Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - March 30, 2024


White Lotus Meets Only Murders in the Building β€” The Sicilian Inheritance True Crime Podcast

Topics
Lorenza's Murder Mystery in Sicily
Midlife Career Switching to be a Post-Partum Doula Sunday Nice Things： Parenting with Empathy, from Pop Culture Moms

Episode Stats


Length

37 minutes

Words per minute

147.62

Word count

5,474

Sentence count

501

Harmful content

Misogyny

12

sentences flagged

Toxicity

26

sentences flagged

Hate speech

21

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 hello happy saturday so as some of you may have heard me mention like once or twice i've got this
00:00:09.880 book coming out this week the sicilian inheritance yeah you know i mean i know i know that i don't
00:00:15.580 talk about it enough it's true it's true uh but i do it comes out on tuesday all of you have been
00:00:21.020 so supportive and wonderful and ordered the book uh if you want to order more there's more available
00:00:26.440 Tell a friend. We are all influencers. We are. We are. You could stop strangers on the street
00:00:31.920 if you want and be like, hey, have you heard about this awesome book? Let's go have a glass
00:00:36.600 of wine and be in a book club together. It's a good way to make new friends. It is. It is.
00:00:41.860 Today, I want to share something with you that I've been working on for a year.
00:00:47.820 The Sicilian Inheritance is a novel loosely based on my great-great-grandmother Lorenza's
00:00:52.860 murder. But it's fiction. I just took this like little tiny nugget of a story and ran with it
00:01:00.120 and created the greatest novel that I've ever written. But because I am nothing if not a thorough
00:01:07.660 content creator, once the book was finished, I decided I've got to solve this murder in real
00:01:14.420 life. Like I don't have a choice. I have to do this. So I took my three children under the age
00:01:19.980 of six to Sicily last summer and started reporting. And we set out to solve this murder.
00:01:26.500 And also, as many of you know, I just got back. I went back to Sicily again two weeks ago because
00:01:32.660 I got access to the mafia and homicide records from 1916, which was cool as shit, my friends. 0.94
00:01:40.920 I mean, just crazy pants bananas that I got to do this. So I've been reporting for a year, 0.79
00:01:45.760 digging through archives, interviewing people in Sicily, interviewing my own relatives,
00:01:51.880 talking to the historians at Ellis Island and genealogists from Ancestry.com. And now,
00:01:59.120 now, the Sicilian Inheritance True Crime Podcast is finally here. And it sounds so good. I mean,
00:02:06.280 this is what happens. Because we had a fancy production studio making this, Kaleidoscope,
00:02:11.500 love them so much. I mean, this is what a podcast sounds like when you put money into it. I'm like,
00:02:16.640 oh my God, money makes something sound better. Who knew? But I love this so much. Again,
00:02:22.500 it's true crime, but also it's a travel podcast. It's an adventure podcast. I like to describe it
00:02:28.900 as White Lotus meets Only Murders in the Building, where Nick is totally Martin Short,
00:02:35.460 meets Bluey because I've got my three kids with me, as you will hear in this episode.
00:02:41.500 This is the first episode. It's called Lorenza, which was my great-great-grandmother's name.
00:02:47.480 And like I said, I just want to share it with you because I love it so much.
00:02:51.140 The whole podcast is also called The Sicilian Inheritance because I like to make things easy for people,
00:02:57.300 much like I married Nick Astor on my birthday because I'm like,
00:03:01.280 oh, you should only remember one day and then get me a really, really nice present on that day.
00:03:06.100 I want to call everything The Sicilian Inheritance.
00:03:09.180 So you're like, oh, I heard there's a book and a podcast.
00:03:12.160 And what are they?
00:03:13.560 Oh, they're both called the Sicilian Inheritance.
00:03:16.300 So please enjoy this.
00:03:18.320 It's a nice thing to listen to while you're going about your Saturday.
00:03:22.100 And I just I can't wait to hear what you think, because I've been working on this all year.
00:03:26.240 And it's such a labor of love.
00:03:28.500 And it's nice to get things out into the world.
00:03:31.860 It is.
00:03:32.220 I feel like I just gave birth to two book podcast babies.
00:03:36.920 All right, here you go.
00:03:38.580 Hey, babe.
00:03:40.060 I'm trying to solve a mystery, Charlie.
00:03:42.140 Charlie, what do you need?
