The Barrel Mystery

Anna Di Puma was shot in the back and killed two days later while she was sitting on the door-step of a neighbor's store.

Morello was arrested and charged with the murder of the Di Puma woman. He was held in prison to await trial, but powerful influences of the Mafia were set to work and Morello was discharged for lack of evidence. The only witness to the murder of Vella was dead. Two lawyers of his band testified that Morello was in Palermo with them and not in Corleone on the night the Di Puma woman was murdered.

Michele Guarino Zangara, living in the next apartment to Morello, who noticed when the "Black-Hander" arrived home and overheard the conversation that followed between Morello and his mother, was also murdered. He was thrown off a bridge one night while on his way home. He was found the next morning under the bridge dead. This man Zangara had gone to the accused man's house, three or four days after the Chief of the Sylvan Guards was murdered, and told the family of the man unjustly arrested for the crime that he (Guarino) had overheard Mrs. Morello say to her son:

"Peppe, what have you done? Now they will come and arrest you," and in response to this Morello said, "Shut up, mother, they have gone on the wrong scent."

Zangara, being a man with a large family, feared to tell what he knew because he felt sure that Morello would murder him just as he had slain the Di Puma woman. However, when the accused man, Francesco Ortonello, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, Zangara came to the front, declaring that his conscience troubled him to see an innocent man sent away for the murder of Vella. He went to the authorities and told them that he was willing to risk his life and tell the truth for Ortonello. The authorities told Zangara that it would have been better had he told it during the trial. Now it was too late.

A few days after this the murder of Zangara took place.

Morello was on his way to America at this time, but the "Black-Hander" had many powerful friends still watchful for his interests, and some of these attended to Zangara.

Pietro Milone, a police officer who tried hard to clear Ortonello, was murdered one night on his way home. The one who slew the officer was never punished.

Biaggia Milone lived across the way from the spot where Morello and his companion were seen hiding, and this woman subsequently admitted she saw the shooting and that Morello did it.

This woman is now in New York, and is the cousin of Domenico Milone, who conducted the grocery store at No. 235 East Ninety-seventh Street, which was the headquarters and distributing plant for the Lupo-Morello counterfeit money. The Milone woman has even stated publicly that she would not testify to what she knows in behalf of Ortonello in an effort to get the old man out of prison where, she says, she knows he is unjustly kept!

Ortonello's father, who tried to have his son freed, was threatened with death several times, and several shots were actually fired at him while the old man sat in his own doorway. The marksmanship was not good and the old man escaped the bullets.

While Morello was in prison charged with murdering the Di Puma woman he met Ortonello in the prison. Morello admitted to Ortonello that he had murdered Vella, the chief of the Sylvan Guards, for which crime Ortonello was there in the prison awaiting trial. Morello also informed Ortonello that if he and all his family did not care to join Vella in the world to come that the whole family had better be careful of what they said and what charges they made, and that any evidence tending to show his (Morello's) complicity in the crime must be suppressed.

In order that the reader may view the foregoing facts in proper perspective it will be necessary for me to relate a little of the politics and the relation of the so-called Mafia to the murders.

Vella, the murdered chief, was a very active and knowing man. He had dug up a great amount of evidence against the criminal band of which Morello was a member, and which was under the leadership of a very wealthy and powerful young man named Paolino Streva.

Vella had sworn in public that he would put this band out of business in and around Corleone. He also had decided to place Morello under surveillance, which means that Morello would have to be home every night at a certain time and subject to be called at any hour of the night by the police who would see whether he was behaving himself. Also, Morello would be compelled to make reports of his whereabouts and conduct and what work he was at to Vella whenever the chief should require it.

In return for the stand Vella had taken Morello swore publicly that he would be avenged on Vella for this punishment.

Vella also knew of the extensive criminal operations of Streva and that Morello was Streva's trusted lieutenant. Vella knew that Streva had a great deal of influence with judges and other public officials and even boasted that certain senators in Rome would do his bidding. Through this influence Streva managed to get out of prison a number of thieves, murderers and blackguards who in turn would go to any extremes for Streva. By crooked politics and sometimes by fear Streva exerted a baneful influence over the community the same as his uncle had done before him, the uncle who had handed down the wealth and political power that the younger man enjoyed. All these things were well known to Vella.

A further circumstance must be related here. During the latter part of 1889, a large number of cattle had been stolen in the neighborhood of Corleone and the country people were making many complaints. Vella had been working on the case, and succeeded in rounding up facts and evidence sufficient to strike a telling blow at the Streva-Morello team and the rest of the Mafia crowd. The chief was contemplating a raid on the gang. The Streva crowd, however, were tipped off that the arrest orders were about to be signed.

Beyond and behind all this there was a tense political situation. Vella's term of office was about to expire and election day was not far off. Streva and his crowd feared Vella, but they knew that they could not hope to beat the chief for re-election if they opposed him with one of their own crowd.

