Marchese was one of the most feared killers working for mafia boss Vincenzo Chiaracane, closely related to the Giuseppe Greco family which was in control of the Ciaculli neighbourhood of Palermo.

As many as 100 people – mafiosi who stood in the way of the Commission bosses, Michele Greco, Salvatore Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, and their associates – were killed there during the Second Mafia War.

Sinagra was arrested on 11 August 1982 when he was caught red-handed carrying out a contract killing, and after a year in custody he decided to become an informant and cooperated with the anti-Mafia judge Paolo Borsellino.

Sinagra claimed at the Maxi Trial that it was invariably his job to hold the feet of those who died in the Room of Death while Marchese strangled them with a length of rope.

There he met fellow killers Pino Greco, Giuseppe Giacomo Gambino and Salvatore Cucuzza, who quickly grabbed and strangled him.

Already during the Maxi Trial, there was speculation on whether he was dead, as Salvatore Contorno had learned, while in jail, that Marchese had been murdered, but the details surrounding his death were finally revealed when Cucuzza, one of his killers, became a pentito.