00:03:43.080 What do you need?
00:03:44.420 These goggles don't work.
00:03:46.520 What's wrong with them?
00:03:47.140 I think you've had them on Upside Down, man.
00:03:49.040 I'm sitting by the pool in Scapello, Sicily
00:03:51.260 with my podcast producer, Kate, and my three kids.
00:03:55.040 I'm too cool.
00:03:56.500 BZ, do you want to hear about the family mystery?
00:04:00.940 No?
00:04:01.520 No?
00:04:02.040 Yeah?
00:04:04.060 Yeah?
00:04:04.920 You want this towel?
00:04:05.500 Charlie is much more interested in the very deep pool.
00:04:09.360 Bee is freezing.
00:04:11.280 What is the mystery?
00:04:12.620 Everyone's jet-lagged, and I'm questioning every decision that I've ever made about my life.
00:04:18.600 Bees, do you know why we're here in Sicily?
00:04:20.460 Why?
00:04:21.360 I'm trying to solve the mystery of my great-great-grandmother, of her...
00:04:27.360 Can I say murder to a three-year-old?
00:04:29.700 Her death.
00:04:30.380 Her death. Her death. How she died.
00:04:32.580 How?
00:04:33.340 We don't know yet.
00:04:34.800 We're trying to figure it out. We're trying to learn.
00:04:37.180 Do you want to help me?
00:04:38.340 I'm not exactly sure what possessed me when I made this plan,
00:04:42.940 jetting off to Sicily with a five-month-old baby,
00:04:46.060 a three-year-old, and a six-year-old,
00:04:48.220 for a vacation-slash-fact-finding mission
00:04:51.220 to look for clues into my investigation
00:04:53.940 into my great-great-grandmother's century-old murder
00:04:57.240 right here in our motherland.
00:04:59.440 Do you want to know what her name was?
00:05:04.120 Her name was Lorenza. Can you say that?
00:05:09.300 Lorenza?
00:05:12.300 I keep telling myself that if we can learn something new,
00:05:16.260 something more concrete about what happened to her, it will all be worth it.
00:05:20.740 But just being here, it all feels more real.
00:05:25.060 She feels more real.
00:05:27.920 And we are closer.
00:05:30.620 Closer to figuring out if my great-great-grandmother really was murdered right here on this island.
00:05:38.040 And if so, why?
00:05:44.420 I'm Jo Piazza.
00:05:46.120 From Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts, this is The Sicilian Inheritance.
00:05:50.900 Chapter 1. Lorenza.
00:05:59.740 so take me to the do you like remember the first time you heard this it's hard to say i feel like
00:06:13.540 i've always known this story because italian americans love to tell stories and they love
00:06:19.920 to embellish stories and especially if it's really salacious or it could possibly have something to
00:06:28.780 do with the mafia. They love that shit. Can you just walk me through the quote-unquote story? 1.00
00:06:33.540 Yeah, the story. The story is one that I've known all my life. I've heard it over and over and over
00:06:40.400 again. Not always in the same way, and definitely not with the same information. It's my family's
00:06:47.660 origin story. The story of where we, the Piazzas, came from. It all starts a little over a hundred
00:06:55.400 years ago with my great-great-grandparents back in Sicily, the ancestral homeland as
00:07:01.120 far as my dad's side of the family is concerned. My great-great-grandfather Antonino and my
00:07:07.140 great-great-grandmother Lorenza lived in this tiny village called Caltabalota where they
00:07:12.540 had seven children. One by one around 1910, Antonino and his son saved up enough money
00:07:19.560 to sail to the U.S., pass through Ellis Island, and settle in the Northeast, the classic Italian-American
00:07:26.140 story. Lorenzo was supposed to follow them eventually. But she never made it. She died
00:07:33.520 in Caltebolota. According to my family's hundred-year-long game of telephone, she was murdered.
00:07:41.580 For years, this story has just been a mystery for our family, something we've enjoyed speculating
00:07:47.380 about, swapping different bits and pieces and versions of the story, as you'd say in
00:07:53.320 Italian, la quiera quiera, idle gossip.
00:08:00.200 Hello.
00:08:01.740 Hey, Sharon, how you doing?
00:08:04.080 I'm okay.
00:08:04.940 So now I hear you're writing my memoir, and I'm going to become famous now, right?
00:08:10.300 You are.
00:08:11.100 Yeah.
00:08:11.420 Yeah.
00:08:11.800 That's the plan.
00:08:12.920 I wish. 0.95
00:08:13.640 And this story was always told with a kind of hand gesture, where you push your thumb into your nose and lower your voice when you say the Black Hand or the Mafia.
00:08:24.060 Now, in Sicily, there's still tons of Mafia. And of course, they called it the Black Hand.
