The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1909-03-18
FETROS|NO SHOT
DEAD IN ITALY
Best Known Of New York's
Italian Detectives
Murdered
SENTENCED BY THE BLACK HAND
He Had Visited Nests Of the Malta and
Marked Rngleaders-Was to Have
Reported Plan to Keep Lawbreak.
ers Out of This Country.

Rome, March 17.-Lieut. Joseph
Petrosino of the New York police
force was shot and killed at 8 o'clock
p. m. in Palermo on the Piazza Ma.
rina. The Piazza is almost unlighted
at night.
A sailor saw man leaning against
an iron railing with blood streaming
from his mouth. He fell dead within
few minutes without speaking. The
neighboring house. These two men
fed at the approach OF the police.
Palermo, March 16--Inquiries made
here show that Detective Petrosino
had been staying at the Hotel de
France, in the Plaza Marina, since
Feb. 2S, where he was registered under
the name of De Simone. A day or
two after his arrival here he visited
the Prefect of Police, who offered him
a police guard, saying that he carried
his life in his hands by thus visiting
Ital.'.
Petrosino refused the offer, believ.
ing that a guard would hamper his
movements. Similar warnings came
to him from the American Consul, but
they also proved unavailing.
After escaping so many schemes Of
vengeance in New York." said Petro-
sino in declining the well-meant ad-
vice. Il should be able to defend my
self in Palermo"
1t is the custom of visitors to leave
the Hotel de France every morning
about s o'clock, returning at 9 in the
evening after dining at the Cafe Crete
in the Piazza Marina. When Petro-
sino left the Cafe Crete it was noticed
that he was in company with two men
who were engaged in an animated con.
versation. AS they proceeded in the
Of the gardens two shots were heard
and Petrosino, shot in the back of the
head, had just sufficient strength to
draw his own revolver and, without
aiming, fire shot at the disappear
ing forms of his treacherous compan-
ions before he fell to the pavement
dead
The report of the shots brought
crowds to the spot. Some police car.
Diners elbowed their way through the
throng and took charge of the body.
The identity of the dead man was
soon established. while papers in his
pockets indicated the hazardous nat
ure of the mission on which he had
come to Sicily.
Not only was he endeavoring to
track down certain individuals, but he
was also charged with a compilation
of the records of notorious Italian
criminals to be used for reference by
the New York police and by the Unit
ca States immigration officials.
1t was pathetic to find in one of the
inside pockets of his coat picture post
cards addressed to his wife in New
York.
The body will be sent to New York
as soon as the necessary formalities
have been complied with.
lle ponce believe the murderers
were especially allotted to kill such
formidable enemy of the Malta. and
that Petrosino had ben shadowed in
cessantly since the moment he sailed
out of New York Harbor last January.
Petrosino had managed to collect
while here much evidence of the crimi-
nality of large number of Italians
who have taken refuge in the United
States, which would have given the
American Government the power to
deport them. In number of cases
he had traced murder to them.