Denise, daughter of Lea Garofalo, takes her own life at 35

She had been brave. At just twenty years old, she had decided to be, like her mother, "a proud witness of justice". A "choice of inner freedom to start over with life" and she took a civil action against her father who had taken away her greatest affection. He had collaborated in the investigations, he had testified behind a screen, without fear, asking that man, from whom he never wanted an apology and who was later sentenced to life imprisonment, to tell the truth.

Denise, the daughter of Lea Garofalo, took her own life, the woman who wrote a page in Italian history for having challenged the 'Ndrangheta: she had decided to collaborate with the judiciary by rebelling against clan culture and paying, however, a very high price. In 2009 she was killed by Denise's ex-partner and father, Carlo Cosco, who with other accomplices of the Calabrian gang had organized a plan convincing her to leave the protection program to which she was subjected together with her then-teenage daughter. She had been lured into a trap in Milan and killed, burned and torn to pieces near Monza. A few remains were found in a manhole only in 2012, after the revelations of one of the accomplices of what had been a premeditated ambush in perfect mafia style.

An event that left Denise scarred, but to which, also with the help of Don Luigi Ciotti and the new "family" represented by Libera, she managed to react. At her mother's funeral, organized by Palazzo Marino in 2013 in Piazza Beccaria, she was there. He followed them behind a window, without exposing himself, but with a loudspeaker he once again celebrated the "strength" of his mother Lea, which she had collected and made her own. "If all this happened - he said - it is only for my good and I will never stop thanking you". Denise remained under protection until 2018. Then, she changed her name, identity, got a job, lived in a secret location, with a child who is now almost 4 years old, always under the protection of the Central Police Protection Service. Perhaps, however, he could no longer handle the loneliness, the pain and the weight of the past. On Sunday she threw herself out of a window and today, after struggling once again, she left.

"Today a courageous and suffering young woman died - these are the words of Don Ciotti -. Courage and suffering represented the two extremes within which Denise's entire life moved, the two levels of the scale that she tried for a long time, with all her strength, to keep in balance. Today, however, something, in that very fragile balance, was broken forever".

The president of Libera and the Abele Group, who knew her well, spoke of a "restless and sensitive" young woman and added: "in remaining faithful to the path of redemption started by Lea, her beloved mother, Denise had to live hidden for years, without however ever truly resigning herself, because her dream was to finally feel free and autonomous". And again: "Just like Lea, Denise had a great thirst for life, freedom and love. We now want to imagine her reunited in a big embrace with her mother. We would like to say to her 'Sorry! Forgive us for not being able to keep you here with us', but also 'Thank you for the time we spent together'. Let's not judge her story, let's not glorify it and let's not pity her".

Denise died at 35, the same age her mother was when she was barbarically killed for choosing to become a witness for justice. A choice made to free her daughter from the mafia "chains" and to give her a different future and which she followed, in turn, without any fear.