The reputed head of the Western Pennsylvania La Cosa Nostra died yesterday.

Michael Genovese, who had long been ill with bladder cancer and heart disease, died in his sleep at his home in West Deer. He was 87.

Mr. Genovese fit the image of the old-school mob boss - a dapper dresser who was always polite and kept a low profile. He lived quietly in the same converted barn in the rolling hills of West Deer for the last 40 years.

But federal agents and the former Pennsylvania Crime Commission say he ran the Western Pennsylvania mob for decades, one of 24 original mafia families in the U.S. that trace their roots to Sicily and, later, the bootlegging years of Prohibition.

The local mob family was decimated by federal prosecutions in the early 1990s and has been limping along ever since, like La Cosa Nostra groups across the country.

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.