00:08:29.520 Which is why, for me, for a long time, I thought the whole thing might be bullshit. 0.98
00:08:34.520 Well, nobody knows for sure. There's two stories. 0.97
00:08:37.700 But over the years, as I've heard it more and more, Lorenza's story and her potential murder have become a bit of an obsession.
00:08:46.420 Maybe that's because we're a family of storytellers, sometimes liars, definitely myth makers, myself included.
00:08:56.420 I'm a writer, and recently I turned my fascination with Lorenza into a novel.
00:09:02.740 It's also called The Sicilian Inheritance.
00:09:05.860 And it is loosely, loosely based on my family's story.
00:09:10.400 A woman is left alone.
00:09:11.960 There's an unsolved murder. 0.68
00:09:13.620 There's just a lot more food and wine and sex thrown in.
00:09:17.920 And look, my obsession with this story, this family story, may have ended there.
00:09:23.140 But the writing, it got me fixated on the real story and the real woman.
00:09:29.740 Who was the real Lorenza Marsala? 0.71
00:09:33.520 And what actually happened to her?
00:09:36.780 So I started digging.
00:09:39.060 And I began with my best sources.
00:09:42.460 My family.
00:09:43.720 The first thing I'm doing is asking different family members what they think the story is.
00:09:48.160 What do they know?
00:09:49.160 Good luck with that.
00:09:50.980 Good luck with that.
00:09:52.520 Oh dear.
00:09:53.560 Hi.
00:09:54.340 How are you?
00:09:55.600 Good.
00:09:56.600 This is Uncle Jimmy.
00:09:58.200 He's my dad's older brother.
00:10:00.140 I want to hear everything you know.
00:10:02.320 Well, I don't know any more than probably you do,
00:10:05.040 but Jimmy and I have been talking about it,
00:10:08.240 and our one concern is if it's too realistic,
00:10:12.800 you're going to wind up starting our vendetta again, 0.55
00:10:15.300 and I'm too old to go over there and shoot somebody.
00:10:18.920 And Jimmy wants to bring his kids over there. 0.97
00:10:22.580 Are you too old to go over there and shoot somebody, Uncle Jim? 0.83
00:10:25.300 Are you really? 1.00
00:10:25.800 Oh, hell no. 1.00
00:10:26.920 Shit no. 1.00
00:10:27.460 No. 1.00
00:10:28.240 Vendetta or not, I kept calling relatives.
00:10:30.820 You know that you have this book coming out.
00:10:32.740 I didn't know it was finished.
00:10:34.140 That was Aunt Gail.
00:10:35.640 When I was growing up, she lived down the street.
00:10:37.540 She was like a second mom to me.
00:10:39.220 I'm sad at writing sex scenes, okay? 0.59
00:10:41.000 Like, I am like, I have to get, like, real drunk to write them.
00:10:44.660 I hope you don't write too many sex scenes.
00:10:47.340 Well, drunk all the time. 0.88
00:10:49.260 Cousin Sissy, she's a romance novelist.
00:10:51.900 Cousin Sharon, cousin Laura.
00:10:53.680 We have a lot of cousins.
00:10:56.200 We are Italian-Americans. 1.00
00:10:57.180 we breed like rabbits.
00:10:59.360 All I know is just obviously hearsay.
00:11:02.540 Okay, so here's what I was told.
00:11:05.460 Grandpa, my grandpa, Santo Piazza,
00:11:08.600 immigrated to the U.S.
00:11:10.640 Santo came over with his siblings.
00:11:15.880 Large family, brothers and sisters siblings
00:11:18.660 that immigrated.
00:11:19.960 The boys came over to kind of settle in
00:11:22.560 and, you know, all of that.
00:11:24.000 So they came through Ellis Island,
00:11:25.740 settled into New York.
00:11:26.640 The boys came over from Italy two by two.
00:11:29.680 They immigrated, and Dad came with them, but they left Mom behind.
00:11:35.100 They left their mother behind. 0.60
00:11:36.600 The mother to sell the farm. 0.75
00:11:40.500 His wife stayed behind to tend to.
00:11:43.100 She said they had a family farm.
00:11:46.700 What I heard was that the mom was interested in her land.
00:11:51.440 She refused to sell.
00:11:52.960 Now, this part, I don't know if it's true.
00:11:54.980 I don't know who told me whether it was Antanna or somebody else.
00:11:59.740 But they had a vineyard, and the Black Hand took over the vineyard, so they did not have access to the vineyard.
00:12:09.280 The Black Hand.
00:12:12.120 That's how my family tends to refer to the mafia in this story.
00:12:15.640 It is not how Sicilians refer to the mafia.
00:12:18.460 I just want everyone to know that.
00:12:19.940 But this right here, this is the reigning theory of how Lorenzo was killed.
00:12:26.500 And it's the version of the story that's been in my head the longest.
00:12:30.160 It's the version where the Piazzas owned a farm or a vineyard.
00:12:34.100 It is unclear.
