Woman sets out to solve 100-year-old cold case MURDER of her great-great-grandmother - after her family spent years being plagued by the mysterious death and the wild WITCHY conspiracy theories surrounding it

A woman has set out to investigate the 100-year-old cold case murder that has plagued her family for decades.

Jo Piazza, from Philadelphia, had grown up being told that her great-great-grandmother Lorenza Marsala was killed in Sicily before she could join the rest of the family on their move to America.

The mom-of-three, who is an author and podcast creator, was forced to unravel a whole host of wild theories about the death - including speculation that the village had turned on her because she was a witch or that she owned land the mafia wanted to get their hands on.

Jo said that members of her family had tried to warn her off delving into the case at the risk of 'opening old wounds' - but she was undeterred. 

Jo Piazza, from Philadelphia, has set out to investigate the 100-year-old cold case murder that has plagued her family for decades

She had grown up being told that her great-great-grandmother Lorenza Marsala was killed in Sicily before she could join the rest of the family on their move to America

The intriguing tale began after Jo's father passed away back in 2015.

She was pregnant at the time, newly married, had recently relocated and lost her job, telling Today: 'I didn't have time to grieve... All of it is a blur.'

The doting daughter was forced to clear out some of his belongings so her mom could have a fresh start - with one item being his computer.

But Jo came to regret throwing it out after coming across some emails from her dad when she was cleaning out her inbox a few years later.

She said that she had responded to most of them at the time but there were a handful that had gone unopened.

'One caught my eye. It was his grandfather's birth certificate. He had remarked on the fact that the mother's name, Lorenza, was so beautiful. "She was the one who was murdered," he reminded me in all caps,' she shared.

Jo revealed that her father had become 'obsessed' with discovering the truth about her death - even making several trips back to the island.

However, he eventually had to limit his research to that which she could do online after suffering a rare form of muscular dystrophy.

She had been born on February 14, 1862 and died on February 24, 1916 - both in the small village of Caltabellotta (pictured)

Jo traveled to Caltabellotta to learn more and began recording a true crime podcast about Lorenza's death

His mobility deteriorated and he instead turned his attentions to gathering stories from other family members and trawling archives on the internet.

'My dad never got to finish his work... [He] cared so much about this research and I should have been doing it with him,' Jo reflected.

She said that she decided to pick up where he had left off as a 'way to connect' with her late father, adding: 'It often felt like he was right along with me.'

Jo began her own investigation on Ancestry.com but was forced to start from scratch after failing to guess her father's passwords to access his accounts.

It was there that she had access to a whole host of documents that shed further light on Lorenza's life.

She had been born on February 14, 1862 and died on February 24, 1916 - both in the small village of Caltabellotta.

Lorenza gave birth to her first child at 20 years old and husband Antonino Piazza headed over to America in the early 1900s.

Jo's research led her to Ellis Island, New York, which was previously the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States.

She, along with the help of historian Stephen Lean, was able to piece together a more complete picture of her family's immigration journey.

It showed that Lorenzo's children - Santo, Joseph, Josephine, Paulina, Rosa, Calogero and Antonino - all followed in their father's footsteps in moving across to the US.

But the family matriarch, who worked as a farmer, was killed before she could be reunited with them.

But the writer and podcaster was warned by family and friends to be careful about her research

Elsewhere, Jo has since written a fictional murder mystery novel loosely based on her findings titled The Sicilian Inheritance

The writer and podcaster was warned by family and friends to be careful about her research.

She told People that her uncle had half-jokingly said: 'Why are you opening old wounds? You're going to wind up starting our vendetta again.'

Barbie Latza Nadeau, an expert in the Italian mafia, also told her: 'You always have to be careful what you're digging up when you're sifting through the ashes because you may end up stumbling upon something that someone doesn't want you to find out about.

'I'm not trying to scare you. I just think you just have to be vigilant.'

Nonetheless, Jo traveled to Caltabellotta to learn more and began recording a true crime podcast about Lorenza's death.

It was there that she visited the local municipal office where she was shown the handwritten 'Death Book' which recorded all passings in the village dating back more than a century.

She found her great-great-grandmother's name under the section dedicated to 'unnatural causes, accidents or homicides' - but no actual cause was given.

'It was the first real evidence I had that she had been murdered more than a century earlier,' Jo told the outlet. 

'My entire body tensed up as I looked at the page. Here she was. This was real. It was no longer just a story told over cocktails at a family wedding. Lorenza Marsala was born here and died here, possibly in a terrible way.'

Jo's suspicions only grew when the document also revealed that a man named Nicolo Martino - a name she had never heard before - was killed at the exact same time and in the exact same location as Lorenza.

Rumors had constantly swirled about her death including mentions that she was a witch or that the mafia were involved.

There was also speculation that one of her sons had returned to the Italian region to avenge the killing during a rabbit hunt before disappearing.

Jo found in her research that Lorenza's son Joseph was sent to Europe after joining the military in 1918.

He then dropped off the grid for four decades, adding: 'I finally have a piece of evidence that one of Lorenza's sons may have avenged their mother's death.'

The exact details of the matriarch's death currently remain unclear as Jo promises to unravel the truth in her podcast.

Elsewhere, Jo has since written a fictional murder mystery novel loosely based on her findings titled The Sicilian Inheritance.