Ciro Terranova

In 1892 Ciro Ter­ra­nova arrived in New York from Cor­leone with his fam­ily includ­ing his mother, father, four sis­ters, and his broth­ers Vin­cent and Nicolo. They were join­ing their brother Giuseppe who had arrived six months ear­lier. The fam­ily stayed in New York for around a year, but suf­fered from the lack of avail­able work. They trav­elled to Louisiana, the father and Giuseppe worked for about a year plant­ing sugar cane before mov­ing on to Bryan, Texas. They fam­ily worked in Texas as cot­ton pick­ers, but left after two years when the fam­ily was hit with Malaria. In 1896 they arrived back in New York.

Ciro, and brother Vin­cent, went to a New York school but helped the fam­ily plas­ter­ing busi­ness at evenings and week­ends. Giuseppe Morello opened a restau­rant at the rear of a Prince Street saloon, where Ciro later worked as a waiter. In April 1903 the “Bar­rel Mur­der” case began, Ciro’s elder brother Giuseppe was arrested, but even­tu­ally cleared due to lack of evi­dence. After the trial had fin­ished in June 1903, the whole Morello fam­ily were searched and hounded on a reg­u­lar basis. One night, Ciro was trav­el­ling home from work with his brother Vin­cent, nephew Char­lie and Nick Sylvester when they were all arrested and kept overnight. On another occa­sion Ciro and Nicolo Ter­ra­nova were arrested whilst try­ing to locate a doc­tor for Giuseppe’s son, Charles.

Ciro Ter­ra­nova was tried for com­plic­ity in June 1918, in con­nec­tion with the 1916 DeMarco killing. Ciro was acquit­ted due to lack of cor­rob­o­ra­tion when it was ten­u­ously proved that main wit­ness and Ter­ra­nova were part of the same gang.