EMANUELA LOI: THE ANTIMAFIA BODYGUARD

Emanuela Loi was the first female bodyguard killed by the mafia. She was 24 years old when she died alongside Borsellino in the Via D’Amelio massacre. Hers is the story of a young woman who chose to serve the State despite fear. Today, her name inspires thousands of women who fight against crime and impunity. Here is part of her story.

Emanuela Loi in her police uniform.

Just like in many other areas of public and private life, women were also rendered invisible when it came to war and security. From Antiquity until the early 20th century, their role was largely confined to the misfortune of being victims, widows, or orphans. However, starting with World War I, women began to take on different kinds of tasks. From that global-scale annihilation that ushered in the so-called “century of massacres,” women maintained their place as victims, but gradually — driven by circumstances and, above all, by capital — they were actively incorporated into both the direct and indirect industries of war. In the massive red-brick warehouses, it was especially women and children who endured the harshest working conditions, producing all kinds of industrial goods, lightly processed food, weapons, ammunition, and medicine destined for the front lines.

After World War II, women, in the best of cases, returned to being wives, mothers, sisters, or daughters — if not widows or orphans once again. The men who managed to return from the war resumed the positions that were understood to be “rightfully theirs”; women had only replaced them out of a higher necessity: war. However, with the rise of capitalism and an industry geared toward producing affordable goods for the working class, the incorporation of female labor into the production chain became a long-term necessity. Alongside this market demand, various middle-class women’s movements in Western Europe and the United States began to advocate for equal rights in the labor market. At the same time, their demands extended into the public sector — even to the traditionally male-dominated security forces.

In Italy, the police first allowed women to join in 1959, with the creation of the Female Police Corps. Although they assumed police responsibilities on equal formal terms with men, their duties were limited exclusively to the protection of women and children, and to what were then called “moral crimes.” It wasn’t until 1981, thanks to a reform promoted by the State itself, that women gained full access to all roles and departments within the force. That very year, a young woman — daughter, sister, full of enthusiasm and firmly committed to the institutions of the State — decided to join the police. Over time, she became a security escort. A bodyguard. One of the very first.

Emanuela is taking a few days off for the winter.

Emanuela Loi was born on October 9, 1967, in Sestu, on the island of Sardinia. The daughter of a railway worker and a housewife, she was the youngest of two siblings, with her sister Claudia playing a particularly influential role in her life decisions. With her bright smile and blond hair, Emanuela was known from an early age for her strong commitment to social issues. During her teenage years, she aspired to become a teacher, like Claudia. After finishing high school, she enrolled in a teaching program, which she completed without difficulty. However, she never began working as a teacher. After many conversations with her sister, both decided to join the State Police. The Loi sisters registered together, took the exams together, and Emanuela passed with honors. During this process, she was offered a teaching position in Sardinia, but the dedication she was putting into her police entrance exams — and her excitement about this new path — led her to decline the offer and pursue the challenge.

In the 1980s, Cosa Nostra was bleeding itself dry in the midst of a hellish internal war that flooded Sicily’s fields and streets with blood. The families allied with the Corleone clan — led by Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano — set out to kill and disappear the mafiosi of rival clans who had controlled the Sicilian mafia for decades. They also ordered the killing of their relatives, up to the tenth degree of kinship. Surnames like Inzerillo, Bontate, and Badalamenti, along with photos of their corpses, regularly filled the front pages of Sicilian newspapers. The second Mafia war — the bloodiest in Cosa Nostra’s history to that point — was coming to an end in the early 1990s, with the Corleone faction emerging victorious. Riina and Provenzano had become the new masters of Cosa Nostra, of Palermo, and of Sicily. But despite their triumph, the Corleonesi continued murdering mafiosi linked in any way to the defeated clans. At the same time, they reopened another front: the one against the State, particularly the judges who were trying to stop them — unleashing a wave of violence that seemed contagious.

Between 1979 and 1985, the mafia assassinated, among many others, Magistrate Cesare Terranova, Palermo’s Mobile Squad Chief Boris Giuliano, Prosecutor Gaetano Costa, Carabinieri Captain Emanuele Basile, MP Pio La Torre, Carabinieri General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, Magistrate Rocco Chinnici, and police officers Beppe Montana, Ninni Cassarà, Roberto Antiochia, and Natale Mondo. This second mafia war ushered in a new leadership model based on sadism — the very tactic used by the Corleonesi to seize control of the mafia. That method marked a historical turning point in the future of both the mafia and the anti-mafia movement. One of its most devastated victims was mafioso-turned-informant Tommaso Buscetta, once associated with the Porta Nuova family. Bodies bearing his last name began appearing on the streets of Palermo — some remain missing to this day — adding to the growing list of the dead. Among the first to fall were his sons Benedetto and Antonio (from his first marriage), his brother Vincenzo, and his nephews Domenico and Benedetto. Other relatives were also murdered: his brother-in-law Pietro, his son-in-law Giuseppe Genova, and two more nephews, Antonio and Orazio D’Amico.

Emanuela's smile and slanted eyes.

