Calogero Costantino
Alias: Carlo Costantino
Born: January 20 1874
Nationality: Sicilian
Died:
Where: Mental hospital
Cause: VD
Killer: Syphilis
Carlo Costantino, born in Partinico 1874, travelled to New York around 1905.
Carlo Costantino and Antonino Passananti sailed to Sicily around the same time as Lieutenant Petrosino in 1909. Costantino, upon his arrival, sent a telegram to Giuseppe Morello, 360 East 61st Street, New York :” I LoBaido work Fontana”. After a few days with their families, Costantino and Passananti visited Cascioferro.
A witness to the Petrosino murder alerted the police to the fact that the day before he had seen Carlo Costantino and Antonino Passananti. The police were unaware that these two men had returned to Palermo, and began to investigate. Carlo Costantino was arrested on March 19, 1909. He was later released in 1911 due to lack of evidence.
In a written report of the Petrosino murder the police commissioner spoke of the questioning of Carlo Costantino and Antonino Passananti. The report referred to the cable message, sent upon their return to Sicily, to Morello in New York: “I LoBaido work Fontana”. The report claimed that LoBaido was a fictitious name used by Passananti. Costantino had been found with photographs of a New York shop under the name “PECORARO-LOBAIDO”. The report concluded that Carlo Costantino and Antonino Passananti were the likely perpetrators of the crime, with Vito Cascioferro the mastermind.
Costantino was deported from Sicily in 1932 to Lampedusa, an island where the facists sent political and criminal prisoners. On his return to Parlermo he opened a feed warehouse, but died soon afterward in a mental hospital riddled with syphilis.