The "Black-Handers" looked the field over and hit upon Francesco Ortonello, who was a man of upright life and character respected by his townsmen for miles around. Ortonello's father had been mayor of Corleone. An uncle was the best-known priest in the southern extremity of Sicily. Ortonello, though, had never meddled with politics, nor with the Mafia or any other organization. He was quite content to mind his own business and devote himself to his family. One day a committee of influential men called on Ortonello, and after persistent argument induced him to run for the office of Commander of the Sylvan Guards against Vella.

This induced Vella to suspect Ortonello for being in league with the Mafia and intent on spoiling all the good work done toward wiping out the plundering band of which Morello was a member.

Accordingly, with some liquor in him, Vella went to Ortonello's house and hurled the following at Ortonello, who did not understand the political conditions that prevailed at the time:

"So, Ortonello," said Vella in a rage, "you have dropped the mask. I never thought you were one of the Mafia's puppets. I thought you were an honest man, but evidently I fooled myself."

This onslaught in his own house brought Ortonello to his feet. He grabbed a gun and forced Vella to flee. Now, Ortonello's eyes were opened. He realized that he had been duped into accepting the candidacy against Vella. He realized that his clean record of citizenship was to be used in order to beat Vella. He promptly went to the authorities and notified them to cancel his name.

The Mafia was thrown into panic. The bandits knew that Vella would win if Ortonello did not oppose him.

The very night following Ortonello's cancelling of his name for the office, Vella was murdered.

Previously on the evening that he was shot Vella had been making merry at the café "Stella d'Italia" with a number of public officials and was well "under the weather," as they say, when he started for home. He was seen to rest against a lamp-post. A neighbor offered him assistance to his door but Vella refused.

As soon as the shooting took place there was a commotion. Vella's wife, feeling that some such fate would befall her husband, rushed out terror-stricken and fell prostrate across the dying chief. The carabineers arrived and with them a crowd of people. Vella was taken in a dying condition to his house, which became jammed with excited neighbors. Among those present was Morello. He had hidden his gun in a pile of rubbish at the river's edge and hurried into Vella's house to look for developments. The hiding of the gun by Morello was testified to at the trial of Ortonello by a man named Antonio Caronia, who, by the way, was not murdered. He was a good shot himself, and had the reputation of being able to mix it up with any of the Morello crowd without much fear of the results.

The commander of the carabineers was a dear friend of Vella's and had been dining with the chief but a few minutes before the shooting. The commander asked Vella who shot him and the chief muttered:

"Cows, cows, – the Mafia." The chief also recited a long list of names of the men he had been camping after in his efforts to rid the community of the Mafia band. At this the commander of the carabineers interrupted the dying chief, and told him he was naming too many men, and that so many could not have done the shooting. The result, the commander told the chief, would be that no one would suffer for the offense. The commander then asked Vella whether he had any quarrels recently and the chief answered:

"Yes, I quarrelled with Ortonello yesterday. He wanted to take my job away – take the bread and butter from my wife and children – and he threatened me with a gun."

The commander of the carabineers immediately directed his men to go and get Ortonello and bring him to the house of the dying chief.

When Morello heard this order he smiled and departed for his home. It was upon returning there that the conversation took place which Zangara declared he had overheard between the "Black-Hander" and his mother.

When the carabineers arrived with Ortonello in their custody, Vella was in his last breaths. When asked by the commander of the carabineers if Ortonello was the man with whom he had quarrelled on the previous day, Vella nodded his head and fell back dead.

Another arrest followed that of Ortonello. It was that of Francesco Orlando, who was also a candidate against Vella. Orlando was tried and sentenced to a term of fifteen years, which he served and is now out. Needless to say that Orlando's sympathies and activities are not directed toward any movement favorable to the Morello crowd.

The trial of Ortonello shows the methods of the Mafia – methods that the Lupo-Morello gang would transplant to this country in the conduct of the trials of our courts of their criminal brethren if it could be done by them. Morello's powerful friends brought it about so that the two attorneys for Ortonello deserted him at the moment the case was to go to trial so that the unfortunate Ortonello was forced to take a young lawyer who knew little of the details of the case and who was not sufficiently versed in the practice of courts.

But worse still, the two attorneys that deserted Ortonello on the eve of his trial had all along advised him that his innocence was so evident that no jury would ever convict him. It was not, therefore, the attorneys told Ortonello, necessary to go to any great pains to prove his innocence. The value of this advice to the Mafia crowd may be brought out more strongly when I tell you that both of these attorneys were betraying Ortonello and keeping Morello's friend Streva, the powerful young leader of the Mafia, informed of every move of Ortonello. They advised Ortonello not to bring out any evidence that would be injurious to Streva or Morello. It would not be necessary to do this to prove his innocence, the two attorneys told Ortonello.