The supposed “code of honor” that the mafia claimed to uphold was completely destroyed under the orders of its new bosses. According to Buscetta, this moral collapse gave him the justification to testify to the authorities. The indiscriminate violence — even for a mafioso like him — and the risk of being killed by his own allies led him to fully surrender to the State, Cosa Nostra’s greatest enemy. The confessions of repentant mafiosi like Tommaso Buscetta and Antonino Calderone — another future state witness — enabled anti-mafia magistrates such as Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino to intensify their investigations. Thanks to their collaboration, Falcone, Borsellino, and other members of the anti-mafia pool managed to bring hundreds of mafiosi to trial in a single case.

In 1986, inside a building specially constructed for the occasion — with over 300 mafiosi in cells, hundreds of lawyers defending them, and thousands of police officers guarding against attacks — the Maxi Trial began: a trial of historic proportions against Cosa Nostra. Despite the mockery and skepticism of much of the political class and the press, the trial concluded in 1987 with over 360 mafia members convicted, including several bosses. This major anti-mafia breakthrough within the State — followed by the betrayal or inaction of its most corrupt sectors — turned magistrates like Falcone and Borsellino into top targets for Cosa Nostra.

In the early 1980s, the growing need for more police officers to protect politicians, judges, prosecutors, journalists, repentant mafiosi, and other high-ranking figures became a lasting phenomenon — like so many other things linked to the mafia and anti-mafia. After completing her training at the Scuola Allievi Agenti in Trieste, Emanuela Loi was transferred to the turbulent, blood-soaked island of Sicily. Although she longed to return to her native Sardinia and plan her future with her great love, Andrea, fate, the mafia, necessity, and bureaucracy sent her south. Soon after her arrival in Palermo, Emanuela was assigned to protection teams for individuals crucial to Italy’s political and judicial system — including future president Sergio Mattarella, and also mafia bosses. One of her first tasks was guarding Francesco Madonia, a boss involved in the murders of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa and Police Chief Ninni Cassarà. Though arrested and sentenced during the Maxi Trial in 1987, Madonia — thanks to his connections with Sicilian politicians like MP Salvo Lima — continued to run his family’s criminal business from the Palermo Municipal Hospital, where he was pretending to serve his sentence. While comfortably confined in the hospital, he ordered the murders of police officer Antonino Agostino in 1989 and businessman Libero Grassi in 1991, after the latter refused to pay the pizzo — the mafia’s extortion tax used to “protect” victims from the mafia itself. Grassi’s widow, Pina Maisano Grassi, was one of the first people Emanuela was assigned to protect.

Emanuela Loi, one of the first female police officers to become a security bodyguard.

The year 1992 would become one of the most turbulent and tragic in Sicily’s long history. On May 23, Judge Giovanni Falcone and his wife, fellow magistrate Francesca Morvillo, arrived at Punta Raisi Airport in Palermo. Falcone was public enemy number one for Cosa Nostra and its political allies. After landing, they got into one of the vehicles waiting on the runway, heading to Palermo, accompanied by six police escorts in two other cars. As the convoy reached the Capaci exit on the highway, from a nearby hill — guided by a mafioso who had followed the caravan from the airport — at exactly 5:58 p.m., Giovanni Brusca and Antonino Gioè detonated almost a ton of TNT placed beneath the asphalt. Police escorts Montinaro, Schifani, and Dicillo were killed instantly; Giovanni and Francesca died later in the hospital.

The attack’s impact — and the mafia’s ability to murder its greatest enemy — sent shockwaves through Italy, plunging even the police into fear. Security forces knew that the next target was Palermo’s chief prosecutor and Falcone’s close friend: Judge Paolo Borsellino. Paolo himself was fully aware of this. In an interview with French television just a month after the Capaci massacre, Borsellino recalled a conversation years earlier with police officer Ninni Cassarà, shortly before his murder: “We are walking corpses.”

After the bombing that killed Giovanni, Francesca, and their escorts, Emanuela Loi traveled to Sardinia to rest for a few days with her family and partner. She stayed only briefly before returning to Palermo. Paolo's security situation was critical, but time was running out, and he was desperate to uncover the truth behind his friend’s murder. Though his team tried to restrict his movements, Paolo refused to decline invitations to memorials for the Capaci victims, gave interviews, and spent his days investigating the mafia — and the politicians he believed were just as guilty as the mob bosses themselves. His unwavering determination and the clear signs of imminent danger led to the reinforcement of his security detail. Among those assigned to the new team was Emanuela, one of the first women to take on such a high-risk mission.

After becoming a teacher she decided to become a police officer.

