AGOSTINO CATALANO
head of the Personal Protection Detail was a43-year-old, single father of three children, whose wife had died three years earlier. The children Emanuele, Emilia and Rosalinda were left orphaned. In 1991 he remarried Maria Fontana. For economic reasons he became Father Bartolomeo Sorge’s bodyguard. The day of the Via D’Amelio massacre he was on holidays but was called back to work in order to fill in for Judge Borsellino’s team of bodyguards. A tragic fatality indeed. Only a few weeks earlier Agostino had saved a little boy from drowning on the beach of Mondello.
Police officerWALTER EDDIE COSINA
born in Norwood, Australia, his family had emigrated from Trieste and had returned to Italy, to Muggia, in the mid-sixties, after the war. His father died when he was 21, and the loss stopped him from becoming a judicial policeman as he was unable to attend the course. He joined the secret service in 1983. In 1990 he becomes part of the anti-kidnapping squad. Following the Capaci massacre the police force decides to recruit bodyguards from all over Italy. Cosina accepts to be transferred from Trieste to Palermo. In May 1992 he requests to enter the Antimafia Investigative Division. The day of the massacre he decided to work even though it was his day off. Walter substituted the police officer that was supposed to take his place that day. He left his wife Monica.
Claudio Traina
became a police officer at a very early age, after carrying out military service in the air force. Upon completion of training in the city of Alessandria, Claudio works as a patrol officer in Milan. Eventually he will ask to be transferred to Palermo (Sicily). He was only 27 years old, married and father to an eleven-month-old baby, Dario, who today lives in Brazil. His brother Luciano was also a police officer in Milan and is now retired. Following the massacre, he became part of the Police squad which captured mafia boss Giovanni Brusca.
Police officer Emanuela Loi
was the firstwoman within the police force to die in a mafia massacre. She entered the police in 1989 and attended the 119th course of the Police Accademy of Trieste. She was transferred to Palermo two years later. She was assigned to guard once Member of Parliament Sergio Mattarella’s home, Villa Pajno. Emanuela was assigned to be Senator Pina Maisano’s (widow of Libero Grassi) bodyguard. She was also responsible for mafia boss Francesco Madonia’s security. Following the Capaci massacre, in June 1992, Emanuela Loi became Magistrate Paolo Borsellino’s bodyguard. She was merely 24 years old when she fell victim of duty. She was a cheerful, brilliant girl. She dreamed of moving back to her home, to Cagliari, and had requested to be transferred there. She left her parents, her sister and her fiancé, whom she would have soon married. Emanuela loved her profession, although aware of the dangers it entailed.
Vincenzo Li Muli
had a passion for cars and motorcycles. He dreamed of becoming a police officer and did so in 1990. In the spring of 1992, he was assigned to the Police Headquarters of Palermo. He was engaged to Vittoria, the love of his life, the woman he was going to marry and build a family with. Vincenzo broke out in tears when he saw the massacre of Capaci on the news. The anger and the frustration he felt brought him to the decision to become one of Magistrate Paolo Borsellino’s bodyguards. He was 22 years old, the youngest member of the team.
The only survivor of the massacre of July 19th, 1992 was Police Officer Antonio Vullo. This is his recollection of that day: “The Judge got out of the car and lit a cigarette. His bodyguards stood all around him to protect him, as they always did. They entered the foyer of the building, then…I made my way out the car, it was destroyed. I walked and walked. I was desperate, I wandered and screamed. I felt something under my shoe. I bent down. It was a piece of someone’s foot. I woke up in the hospital. That day my life should have ended as well.Instead I am doomed to relive the nightmare every single day”.