The mystery of Messina Denaro's tattoo and his baptism as a killer
October 8, 1981 written in Roman numerals, «an important date for me»
Published on: 04/22/2024 – 16:06

PALERMO A distinctive sign to remember the affiliation to Cosa Nostra and the baptism as a killer. There is a tattoo with a date on Matteo Messina Denaro's left arm, a tattoo he decided on while on the run. October 8, 1981 written in Roman numerals, this is "the important date for me", the former boss would have told his sisters during a conversation in prison which took place after the arrest. On 8 October 1981 the mafia boss was 19 and a half years old and was the scion of Don Ciccio Messina Denaro's family. The date, the investigators suspect, could mark a fundamental moment in his life: the formal entry into Cosa Nostra followed, the following day, by the young boss's debut as a killer. In fact, October 9th went down in history as Palermo's Black Friday, a bloody day in which, in the midst of the mafia war, 4 murders occurred in the city and one in the province in just a few hours. Crimes in which Matteo Messina Denaro, investigators believe, may have participated. The victims of the rain of fire that bloodied the city were Antonino Vitale, a farmer killed in the Brancaccio district, the convicted mafioso Calogero Misuraca, resident of Cinisi, killed in Piazza Marina as he was leaving the building of the Intendenza di Finanza, Agostino Calabria, former driver of a bus, killed a few meters from the place where Vitale had been killed hours earlier, and Giovanni Costanza, a street vendor, also killed in the same area. In the evening between Campofiorito and Bisacquino, in the Palermo area, the body of Giuseppe Stabile, a farmer found with a disfigured face, was discovered in a landfill. The last victim was an electrician, Salvatore Manno, with no criminal record, found dead near the Palermo ring road.