Matteo Messina Denaro, notorious Sicilian mafia boss captured after 30-year manhunt, dies in hospital prison ward

Matteo Messina Denaro, a convicted mastermind of some of the Sicilian Mafia's most heinous slayings, died on Monday in a hospital prison ward, several months after being captured as Italy's No. 1 fugitive and following decades on the run, Italian prosecutors said. Messina Denaro's death brings to a close the era of the Cosa Nostra crime syndicate depicted in "The Godfather" movies.

Rai state radio, reporting from L'Aquila hospital in central Italy, said the heavy police detail that had been guarding his hospital room moved to the hospital morgue, following the death of Messina Denaro at about 2 a.m. Doctors had said he had been in a coma since Friday.

The brief statement about his death from the L'Aquila prosecutors office didn't cite the time of death, but said both the office and that of prosecutors in Palermo, Sicily, were requesting an autopsy, even though it was well known that Messina Denaro had been "afflicted with a very serious illness."