Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1881 — A Wonderful Story of Crime in Sicily. [ARTICLE]

A Wonderful Story of Crime in Sicily.

In the city of Palermo, Sicily, an extraordinary crimiual trial is now exciting public inures*. In March last a number 'of needy medical students theie conspired together to carry oft "ue of their lollow s*udeDts, uarne«l Pizzo, tb£ son -of a wealthy landowner, and tocxtort for his ransom the sum of £25,000 from bis father, after the method of the Greek brigands of today. These young men, however, did not intend to keep faith after the money had been paid for the life of the hostage, but it was their plan to murder their victim, aud, after cutting his

bosly into pieces, ;to thd temain 8. Their reasons for coming to this sanguinary determination were that th»y feared that Pizzo, in spite of all the oattis they c>«uld • x.ct treat him. Would ultimately denounce taem by name to the police, and, morever, that as the wboje scheme would have to be carried out in Palermo itself, where there are no mountians or ravines, as in the interior, favorable to the concealment of lawbreakers, it wou’d be the safest way to remove all evidences of their guilt. * A house was hired for that purpose, and Mercsdante, the chum of Pizzo and his fellow worker in the hospital, who, although his most intima'e friend, was foremost in the conspiracy, was selected to lure the victim thither under the pretence that an important surgical operation required his attention. But Pizzo’sfather and the police had received information of the contemplated crime, and all was arranged so that the agents of the law could surprise the students just as they were about to consummate their wicked purpose. This the police were able to do through the cooperation of young Pizzo, who, forewarned, had the fierveto enter the retreat of the bandits on the arm of his would-be betrayer, Mercadante, aud witness their the preparations for bis death. The caroineers, however, intervened in time, and arrested the whole party. One of the accused is a rich student named Mattma, hitherto of good character, who is supposed to have joined the plotters from oersonal enmity toward Pizzo.