00:12:35.560 And once Antonino and all of Lorenzo's sons had been gone in the U.S. for over a decade, the mafia killed Lorenzo to get that land.
00:12:44.460 They owned a farm and they left her behind to do the transaction and the Mafia allegedly stole it from her and killed her.
00:12:55.000 She sold the farm and all the money was in the house and they killed her for the money.
00:13:01.920 She was murdered while the boys were over here.
00:13:04.700 Maybe she had already sold the land and the Mafia then killed her to get the money from the land. 0.97
00:13:10.120 Maybe it was that money that she was planning to use to leave Sicily and finally reunite with her family. 0.99
00:13:16.540 They were kind of stupid to leave all that money, but there were no banks in or anything. 0.99
00:13:21.200 And that was the money she was going to be using to come to the United States and get them started. 1.00
00:13:28.280 But they were kind of stupid to leave her there alone like that. 1.00
00:13:36.380 What was her name? 1.00
00:13:37.640 The name of who?
00:13:41.320 Of the great-great-grandmother who was murdered.
00:13:45.120 Oh. Oh, I forget. I forget her name.
00:13:49.700 Oh, Lorenzo and Marcella.
00:13:52.820 For all the times that I've heard the story about Lorenzo being murdered,
00:13:56.780 all the tellings and retellings,
00:13:59.480 talking to my relatives this time made me realize how little any of us knew about her actual life.
00:14:06.900 Or her death, for that matter.
00:14:10.260 Did you hear how they killed her?
00:14:11.960 No, I never heard any details of her death.
00:14:15.100 And Dana didn't give any details I don't remember.
00:14:19.940 That's the thing.
00:14:21.000 There have never been any real details when this story gets told.
00:14:26.100 Things that you can prove.
00:14:28.340 And that's always what's made me skeptical.
00:14:31.100 Like maybe it was never a murder.
00:14:34.380 Maybe her story could be as open and shut as a case of the flu.
00:14:39.380 Maybe she got sick, and that's why she didn't make it over.
00:14:42.920 A tragedy for sure for her sons and her daughters.
00:14:46.700 But not exactly worth the legend status.
00:14:50.760 Maybe the family needed to make her death into something more than just a virus.
00:14:56.040 My dad was a claims attorney.
00:14:58.640 My Uncle Jimmy's a judge.
00:14:59.980 like we're like we're a very basic italian-american family but they love imagining that there's some
00:15:08.600 kind of adventure and romance um in possibly being adjacent to the to the mafia even though
00:15:16.140 they're absolutely not and this story gives it to them if but this story gives this story does
00:15:21.380 give them that this story gives them some kind of connection and i think that's what they love
00:15:25.280 about this story? Like, if she was possibly killed by the mob, why? And like, that gives them this
00:15:31.120 link to, you know, Goodfellas, The Zapanos, The Godfather. When I started writing my novel, I
00:15:37.360 didn't want to know the real story. I wanted to use the small bits and pieces that I knew about
00:15:42.580 Lorenza to get started, and then let my imagination run wild with the rest. But once the book was put
00:15:50.160 to bed, I got this tug in my gut. Something told me the story wasn't finished. And that's when I
00:15:58.060 needed to know the truth about what happened to Lorenza. I became obsessed. What really sent me
00:16:04.240 looking for answers was this email from my dad from about a decade ago. Toward the end of his
00:16:09.680 life, he used to send me dozens of emails a day. And one day, a couple years ago, when I was
00:16:15.540 cleaning out my inbox, one of those unopened emails caught my eye. It was his grandfather's
00:16:21.760 birth certificate, Santo's birth certificate. And in the email, my dad remarked on how beautiful
00:16:27.880 the mother's name was. Lorenza. She was the one who was murdered, he reminded me in all caps.
00:16:36.260 that email got me to start doing a little more digging just a little bit of reporting
00:16:49.920 and as soon as i scratched the surface it started to look a lot like i had a hundred
00:16:56.020 year old murder mystery on my hands would there be a police record yes only in the cases of
00:17:02.220 martyr. One that I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to solve.
00:17:08.540 Oh my gosh! Why would they be murdered together?
00:17:13.520 More after the break.
00:17:25.960 You hear that? Do you hear that? That's the gentle lapping of the Mediterranean
00:17:30.840 sea on the fine golden sand. By the magic of podcasting, you can almost feel the heat of the
