Early Life
Leggio was one of ten children raised in extreme poverty on a small farm. He turned to crime in his teens. His first conviction was when he was aged 18 for stealing corn; as soon as he completed a six-month sentence for this crime, he murdered the man who had reported him to the police. In 1945 he was recruited by the Mafia boss of Corleone, Michele Navarra, to work as an enforcer and hitman. That same year Leggio shot dead a farm hand in order to take his job, then immediately took over the farm by demanding the owner to sign it over to him at gunpoint.
Many pentiti have described Leggio as being highly volatile and violent, as well as possessing a streak of vanity. According to Tommaso Buscetta, during meetings with Mafia bosses from Palermo, Leggio insisted on correcting grammatical errors made by Gaetano Badalamenti when Badalamenti tried to speak Italian rather than his native Sicilian. Leggio apparently liked to be called "The Professor", as if he were an intellectual, even though, like many of his fellow Corleonesi, he was poorly educated. Leggio left school at the age of nine and was illiterate until well into adulthood. He also tended to wear expensively tailored suits at his repeated court appearances, often along with sunglasses, and grandly puffed on a cigar.
On March 10, 1948, trade unionist Placido Rizzotto was kidnapped by three men in broad daylight, with a number of witnesses claiming Leggio was one of them. The following year two men confessed to helping Leggio kidnap Rizzotto, who shot the victim and dumped him in a 50-foot-deep (15 m) cavern. The police recovered Rizzotto's body and two others, Leggio was arrested on suspicion of murder, but after spending almost two-years behind bars he was released and the charges dropped when witnesses refused to testify. The two alleged accomplices were eventually killed. Leggio went into hiding - although reportedly did not have to try hard to hide because no-one in Corleone seemed brave enough to alert the police as to his whereabouts - after he was indicted once again for the Rizzotto slaying. He was tried twice in absentia of the trade unionist's murder but acquitted due to insufficient evidence on both occasions.
While behind bars in the late 1940s he met Salvatore Riina, who was then aged 19 and starting a six-year sentence for manslaughter. The two eventually became accomplices in crime after Riina's release, as did another young local criminal, Bernardo Provenzano.
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