's own wife, Vincenza Marchese, was the sister of Giuseppe Marchese and the niece of Filippo Marchese, a notorious killer and high ranking member of the Corleonesi.

Bagarella married Vincenza in 1991. She later committed suicide after Giuseppe Marchese began collaborating with authorities. Another version was that she was clinically depressed, after a series of miscarriages. She allegedly also was shocked by the killing of the 13-year old Giuseppe Di Matteo in January 1996 in retaliation for the “betrayal” of his father Santo Di Matteo who had turned state witness after his arrest on June 4, 1993. The body of the little Giuseppe was dissolved in acid. Vincenza Marchese’s body has never been found.