00:17:37.260 sun, the cool of the water, and the smell of the orange blossoms. And with a few short clicks,
00:17:43.380 you can taste it too. Because we have actually imported the finest Sicilian olive oil inspired
00:17:49.400 by this very podcast. We've partnered with Philadelphia's own Cardenas Gourmet Foods
00:17:54.840 to bring you the Sicilian Inheritance Olive Oil,
00:17:58.720 a flavor journey from the volcanic soil of ancient groves
00:18:02.580 through special terroir that family secrets and inherited stories provide.
00:18:08.480 It's got a taste of fresh off the vine tomatoes and a hint of almonds.
00:18:13.080 You can get your own bottle today at Cardenas Taproom.
00:18:17.100 Check the show notes for the link and all the details to buy.
00:18:20.380 It's not only an incredible olive oil,
00:18:22.640 but it will completely transport you to the beautiful and sometimes dangerous island of
00:18:29.880 Sicily. So please do check out the show notes now. And thank you. Also, enjoy with something delicious.
00:18:37.320 i just spent three hundred dollars on ancestry.com oh no um oh did it as i tried to solve this
00:18:53.960 mystery i forced my husband nick to be my enthusiastic sounding board for all of my
00:18:59.420 discoveries. Which, of course, involved immediately googling genealogy websites.
00:19:11.740 there's a picture of her no way look at that have you ever seen no i've never seen this wow 1.00
00:19:18.820 she looks she looks unhappy when you imagine an italian nona what do you think of a chubby lady 1.00
00:19:29.240 in the kitchen making pasta that is not lorenza lorenza looks like she could kill you with her 1.00
00:19:36.100 stare her cheekbones alone could cut glass she looks like someone who might have been involved 1.00
00:19:41.320 in some shit. But this is very helpful 0.99
00:19:43.200 because now we have the death date.
00:19:45.340 Yeah, or the alleged death date.
00:19:47.360 Right. Yeah.
00:19:49.320 Whoa, cool, Panda.
00:19:50.960 So before we go much further, I think I need
00:19:53.220 to draw my family tree for you all.
00:19:55.380 In fact, I now have a massive wall
00:19:57.120 in my house where I sketched it all out.
00:20:01.140 Lorenza Marsala, my great-great-grandmother
00:20:03.560 on my dad's side, she was born 1.00
00:20:05.200 in 1862.
00:20:07.220 She married Antonino Piazza.
00:20:09.920 Quick note here,
00:20:10.580 Just to make things extra confusing, in Italy, women don't take their husbands' last names.
00:20:17.140 Did you know that? I didn't until we started doing this.
00:20:20.180 So Lorenza kept the last name Marsala.
00:20:22.840 Lorenza Marsala. Sounds like a pasta dish. 0.98
00:20:26.940 Anyway, Lorenza and Antonino had seven children who lived to adulthood.
00:20:31.960 I personally have three children, and I think seven is a lot of children.
00:20:35.960 Anything more than one is a lot of children.
00:20:38.700 Anyway, Lorenza and Antonino's kids.
00:20:42.100 First, we've got Santo.
00:20:43.700 He's my great-grandfather.
00:20:45.320 Then Joseph, also known as Giuseppe.
00:20:47.920 Vito and Caligaro, also known as Charlie.
00:20:51.220 And the daughters, Josephine, Paulina, and Rosa.
00:20:55.760 All of them would eventually come to America. 0.77
00:20:58.600 The men first.
00:21:00.100 Santo, the oldest son, and Giuseppe left Sicily in 1905.
00:21:04.280 Now just to set the scene, picture this.
00:21:07.740 Pre-World War I, turn of the century.
00:21:11.620 A lot of Italians were immigrating back then,
00:21:14.040 especially the ones living in intense rural poverty in southern Italy and Sicily.
00:21:19.640 Between 1900 and 1910, more than 2 million Italians made their way across the Atlantic Ocean.
00:21:26.520 And among them were Santo and his brother.
00:21:29.480 Lorenzo's son, Santo, is my dad's grandfather.
00:21:34.380 Got it.
00:21:34.880 And he worked in the coal mines and was also a farmer.
00:21:38.680 This is me trying to explain it all to Kate.
00:21:40.960 It's really hard to keep all this straight.
00:21:43.880 And not that Kate is the best at keeping it straight either.
00:21:46.300 And presumably Santo told him.
00:21:49.600 No, that's the thing.
00:21:51.240 So Santo, like a lot of other Sicilians at the time, settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
00:21:57.500 And he goes to work in the coal mines.
00:21:59.920 Two years later, their father, Antonino, joins them.
00:22:04.880 bringing along another son. By 1912, most of the kids, all of the sons, are in the States.
00:22:12.800 Lorenza and two of her daughters are still in Sicily. In 1916, Lorenza dies, and a few years
