Leonardo Vitale was a member of the Sicilian Mafia who was one of the first to become an informant

Informant

An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...

, or pentito

Pentito

Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...

, although originally his confessions were not taken seriously. Vitale was a man of honour or member of the Altarello di Baida cosca

Cosca

The word cosca is a Sicilian word which refers to any plant – such as the artichoke or the thistle – whose spiny closely folded leaves symbolize the tightness of relationships between members of the Mafia. In the English language this is best described as a clan. It is often used as a synonym for...

or family, Altarello being a small village just outside of Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

. The Vitale family had a long history of Mafia membership and Leonardo himself was groomed by his uncle and presented for membership into Cosa Nostra in order to continue his family's Mafia tradition.

Confession

He walked in to a Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

 police station

Police station

A police station or station house is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, along with locker rooms, temporary holding cells and interview/interrogation rooms.- Facilities...

 on the evening of March 29, 1973, and declared that he was a member of the Mafia and confessed to various acts of extortion

Extortion

Extortion is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime...

, arson

Arson

Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

 and two homicide

Homicide

Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...

s. In front of dumbfounded police officers he explained how a Mafia family is organised and revealed the existence of the Mafia Commission

Sicilian Mafia Commission

The Sicilian Mafia Commission, known as Commissione or Cupola, is a body of leading Mafia members to decide on important questions concerning the actions of, and settling disputes within the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra...

, long before the pentito Tommaso Buscetta

Tommaso Buscetta

Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...

 exposed Mafia secrets to judges who were prepared to listen.

Vitale said he joined the Mafia at nineteen at the behest of his uncle. He proved his willingness to kill by shooting a horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

 and subsequently he murdered a rival mafioso. He went on to take part in extorting and intimidating landowners and shopkeepers, and later carried out a second killing. Vitale would eventually rise to the rank of capo-decina or captain within the crime family, leading a crew of picciotti or soldati, otherwise known as soldiers. In explaining why he had turned himself in, something that was unheard of from a mafioso at that point, Vitale claimed to have had a spiritual crisis and wanted to unburden himself. Whilst held in custody he smeared excrement on himself and practised self mutilation as his own act of contrition

Contrition

Contrition or contriteness is sincere and complete remorse for sins one has committed...

.

While testifying against his fellow Mafiosi, Vitale reminisced about his life: "I have made a fool of my life, by the evil that has rained on me from the time I was a child... My sin was having being born into a Mafia family and of having lived in a society where everyone is a Mafioso and are respected for it; while those who are not are treated with contempt."

His case came to trial in 1977. Vitale's testimony lead to a number of alleged mobsters being indicted, but all were acquitted when their defence lawyers cast doubt on Vitale's mental state by pointing out his self mutilation and other odd habits. In the end only Vitale and his mafioso uncle were imprisoned, and Vitale spent most of his time in a mental asylum.

Legacy

In early 1984 Tommaso Buscetta

Tommaso Buscetta

Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...

 became an informant and gave a vast amount of information on the Mafia in Sicily that subsequently backed up a lot of Vitale's own testimony.

In the light of this, Vitale was declared sane and released in June 1984. On December 2 that year he was shot dead as he left a church after attending Mass

Mass

Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

 with his mother and sister. No-one was convicted of his murder but there remains little doubt the Mafia were behind it.

Vitale's original written testimony was used in the Maxi Trial

Maxi Trial

The Maxi Trial was a criminal trial that took place in Sicily during the mid-1980s that saw hundreds of defendants on trial convicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities, based primarily on testimony given in as evidence from a former boss turned informant...

 several years later, where Magistrate Giovanni Falcone

Giovanni Falcone

Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...

declared that "it is to be hoped that at least after his death Vitale will get the credence he deserved." According to Falcone the Mafia understood the importance of Vitale's revelations much better than the Italian justice system at the time and killed him when the moment was most opportune.