In vain Antonio Caronia testified in Ortonello's behalf that he had seen Morello hide the gun in the pile of rubbish at the river's edge shortly after the shooting took place. To offset this testimony of Caronia's, the Morello crowd worked upon the police and had the gun spirited away. Later on, it may be added here, the police official who was responsible for the hiding of this gun at the time of Ortonello's trial, was dismissed from the service for his conduct.

In vain did Ortonello's attorney bring out evidence that the bullet extracted from Vella's body was much larger than the caliber of the gun found in Ortonello's home. Testimony was admitted at the trial to offset this. A Mafia henchman was produced who declared that the bullet had been made larger because of hitting a bone in Vella's body and thus flattening the missile.

In vain was it shown that a grocery wagon had been placed in front of Ortonello's door more than an hour before the shooting and that this wagon had to be removed before the carabineers could get admittance to Ortonello's house when they went after him to bring him to the house of the dying chief. In vain was it brought out at the trial that Ortonello was in bed when the carabineers entered his room to take him into custody. In vain was it shown that he could not have got into the house or out of it while a grocery wagon was backed up to his door an hour previous to the time of the shooting and was still there when the carabineers arrived to arrest him. In vain was it shown that this grocery wagon had been drawn up in front of Ortonello's door by the groceryman next door who had come from Palermo that night with a large amount of groceries, and when the mail stage was to pass, and because the street was narrow, the groceryman backed the wagon up to the door and left it there until he could unload his goods.

In vain did the groceryman testify that he was unloading his wagon when the shot was fired, that he did not leave his wagon from then until the carabineers arrived, and that Ortonello had not entered the house nor come from it during that period. In vain was testimony given that the grocery wagon, being backed up to the door, prevented Ortonello from either coming out of the house or entering it.

In order to contradict the testimony of the grocer and three others who corroborated him concerning the wagon, friends of Vella went to a prostitute who lived in the rear of Ortonello's house and paid her money to testify that she had seen Ortonello after the shooting climb a rope and enter the rear window of this house. The window was forty feet from the ground. This woman is now dead, but before her demise she told the truth and declared that she had perjured herself for the money given her by the commander of the carabineers. This man was very bitter against Ortonello because he believed at the time that Ortonello had murdered his friend Vella.

To no avail was the testimony of an expert shoe-maker who showed the court that the footprints examined in the spot where Morello was seen hiding by the Di Puma woman, just prior to the shooting, were not the footprints of Ortonello nor of Orlando.

As further proof of the unfair trial suffered by Ortonello let me relate that the commander of the carabineers was so convinced of Ortonello's guilt, and so determined to prove a strong case against the unfortunate Ortonello that the commander went to the house of Biaggia Milone and frightened her by threats into testifying that she had seen Ortonello and Orlando do the shooting, that she had seen this from the window of her home, and that she had seen the two surveying the ground on the previous Sunday. This is the Milone woman whose cousin operated the grocery store in East Ninety-seventh Street, which was the headquarters distributing plant for the Lupo-Morello counterfeit money.

For four years Ortonello remained in prison at Palermo, where the case should properly have been tried; but the Mafia crowd became frightened at the public sentiment that was being aroused in behalf of Ortonello and feared that if he were tried at Palermo, where he was so well known, and where the truth was slowly leaking out, he would be set free. Through the influence of Streva the case was transferred to Messina, at the other extremity of Sicily, where Ortonello was tried and convicted. He was sentenced to serve life imprisonment. Five of the jurors believed him innocent.

Perhaps the reader is curious to know what became of Paolino Streva, the young and powerful leader of the Mafia of that time, the protector and patron of Morello. His fate will probably serve as a warning and please the reader. He is missing from the vicinity of Corleone for some time past. He quarrelled with Bernardo Verro, the very popular leader of the Socialist party in Corleone, and caused Verro to be shot. The shooting was inaccurate, though, and Verro recovered. Then the friends of Verro thought they would do a little shooting of their own, and they attempted to hit Streva on three different occasions, but were unsuccessful. Then Verro's friends went after Streva still more effectively. They burned down his house and barns and destroyed his farm lands. Streva suddenly disappeared and his whereabouts are not known.

As for Morello, he is safely lodged in the Atlanta Federal Prison on a sentence of twenty-five years for counterfeiting. He is, however, no longer in danger of being prosecuted for the murder of Vella because the Italian Code provides that a man cannot be tried for a crime when twenty years have expired after the committing of the felony.

As for Ortonello and his family I can state that his wife and children are now in New York and prospering. The old man himself, I am happy to state, is free through friendly influences I have succeeded in bringing to bear on his case. He has taken a new grip on life since the day of his release, even though he is broken in body and weighted with years, showing plainly the terrible suffering of his twenty-three years of unmerited prison life. His spirit is revived and his mind is clear. He prays for me and mine.