The ever-present shadow of death in Sicily haunted anyone even remotely connected to the island.Emanuela’s family lived in constant worry — and she was afraid too.Although joining the police had been a conscious decision, fear had gradually crept in alongside her enthusiasm and determination to do what was right.She feared the pain her choices might cause her loved ones.She spoke with them daily from Palermo, trying to ease their concern.In fact, she didn’t even tell them that her new assignment was to protect the most threatened prosecutor in Italy. When Paolo first met Emanuela, the officer in charge introduced them.The father, the son, the magistrate — the walking corpse, as he called himself — momentarily broke through his formal role and said with a startled voice:"And she's supposed to protect me? I should be protecting her."His words revealed a moment of vulnerability, anxiety, and deep awareness: he knew they could kill him at any moment, and that those who wanted him dead might also murder anyone around him to succeed.And so, consciously or not, Paolo placed his life in the hands of a 24-year-old woman, blonde, with dark eyes that narrowed instinctively when she smiled.Emanuela was armed, always on alert.Her fear of becoming a victim never stopped her from carrying out her duty with commitment and courage.

On July 19, 1992, anti-mafia judge Paolo Borsellino had lunch with his wife Agnese and their children Manfredi and Lucia in a restaurant between Terracini and Capaci.His six bodyguards waited for the family gathering to end so they could drive him to his mother and sister’s home at 21 Via d’Amelio, Palermo.The apartment was on a dead-end street that functioned — as it still does — as an improvised parking lot for neighbors and visitors.That made it especially hard for the escort vehicles to maneuver.On that very street — in front of the building supposedly protected by security forces due to the high risk of being related to the mafia’s number one enemy — the mafia, with the help of corrupt agents from Italy’s secret services, parked a Fiat 126 loaded with 100 kilos of trinitrotoluene, simply known as TNT. The six agents protecting Borsellino were in three armored cars.When they reached the building, Paolo and five of the officers got out and walked a few steps toward the entrance.The sixth, who was driving one of the cars, was parking a few meters ahead to avoid blocking the road.At 4:58 p.m., someone detonated the explosives via remote control — though some versions suggest a cable connected to the building’s buzzer.One hundred kilos of TNT exploded in that dead-end street, in front of the home of the mother of the Sicilian mafia’s top enemy.

Emanuela with her sister Claudia.

The bomb tore apart the bodies of Paolo and the five bodyguards who were with him.Beyond taking the lives of six state officials, the explosion left 24 people injured, destroyed the facades of several buildings, and burned dozens of parked cars.But more than that, it extinguished the little — very little — hope that a significant part of the Italian people, especially Sicilians, still held onto: the hope placed in justice, in those fighting to defend it. Emptiness — whether physical, political, or emotional — tends to be filled by something else.The hope that vanished in the smoke of the explosion was soon replaced by a solid rage, a deep hatred, and a dense fury — feelings that can sometimes be more powerful and mobilizing than the gentler emotions society encourages.The people of Sicily, carrying this complex mix of grief and rage, took to the balconies, the streets, and the Palermo cathedral, demanding that the mafia be expelled from the bowels of the State, and that justice be done for Paolo Borsellino, Agostino Catalano, Vincenzo Li Muli, Walter Eddie Cosina, Claudio Traina, and Emanuela Loi — the victims of the Via d'Amelio massacre.

People's funeral at Palermo Cathedral in homage to the police officers killed in the Via D'Amelio massacre.

Paolo Borsellino’s funeral is often confused with that of the five police officers killed in the Via D'Amelio massacre. Paolo’s funeral was private—his family refused a state ceremony—but nearly ten thousand people from Palermo gathered in silence to honor a man they saw as a common hero against the mafia. The funeral of Agostino, Vincenzo, Walter, Claudio, and Emanuela still moves anyone who watches the footage online. The state funeral for the slain officers was held in Palermo’s cathedral—the same place where the victims of the Capaci massacre had been remembered. On that somber day, the people of Palermo turned it into a funeral of the people. Four thousand officers guarded the massive church. They isolated it—and with it, isolated their heroes from everyone else. When the newly elected President of the Republic, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, entered the cathedral, the people, shut out of the farewell to their heroes, erupted in fury. Police barriers snapped like twigs. The crowd, furious and drunk with grief, climbed the cathedral gates and attempted to storm the building. Inside, tension surged. Fear began to show on the faces of the politicians in attendance. In the cathedral gardens, police chased down citizens to stop them from entering. It was in vain. Shouting “Get the mafia out of the State!”, those who managed to enter came within inches of the politicians, who felt in real danger of being physically attacked. The police managed to contain it to verbal aggression—but Italian politics was wounded that day.

This was Emanuela’s story—a young woman who, since adolescence, felt the call to serve the State and give it new life. First as a schoolteacher, then as an officer of the Italian police. Emanuela was fully aware of the risks she faced, but she never abandoned her task, her ideals, or the responsibility she had chosen. Her sister still remembers her not only with the love of a close relative, but also with the admiration of a citizen who saw in her someone deeply committed to the belief that everyone must do their part—must stand firm and not retreat in the face of difficulty. The choices Emanuela made in life led to her posthumous awarding of the Gold Medal for Civil Valor. Her name now lives on in more than fifty streets and squares across Italy, in ten schools and two public gardens. Emanuela never imagined that her name would echo in so many corners of Italy, nor that she would become an inspiration to thousands of women who want to fight the mafia by doing what angers—and weakens—it most: strengthening the much-demonized State.