Bandit and Folk Figure. Salvatore Giuliano was born in Montelepre as the fourth child of Salvatore and Maria Giuliano and was nicknamed Turiddu or Turi. He had a decent primary education, but then went to work on his father's land at the age of thirteen. He transported olive oil and worked as a telephone repairman and on road construction. He was called into the Italian army, but the US invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) prevented his actual enlistment. He became involved in the wartime black market and was armed in case of attacks from bandits. On September 2, 1943, he killed a Sicilian carabiniere at a checkpoint near Quattro Molini while transporting stolen grain. He left his identity papers at the scene and was wounded when another officer shot him as he was running away. His family sent him to Palermo to have the bullet removed. In late December, a number of residents of Montelepre, including Giuliano's father, were arrested during a police raid. Giuliano helped some of them escape from prison in Monreale, and a number of the freed men stayed with him. In the Sagana mountains, Giuliano collected a gang of bandits, criminals, deserters, homeless, and outlaws under his leadership. He gave the approximately fifty men military-style training in marksmanship. The gang took to robbery and burglary for the money they needed for food and weapons. When carabinieri came to look for them, they were met with accurate submachine gun fire. He also joined a Sicilian nationalist group, the MIS, with close ties to the Mafia and led small-scale attacks on government and police targets in the name of this movement. His actions continued post-war, and he supported the MIS and the similar MASCA with funds for the 1946 elections, in which both groups did poorly. Reputedly, Giuliano himself would have liked to have seen Sicily become a state within the United States of America. He sent president Harry S. Truman a letter where he urged him to annex Sicily. Giuliano also fostered a number of myths around himself. One tale tells how he found out that a postal worker was stealing letters that contained money that Sicilian families had sent to their relatives in the USA; he killed the postal worker and assured that the letters continued to their correct destination. When he robbed the duchess of Pratameno, he left her with her wedding ring and borrowed a book she was reading; he returned it later with compliments. He fostered cooperation of poor tenant farmers by sending them money and food. In 1947 with his group steadily shrinking he turned to kidnapping for ransom and turned regular profits. Also in that year there were more elections, following a limited victory for socialist-communist groups. On May 1 Giuliano led his remaining men on a raid to Portella Della Ginestra, intending to capture prominent communist Girolamo Li Causi. However, the event turned into a massacre. Eleven civilians, including woman and three children, were killed and over thirty wounded. For almost half century the responsibility for the crime was put down to Giuliano and his followers. Recently, through analysis of the ballistics records, the eyewitness accounts, the necroscopic records, it has been discovered that the bullets that the 11 victims received were shot from below, with 9mm Thompson beretta pistols, that neither Giuliano nor his men had in their possession. Giuliano continued to work against socialist groups whenever he had the opportunity but by 1948 his popular support was ebbing. Locals and even the Mafia were less willing to aid Giuliano and helped the police, despite Giuliano's tendency to kill suspected informers. Giuliano dared police by sending them boisterous letters about himself and dining in Palermo restaurants and leaving a note about his presence with a tip. The reward for his capture was doubled, and a special police force was instituted to suppress banditry. 300 carabinieri attacked his mountain stronghold, but most of Giuliano's gang escaped. On August 14, 1949 Giuliano's men exploded mines under a convoy of police vehicles near the Bellolampo barracks outside Palermo. As a result the Italian government dispatched an additional 1000 troops to Western Sicily, with all troops under the command of Colonel Ugo Luca, perhaps Italy's most distinguished and capable military leader. On July 5, 1950, Giuliano was shot in Castelvetrano. According to police, carabinieri captain Antonio Perenze shot him as he was resisting arrest. However, Gaspare Pisciotta, Giuliano's lieutenant, claimed later that police had promised him a pardon and reward if he would kill Giuliano. Giuliano's mother Maria reportedly believed this story. Pisciotta died four years later in prison from poisoning, after ingesting 20 centigrams of strychnine. Birth: Muntilepri, Palermo, Italy. Died in Castelvetrano