MONTREAL – Natural causes have been ruled out and the theories are now either murder or suicide in the jail cell death last summer of Giuseppe “Ponytail” De Vito.
French newspaper, Le Journal de Montreal, said Wednesday that a coroner has determined that De Vito died of cyanide poisoning.
How the cyanide got into the prison and into De Vito’s system remains a mystery.
The 46-year-old De Vito was part of a mob faction that tried to seize control while Montreal mobster, Vito Rizzuto, was in jail.
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Associated with the Rizzuto crime family, he was arrested in 2010 and convicted of conspiracy to import drugs and gangsterism.
He started to serve his 11-year, seven-month sentence in June 2012.
While De Vito was behind bars for gangsterism and cocaine trafficking, five of his allies were murdered.
Police have said that a contract was put out on him, too.
De Vito was found unconscious in his cell in the Donnacona federal penitentiary in Quebec City shortly after midnight on July 8.
READ MORE: Quebec mobster Joe De Vito dies in prison
The suicide angle is being considered because De Vito’s two daughters died at the hands of their mother in 2009, while the mobster was on the run from authorities.
De Vito testified at her trial that he felt guilty he wasn’t there to protect his daughters.
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