Author probes sordid tales of great-great-granny

HELENE STAPINSKI, after examining the crooked branches of her family tree, decided to dig into its roots. Turns out those were a bit twisted, too. The result is “Murder in Matera,” a truecrime tale with two origins: One in southern Italy, home to her maternal kin. And the other in a Jersey City kitchen, where Stapinski’s mom regaled her with tales of great-great-grandmother Vita Gallitelli.

Vita, an Italian beauty, was diminutive and daring, with a crooked smile and dark brown eyes. She became the first of her clan to reach the United States in 1892, carrying baggage that included a sordid back story.

Vita, according to intergenerational family gossip, was a “puttana” — Italian for a woman of questionable morals — and a murderer. Or was she? Either way, a spellbound Helene was hooked.

“The murder, that gets your attention,” Stapinski (photo inset) acknowledges over glasses of seltzer in her Brooklyn kitchen. “But I guess I always identified with her in a way.

“She was supposed to be this feisty little Italian woman. She did seem to me like this fascinating character. Just growing up, stories about her seemed to pop for me.”

The popping sound echoed through the years, with Stapinski eventually embarking for Italy to uncover the truth about the long-moldering whodunit and her longgone kindred spirit.

The book, subtitled “A True Story of Passion, Family, and Forgiveness in Southern Italy,” arrives in stores Monday.

The story follows Stapinski’s 2001 book “Five-Finger Discount: A Crooked Family History,” an unstinting account of her relatives’ rap sheets.

That included her own grandpa Beansie, who did time for murder, along with various other shady sorts.

Stapinski, who would share the tale of Vita with her own kids, brought her mom and two children along to the family’s ancestral home of Bernalda in the summer of 2004.

The longtime reporter was optimistic on arrival, although woefully bereft of any real direction.

“The story could have been a rumor or gossip,” she recalled now. “My mother’s story — that’s what we were going on. We had no documentation. No diary entries. No letters. No criminal records. Nothing. It’s like researching something on a whisper.”

After returning home empty-handed, Stapinski began plotting a return visit that finally came a decade down the road. By 2014, she had done an astounding amount of research on Bernalda and the surrounding region — almost as a Plan B in case she came up empty a second time on Vita.

“I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll just write a nice story about what it was like to live in Italy in the 1800s,’ ” she recalls.

Stapinski had also forged friendships on Facebook, lining up 21st century Italian internet pals eager to aid her probe into the 19th century did-she-or-didn’t-she slaying.

Yet she was filled with self-doubt before the return trip.

“I was a nervous wreck,” she recalled. “Part of me didn’t want to go . . . . But I had a feeling, that gut feeling: There’s something there.”

She was right. There was plenty more than she ever expected, much of it laid out in legal documents handwritten in stylish Italian calligraphy.

As the truth emerged 122 years after Vita boarded a ship for Ellis Island, Stapinski found herself overwhelmed.

“Incredible relief and release,” she recalls of finishing the book. “I actually did the audio version of the book a couple months ago, and I burst into tears.

“Twelve years total I spent on this. And I just lost it. I totally lost it. It’s a personal thing.”