00:22:19.880 later, her daughters would immigrate to the U.S. too. Now, Santo, the eldest son, he starts my
00:22:27.380 particular branch of the family tree. Santo is the grandfather, or great-grandfather, to all of
00:22:34.080 my relatives that you've heard so far?
00:23:04.080 Santo also had a lot of children.
00:23:09.480 Ten of them.
00:23:10.660 And here the family tree gets even more confusing
00:23:12.880 for a lot of reasons.
00:23:14.880 Namely, because everyone seems to have the same names.
00:23:18.020 There's so many.
00:23:19.620 Giuseppes, Giuseppes, Josephines, Vitos, Vinnies.
00:23:22.940 And then the names, they get anglicized
00:23:25.480 when people come to the U.S. 0.92
00:23:27.380 The Giuseppes become Joes. 0.88
00:23:29.860 The Lorenzas become Laura's. 0.93
00:23:31.260 The Vitos become Vinnies. 0.54
00:23:33.100 You get the picture.
00:23:34.740 Santo, at some point, lived with each of his children.
00:23:38.460 And for as Sicilian as Santo was, he didn't like to talk about Italy.
00:23:43.080 I remember going there and my old great-aunts would get my face and squeeze it
00:23:49.080 and hurt the hell out of me and talk in Italian. 0.63
00:23:52.340 Cousin Sharon, she's my second cousin, I think. 0.96
00:23:56.460 I'm bad with the seconds and the thirds.
00:23:59.920 Her mom, Rose, was one of Santo's children.
00:24:02.240 Santa was very quiet about his past. Growing up, I remember he wouldn't, he didn't even want to acknowledge that he was Italian for a while there.
00:24:12.640 Really?
00:24:13.320 Yeah, yeah, it was very strange. Somebody would come to the door and see that he was clearly Italian with his, you know, deep accent.
00:24:22.200 And he'd say, you're in America, you speak, you speak English, no Italian. I mean, he didn't want, it was strange. He was very closed mouth about.
00:24:32.240 much of his younger life, very close now.
00:24:36.200 So it's worth investigating and looking into.
00:24:40.440 Santo definitely didn't talk about what happened to his mother, Lorenza.
00:24:46.360 Your dad knew the most, I think, didn't he?
00:24:49.340 I know, but yeah.
00:24:51.840 My dad and his siblings and cousins are the complete opposite.
00:24:57.720 They're obsessed with their Sicilian roots.
00:25:01.500 Santo was first generation. 0.97
00:25:04.020 He wanted to hide being Sicilian so he could fit in in this country, 0.82
00:25:07.900 which for some immigrants was a pretty common reaction.
00:25:12.140 My dad, on the other hand, he used to say things like
00:25:15.680 capisce instead of understand or mozzarella instead of mozzarella.
00:25:21.140 Picture this, Sicily, 1912.
00:25:24.100 So that everyone would know he was Italian.
00:25:27.860 Everything from Sicily means something.
00:25:30.500 My dad loved to pretend to be this kind of Tony Soprano tough guy, especially with my high school boyfriends.
00:25:37.620 Sorry, Kurt Siegel. 0.94
00:25:38.680 Not with this Sicilian thing that's been going on for 2,000 years! 1.00
00:25:44.960 In the early 2000s, my dad started to get really sick with a rare form of muscular dystrophy. 0.99
00:25:51.280 But instead of staying housebound or just feeling sorry for himself in bed,
00:25:55.580 Lorenzo's story became this kind of unfinished business
00:26:01.000 and it seemed to light a fire in him
00:26:03.700 he started researching genealogy and taking trips to Sicily
00:26:07.960 by that time he had to use a cane and a walker to get around
00:26:12.440 and his obsession had gone into overdrive
00:26:16.580 it's like falling in love with Sicily
00:26:19.380 and with learning new things about his family
00:26:22.380 gave him this way to escape his broken body.
00:26:25.960 He did some crazy stuff, too.
00:26:28.540 He started, he got this harebrained idea
00:26:30.640 to start importing Sicilian organic olive oil,
00:26:34.120 and he bought a shit ton of it.
00:26:36.180 I mean, I think he blew probably about 100 grand 0.91
00:26:38.360 on local Sicilian olive oil.
00:26:42.520 Then there was something wrong with the caps and the labels,
00:26:44.600 and they leaked, and it just sat in our garage for years and years.
00:26:48.820 And he just pissed away all of his remaining money on this business that would never exist.
00:26:56.920 But that was yet another way to keep him going back to Sicily.
00:27:00.960 As he got sicker and less mobile, my dad could still sit at a computer, making calls and researching his leads on Lorenzo's murder.
00:27:11.620 At the time, I found all of it a little bit silly.
00:27:16.160 I was so disinterested in this.
