The death of a former Montreal mafia man who disappeared after a 2010 kidnapping was finally confirmed dead, by the courts, despite the fact that the police never found his body.
After a first request was rejected in 2013, the Superior Court granted a second request by the wife of Paolo Renda, Maria Rizzuto, in a judgment that was passed - and which went unnoticed - last winter.
The Judge stated that Renda - brother-in-law of the late godfather Vito Rizzuto - " died in Montreal on May 20, 2010," the day of his abduction, reads a short decision.
The construction contractor was long considered to be the number-3 mafia man and "financier" of the Rizzuto clan.
On May 20, 2010, three months after leaving prison, the 70-year-old man went to play golf before heading to the Loreto Funeral Complex, owned by his family. He allegedly called his wife around 1pm to say that he was buying steaks before going home.
A few hours later, some 500 meters from the family home, his son-in-law found the car of the disappeared on Gouin Boulevard: the doors were unlocked, the windows were down and the key still in the ignitionm with steaks still on the front seat.
Construction workers nearby said they saw the victim leave with two tall men in a black car with flashing lights, which suggested to some that the kidnappers may have pretended to be plainclothes police officers.
Paolo Renda gave no signs of life nor had any further financial transactions. No ransom was ever claimed by his captors and he did not have life insurance either.