10 Nightmarish Details Surrounding Giuseppe Di Matteo, The Boy Who Was Dissolved In Acid By The Mafia

6 /10 Family History

Guiseppe’s disappearance was not immediately brought up to the police. At the time, Santino was effectively on parole and living with his family. It wasn’t until much later that police would come inter him for his protection.

They all knew the consequences of stepping out of line, but both parents mourned for the loss of their son.

They knew he was already gone and would not be given back as soon as they received the letter of demands.

Santino knew how the mob worked. They would not give Guiseppe back. And they wouldn’t let his death be slow.

5 /10 The (Absent) Search

Police began searching with a lax, unmotivated style in December of 1993. Their reason: it was a mafia crime. The authority of Italy, more specifically Sicily, was all but absent from the dealings of the state.

They felt they had no outstanding obligation to help a gangster’s son, even if he was a renounced one working for them,

It further cemented Santino’s knowledge that his son was gone forever when he could leave captivity, look for his son by himself, and return without being noticed. No research, no record keeping. A bare minimum effort was placed into finding the boy.

4 /10 The Little Dog

Brusca communicated his orders over Santino’s son as if he was a dog. Getting rid of the dog, feeding the dog, cleaning, and et cetera.

He referred to Guiseppe as a “puppy” when he was given away to new “handlers” who had to take care of him.

He went through horrible torture, was underfed, and never washed. He spent his last month in a single cellar room, alone, and grew sicker by the day.

The order was finally given to “put down the puppy,” which ended Guiseppe’s torture after 779 days.

3 /10 Lupara Bianca

After 779 days in captivity, Guiseppe disappeared without a trace. After being strangled to death, his body was immersed in acid until it liquified, then dumped out in some abandoned place as sludge and runoff. The method of acid is not exclusive to the practice of getting rid of bodies.

There are some mafia murder cases done decades ago that still have nobody because they were disposed of so covertly that they could never be found without the killers’ direct confession.

2 /10 No Honor Among Thieves

Giovanni Brusca, the man behind the murder, confessed to it and provided details of their activities that had gone unseen and unheard of for so long. He became the very thing Guiseppe died over: an informant.

Without missing a hint of irony, Brusca saved his skin by letting the police hear everything they wanted about how he got away with it for so long, many years after it happened.

1 /10 A Father Scorned

Santino was arrested again in 1997, just after the trial, where he met Brusca face to face for the last time.

Before the Judge and security, he swore in court that he would kill Brusca if he had the chance. He was a father who lost his son, a son who was tortured relentlessly for his father’s crimes.

He was arrested for commencing criminal activities to avenge his dead son against the remaining free men he knew were responsible.

Many of them were arrested in the following years and provided their testimony to shed light on the hideous true nature of the Mafia. The movies don’t do them proper justice.