00:27:18.000 And if you think about 2000, I was in college. I was 20 years old. I graduate. I moved to New York.
00:27:24.840 I'm not living with my parents. I could care less about my dad's obsession with Sicily. I'm like,
00:27:29.340 that seems like a nice hobby for you, dad. I'm happy for you. But we never talked about it.
00:27:35.760 And now I really wish that we had. Now I really wish that I'd paid more attention and I'd listen
00:27:41.280 to the things that he was finding out because so much of it is also just now gone. I can't find
00:27:46.640 anything in his email. I can't, Facebook won't let me into his Facebook account. So a lot of what he
00:27:52.540 learned died with him. A lot of parts of him are gone. And he would hate that. He wanted to know
00:28:02.720 the answer to this mystery. And I wish that I'd been there to help him. But I was on my own journey,
00:28:10.520 Searching for a life partner, falling in love, getting married, getting pregnant.
00:28:16.220 And then he was gone.
00:28:18.260 I never properly grieved for him at the time.
00:28:21.780 And it's just been hitting me now.
00:28:25.720 His legacy and what he left unfinished.
00:28:30.480 And now I feel like I owe him something by finishing what he started.
00:28:39.920 chew on this bold question from dentine gum is it ever okay to compliment a millennial
00:28:51.180 on their skinny jeans in 2026 dentine chew bold
00:28:59.900 hey why do you think you care about it is it like is it really like to do this thing for your dad
00:29:08.960 Do you feel like you have the same motivation he did or?
00:29:12.980 I think my motivation is different than dad's.
00:29:16.140 There's a part of me that wants to do this because he didn't get to finish it.
00:29:20.960 And there's another part of me that wants to do it because I feel like this woman's real story deserves to be told.
00:29:27.720 Like for people to really know the truth about what happened to her instead of just becoming a character in everybody else's life.
00:29:36.400 Lorenza Marsala was born in this village called Caltabalota, had a bunch of kids, and died there at age 54.
00:29:45.520 That's pretty much all we know of her life.
00:29:48.560 When she died, it was 1916.
00:29:51.140 She still had two young daughters at home.
00:29:54.100 The First World War had just broken out.
00:29:57.060 Now that I'm a wife and a mother of three children, thank God it's not seven,
00:30:02.440 her story just hits different. I'm getting closer to Lorenza's age every year, and I can't stop
00:30:12.740 thinking about our family story from her perspective. How did she feel about being
00:30:18.740 left behind by her husband for more than a decade? Did she miss him? Or was it liberating to finally
00:30:26.040 not just be someone's wife, to finally not be getting pregnant almost every single year.
00:30:34.060 Did she feel safe in her own village? Was it okay because she had a lot of her family members
00:30:39.900 around her? Or maybe she was in constant danger in this village, surrounded by mafia bandits.
00:30:46.160 I was asking somebody about her, and they just looked at me and they kept saying,
00:30:55.840 Morte, Morte, no. And they're like, they shut it down. They wouldn't talk.
00:30:59.080 Really? You just said her name. You're like, Lorenzo, Marsala, Piazza.
00:31:03.920 And they were like, Morte, Morte, Morte.
00:31:07.700 Interesting. 0.99
00:31:09.000 Over the years, many of the Piazzas have gone back to Sicily looking for answers about our family's past. 0.73
00:31:16.160 And a lot of them have returned with stories of dead ends and also unsettling experiences that happened when they tried to find out more about Lorenzo. 0.99
00:31:25.500 They knew about the murders.
00:31:28.360 They knew about it, right?
00:31:29.760 Yeah, they did.
00:31:31.140 My Uncle Jimmy claims that when he was in Cotabalota, a bunch of police officers warned him off this case.
00:31:37.680 He said, you better drop it.
00:31:40.020 And not in any threatening matter whatsoever, but just as a matter of, you don't want to start it off.
00:31:49.700 You don't want the vendetta to continue.
00:31:54.680 And if the warnings from the cops weren't enough, they also got a sign from above.
00:31:59.040 When we were there, we were at the church.
00:32:02.040 Lightning struck the church.
00:32:04.520 What?
00:32:04.780 We were actually, yeah, we were in the church where they got married, and lightning struck the steeple.
00:32:12.400 While you were in it?
00:32:14.160 While we were, yeah. 1.00
00:32:16.080 Shut up! 0.99
