Filippo Marchese

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Filippo Marchese

Filippo Marchese (died 1982) was a hitman and leading figure in the Sicilian Mafia suspected of dozens of homicides.

He was the boss of the Corso Dei Mille neighbourhood in Palermo and ran what became known as the Room Of Death, a small apartment along the Piazza Sant Erasmo road. Victims who stood in the way of the Corleonesi, the Mafia Clan from the town of Corleone, were lured there to be murdered, usually by being garrotted. Their bodies were either dissolved in acid or chopped up and dumped out at sea.

As many as 100 people - Mafiosi who stood in the way of the Corleonesi bosses, Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, and their associates - were killed there.

Like most Mafiosi, Filippo Marchese was very elusive, and the primary source of information about his career in crime comes from Vincenzo Sinagra, an informant. Sinagra was not actually a member of the Mafia but just a common criminal who, in 1981, made the mistake of robbing from a Mafioso. He was given three choices; leave Sicily, die, or become a gofer for the Corleonesi. He opted for the third option and ended up working with Marchese in the Room Of Death.

Sinagra was arrested on August 11, 1982 when he was caught red-handed carrying out a contract killing, and after a year in custody he decided to become an informant and cooperated with the anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino. He testified at the Maxi Trial of 1986/87, along with Tommaso Buscetta. Sinagra claimed at the Maxi Trial that it was invariably his job to hold the feet of those who died in the Room Of Death whilst Marchese strangled them with a length of rope, and he even claimed that Marchese masturbated whilst snorting cocaine and watching victims being tortured. If this is true then it implies Marchese was not just a ruthless mobster but a sadist as well.

By the time of the Maxi Trial, however, Filippo Marchese was dead.

Marchese had been a valuable asset to the Corleonesi during the 1981/1982 Mob War, but afterwards his violent nature was of no further use, and potentially marked him out as a threat to the leadership of the Corleonesi bosses, Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano. Sometime around the end of 1982, Filippo Marchese was garrotted and dissolved in acid like so many of his own victims. He was so elusive that the authorities did not learn of his death until the late 1980s through an informant.

The man who killed Marchese was Pino Greco; Greco was himself killed in 1985 by two of his own men on Toto Riina's orders, his Soto-Capo (underboss), Vincenzo Puccio and a Lieutenent, Giusepe Luchese who later became Boss after Puccio was killed.

Filippo Marchese's two nephews, Antonino and Giuseppe Marchese, subsequently murdered Vincenzo Puccio in 1989 on Riina's orders, but then Riina deliberately destroyed their alibi and Guiseppe Marchese became a pentito after he realized his godfather and mentor Riina had betrayed him.

Marchese also had a niece, Vincenza Marchese, who was married to Leoluca Bagarella, a Corleonesi Clan Boss and Toto Riina's brother-in-law. Bagarella was believed to have killed his wife Vincenza sometime after her brother Giuseppe co-operated with the government and became an informant, rumors abound and during Bagarella's capture and arrest on June 24, 1995 after 4 years on the run with his wife there was no sign of Vincenza. Authorities found a photo of Vincenza Marchese with flowers under it, a sign of mourning and it was subsequently believed that the rumors were true, but later informers came forward to reveal that Vincenza Marchese had killed herself after her brother had become an informer, leaving a letter to her beloved husband claiming that her brother's betrayal was her a disgrace to her and the family and asked for forgiveness.