Ninetta Bagarella, the wife of Toto Riina, the Corleone 'capo di capi' serving life for numerous murders, is perhaps the most famous living example of the traditional Mafia wife.

Ninetta Bagarella, the wife of Toto Riina, the Corleone 'capo di capi' serving life for numerous murders, is perhaps the most famous living example of the traditional Mafia wife. The sister of Leoluca Bagarella, another gangster, she met her future husband when he was on the run and lived in hiding with him for 25 years, bearing him four children. She acted as a go-between for different branches of the Corleone clan, and for that became the first woman threatened with being sent into internal exile. After her husband was jailed, she told an Italian news magazine: "He was the best of possible fathers, a victim of the prejudice of a hostile society." Two of her sons are serving long jail terms for Mafia offences.