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Italy jails notorious mafia boss’s sister who handled coded messages for mobsters
An Italian court on Thursday sentenced the sister of Sicilian crime boss Matteo Messina Denaro to 14 years in prison for mafia association, Italian media reported. Rosalia Messina Denaro was arrested in 2023 on suspicions that she played a key role in the mob led by her brother.
The 69-year-old, also the wife of jailed mafioso Filippo Guttadauro, unintentionally helped police locate her fugitive brother, thanks to a scribbled note she had hidden in the hollow rail of a chair at her residence. Officers photographed the note, which initially seemed like a jumble of words, signs and letters, and replaced it where it was found, the BBC reported.
The note also revealed key details about his health condition.
Matteo Messina Denaro was one of the most ruthless bosses in Cosa Nostra, the real-life Sicilian crime syndicate depicted in “The Godfather” movies.
Investigators had been combing the Sicilian countryside for the mafia boss for years, searching for hideouts and wiretapping members of his family and his friends.
It was his decision to seek treatment for his cancer that led to his arrest in January 2023, when he visited a health clinic in Palermo.
He died at the inmates’ ward of L’Aquila hospital a few months later.
ALESSANDRO FUCARINI/ANSA/AFP via Getty Images
Rosalia, Denaro’s confidante and “alter-ego,” was the only family member to know about her brother’s cancer diagnosis before he died.
Investigators believed Rosalia played a major operational role in the merciless Cosa Nostra, particularly in the last few years of her brother’s run.
She was suspected of managing the clan’s finances and the so-called pizzini network — coded messages scrawled on pieces of paper to secure communications between the mobster and his gang members.
Rosalia is the mother of Lorenza Guttadauro, a lawyer who defended her mob boss uncle upon his arrest.
“Mafia nobility”
Matteo Messina Denaro was convicted of involvement in the murder of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992 and in deadly bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993.
One of his six life sentences was for the kidnapping and subsequent murder of the 12-year-old son of a witness in the Falcone case.
He disappeared in the summer of 1993 and spent the next 30 years on the run as the Italian state cracked down on the Sicilian mob. When he was finally captured, eyewitnesses said that when passers-by realized that security forces had apprehended the notorious crime figure, people cheered and applauded the police.
Italian Gendarmerie (Carabinieri) Press Service/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty
He was considered “Mafia nobility” — the last of three top mafia bosses, the others being the notorious Salvatore “Toto'” Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, both of whom also eluded capture for decades, continuing to live clandestine lives in Sicily.
Riina, the so-called “boss of bosses,” was on the run for 23 years before his arrest in 1993. Provenzano spent 38 years as a fugitive and was finally captured in 2006.
A Georgia county’s emergency call center was overwhelmed by calls on Sept. 4 about a school shooting at Apalachee High School that killed four people and wounded nine others, records released Friday by Barrow County show.
Local news organizations report many of the 911 phone calls were not released under public record requests because state law exempts from release calls recording the voice of someone younger than 18 years old. That exemption would cover calls from most of the 1,900 students at the school in Winder, northeast of Atlanta.
Calls spiked around 10:20 a.m., when authorities have said that 14-year-old suspect Colt Gray began shooting. Many calls were answered with an automated message saying there was a “high call volume,” WAGA-TV reported.
One man called 911 after receiving text messages from a girlfriend. He was put on hold for just over 10 minutes because of an influx of calls at the time of the shooting, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“She hears people yelling outside, so I don’t know if that’s officers in the building or that’s — I don’t know,” he said, adding that she was eventually evacuated out of the school.
Other adults also called 911 after their children contacted them.
“My daughter calling me crying. Somebody go ‘boom, boom, boom, boom,'” one mother said. The 911 operator responded: “Ma’am we have officers out there, OK?”
Parents of students at an elementary school and middle school neighboring Apalachee also flooded 911 seeking information.
“Sir, my daughter goes to school next door to Apalachee. Is there a school shooter?” one caller asked.
“We do have an active situation (at) Apalachee High School right now,” the operator responded. “We have a lot of calls coming in.”
More than 500 radio messages between emergency personnel were also released Friday.
“Active shooter!” an officer yells in one audio clip while speaking with a dispatcher, CNN reported. Another officer responds, “Correct. We have an active shooter at Apalachee High School.”
The shooting killed teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, as well as students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, with seven of those hit by gunfire.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation reported Thursday that the suspect rode the school bus on the day of the shooting with the assault-style rifle concealed in his backpack.
He then asked a teacher for permission to go to the front office to speak with someone, and when he received it, he was allowed to take his backpack with him, GBI said. He then went to a restroom, where he hid, and then eventually took out the weapon and started shooting, investigators said. A knife was also found on him when he was arrested.
According to investigators, the suspect enrolled at Apalachee High on Aug. 14, and between Aug. 14 and the day of the shooting, he was absent for nine days of school.
The family told CBS News that the suspect’s maternal grandmother had visited the school the day before the massacre to discuss the suspect’s alleged behavioral issues.
The suspect has been charged as an adult with four counts of murder, and District Attorney Brad Smith has said more charges are likely to be filed against him in connection with the wounded. Authorities have also charged his father, 54-year-old Colin Gray, alleging that he gave his son access to the gun when he knew or should have known that the teen was a danger to himself and others.
The 13,000 students at Barrow County’s other schools returned to class Tuesday. The 1,900 students who attend Apalachee are supposed to start returning the week of Sept. 23, officials said Friday.
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