00:32:17.260 Yeah, while we were in the church, we were in with the priest going through the records, right, in the rectory, and lightning struck the top of the church. 1.00
00:32:27.000 We had to get out.
00:32:29.360 Wow.
00:32:30.100 My sister-in-law said, that is a sign. Get us out of here. 1.00
00:32:34.780 I'm starting to think that maybe my family doesn't want to know what really happened.
00:32:46.440 They're pretty attached to the stories that they've been telling themselves for all these years.
00:32:51.360 Well, that's interesting because I wonder how people will feel.
00:32:53.760 If we actually get to like a truth, will it be disappointing or satisfying or, you know?
00:33:00.980 I don't know if my family wants to know the actual truth.
00:33:04.420 that's the that's the interesting thing like for as much as like people have come back here
00:33:09.480 and tried to like dig up more information I think if the truth ended up being
00:33:16.340 less interesting than their story I don't think they're going to change their story
00:33:21.660 yeah I think they're going to continue to tell the story the way they want to tell the story
00:33:26.600 but I need to know I have to solve this mystery I don't know if it's for me or for my dad or for
00:33:33.100 Lorenza, but I have to solve it. So here I go. I'm looking for long-lost relatives. I'm digging
00:33:39.860 through archives covered in dust and trying to trace back a family history that's been twisted
00:33:45.840 by secrets, omissions, and vengeance. I can't do all of this from my desk in Philadelphia.
00:33:55.000 I've got to go back. Back to, as my dad liked to call it, the motherland. I've got to go to Sicily.
00:34:03.100 To the village of Cal Tabalota, where all of this happened in the first place.
00:34:07.980 Back to where Lorenzo was born, and maybe, just maybe, back to the very spot where she was murdered.
00:34:16.660 There's a landslide. There's a landslide here. This is it.
00:34:18.620 This is a landslide.
00:34:19.300 This is the place.
00:34:21.560 We have the absolute certainty, 110%.
00:34:23.780 110%, this is it.
00:34:25.960 I want to see a picture when she died.
00:34:28.440 We don't have a picture of that.
00:34:30.140 Actually, a video.
00:34:31.400 You want to see a video?
00:34:32.340 videos didn't exist. I'm bringing all of you on my summer vacation with my husband, three kids
00:34:38.440 under the age of seven. Everyone is coming to Sicily with me to solve this hundred-year-old
00:34:42.580 murder. Now I think it's pretty clear that something bad did happen to her. Your father
00:34:48.960 had his story that she was like the witch doctor. Could Lorenza have been killed by the mafia
00:34:56.060 for being a witch? So I'm wondering how is the story similar or different than what you got?
00:35:01.260 So I heard two stories.
00:35:02.880 One story is over land.
00:35:06.000 And the other story is that she was a witch.
00:35:09.820 Well, that's even more interesting.
00:35:12.860 What?
00:35:14.380 That's all coming up on The Sicilian Inheritance.
00:35:18.000 I'd love to know what the hell happened.
00:35:20.240 Wouldn't it be great to solve this mystery?
00:35:22.280 I feel good.
00:35:23.120 My Sicilian witchy powers. 0.98
00:35:24.800 I feel like we're on the right path.
00:35:31.260 The Sicilian Inheritance is a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
00:35:38.000 The series is produced by Jen Kinney, Kate Osborne, Dara Potts, and me, Joe Piazza.
00:35:44.780 With key help from Laura Lee Watson of Digging Up Your Roots in the Boot and Ciro Grillo of Sicily Roots.
00:35:51.260 Many thanks to Giulia Paravicini and the Ancestry.com Research Department.
00:35:56.580 you can get your copy of the sicilian inheritance the novel right now at truly anywhere that you
00:36:03.800 get your books anywhere you get your books it's got the same name as the podcast but with more
00:36:08.940 food wine and sex also do not forget to get a taste of sicily in the form of delicious sicilian
00:36:15.900 olive oil at cardena's tap room make sure to check out our show notes for a link to buy it
00:36:21.420 Or, if you find yourself in Philly, just stop by.
00:36:25.740 Our executive producers are Kate Osborne, Mangesh Hatikador, Costas Linos, and Oz Woloshin.
00:36:32.900 From iHeart, executive producers are Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etor.
00:36:38.340 We also want to thank Will Pearson, Conal Byrne, Bob Pittman, and John Marionopoulos.
00:36:44.700 chew on this bold question from dentine gum is it ever okay to compliment a millennial
00:36:56.220 on their skinny jeans in 2026 dentine chew bold