Vito Cascioferro - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

The most common account of his death is that he died of natural causes in 1945 while serving his sentence at Ucciardone prison in Palermo. However, Italian author Petacco found evidence for his 1972 book on Joe Petrosino that Cascioferro may have died of dehydration in the summer of 1943. According to Petacco, Cascioferro was left behind in his cell by prison guards while other inmates were evacuated in advance of the Allied invasion of Sicily. However, according to historian Giuseppe Carlo Marino, Cascioferro was transferred to another prison in Pozzuoli in 1940, and the octogenarian was left to die during an Allied bombardment of that prison in 1943 (other sources mention 1942).

For years, a sentence believed to be carved by Cascioferro was legible on the wall of his Ucciardone cell: "Prison, sickness, and necessity, reveal the real heart of a man." Inmates considered occupying Don Vito's former cell a great honour. Historians consider this account a legend rather than fact.