First Cosa Nostra Pentito: The "Valachi Of The Palermo Suburbs"
Around 11 p.m. on March 29, 1973, in Palermo, Sicily, a lifelong member of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, for no earthly reason, walked into a police station and spilled everything. Leonardo Vitale had been a capo in the Altarello di Baida family. Leonardo Vitale, then age 32 and a capodecina in the Altarello di Baida family of the Sicilian Mafia, explained to the officers of the Palermo Flying Squad that he was undergoing a religious conversion and wanted to begin a new life. The officers were dumbfounded as their visitor copped to committing: two murders*, attempted murders, kidnapping, and a range of lesser crimes, a bizarre number of which involved Sicily's citrus fruits industry. In addition, he named men who he said had committed homicides (many of them the police already had on the books as murder suspects). He also discussed how a Mafia family was organized and identified by name members of his Altarello di Baida family. Nothing was off limits....