I am presently interested in the mafia and antimafia of the fascist period in Italy. Have already read several books about the subject, but almost all of them offer very little detail about the outcome of the trials, even though describe very well the mafia and related events of those days. There is a question: I often read that the antimafia repression was very severe and almost ferocious, with torture being frequently used to get information on mob bosses. Yet, the recent book "Mafia alla sbarra" by Manoela Patti says that the longest prison term ever given to a mafioso in Palermo during fascist repressions was 11 years. Isn't that weird? Torture, yet no death sentences or life in prison terms. The same situation seems to repeat itself in in the smaller towns in the Palermo province, where some mafia bosses got 10 years, but most (at least those specified in the books) got less. The only exception I heard of is the town of Bisacquino, where Vito Cascio Ferro and some underlings got life sentences.
By the way, speaking of Cascio Ferro: he was convicted for allegedly ordering the murder of Gioacchino Lo Voi. When convicted, he said to the judge "I have committed many crimes in my life, but here and now, you have convicted me for the only one I haven't committed". The author Giuseppe Carlo Marino writes that there was a rumor in Bisacquino that the real killer of Lo Voi was an American hitman, who later fell ill and confessed to a local priest, but warned him: "while I am alive, don't tell anybody I killed Lo Voi; when I die, you can tell". So it seems Cascio Ferro has been framed, in prison he said the only person he killed in his life was the American police officer Joe Petrosino, killed in Sicily in 1909.
But the author Arrigo Petacco in his book about Joe Petrosino says that Cascio Ferro was convicted not only for the Lo Voi murder, but also for Francesco Falconieri's murder. Who is this Falconieri? Was he killed together with Lo Voi or was this a separate murder episode that took place elsewhere? If it was a separate episode, could it be that Cascio Ferro was innocent of the Lo Voi murder, but guilty of the Falconieri murder? The same book by Petacco says Vito Campegna was accused to be the hitman in both Lo Voi and Falconieri murders. Was he convicted or acquitted, was there anything linking him to Falconieri? And who was this "American" who really killed Lo Voi?