Rocco Famia was shot three times as he prepared to go to work during the early morning hours of August 26, 1927. The shots were fired from outside through a window and into the kitchen of his Lytle St., Hazelwood home.
Reports linked the murder to tensions between bootleggers, a Prohibition-spurred trade that was dominated by Italian immigrants and that became particularly violent in the five-year period beginning in 1927.
Seven men, all recent Italian immigrants with extensive criminal records, were arrested in Clairton that same day.
Famia’s wife, Sophia, testified before the grand jury that her husband was murdered by Vincenzo Ciccia and Oreste Delforte as a threat to her not to testify against the them for a different crime.
Sophia Famia provided that same evidence at trial. Ciccia and Delforte offered an alibi defense, including testimony from multiple witnesses who could place them in Clairton, more than ten miles to the south, at the time of Famia’s killing.
The two men were convicted on December 17, 1927, after a week-long trial. The jury recommended the death penalty.
A motion for a new trial was argued on December 27, 1927. Though such a motion was a routine occurrence, a formality between the conviction and the formal imposition of a death sentence, it was granted on December 30, after a three-judge panel determined the evidence did not support their convictions.
At retrial, the state argued the same dubious case, centering on the testimony of Sophia Famia. The defendants offered the same alibi defense. Ciccia and Delforte were acquitted on March 3, 1928. No other arrests were made for the killing of Rocco Famia.
After being released from jail, the two men raised families and ran small businesses. Oreste Delforte died in Canandaigua, NY, in April 1966. Vincenzo Ciccia died in Pittsburgh on December 6, 1973.
State Killings in the Steel City: The History of the Death Penalty in Pittsburgh 