Bismarck Daily Tribune, 14 March 1909, page 1: Petrosino shot in Palermo

Front page of the Bismarck Daily Tribune, Sunday, 14 March 1909. The wire story is datelined “Palermo, March 13” and begins: “Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino, head of the Italian squad at the New York police headquarters, was shot to death at 9 o’clock last evening under the shadow of the trees at Marina square in this city.” It says it was not known whether he had been lured there, that he had been searching the records of criminals who had gone from Sicily to the United States, and that “The identity of the assassins has not been disclosed.”

The headline runs to a second line that contains an ethnic slur. That line is not reproduced on this page; it can be read on the Library of Congress page linked above. The Library’s research guide on the NYPD Italian Squad lists this page under the label “Black Hand Killed Him,” which is the guide’s label, not the paper’s finding.

The wire text is an agency’s account written the day after the killing. Who killed Petrosino is not established in any record filed here. A press claim of February 1910 about the killing is filed only as flagged speculation (New-York Tribune, 20 February 1910, page 3). No scan of this page is stored: the Library of Congress image service was unavailable when the page was filed. Other front pages of 13 March 1909 are filed as Detroit Times and Wilmington Evening Journal.