The Notorantonios barely got a minute to themselves yesterday as every media organisation in Ireland and some from further afield gathered at their door for comment on the man said to be Stakeknife.
Francisco Notorantonio (66) was shot dead outside his west Belfast home by the UDA/UFF in 1987 – in a killing alleged to have been carried out to protect the high-ranking mole within the IRA.
The father-of-11, who had been an IRA member in the 1940s but was no longer involved with the group, was gunned down in front of his wife Edith as he lay in bed in his Ballymurphy home.
From early on, security force collusion was suspected in the murder.
"I don't know how the gang got into the estate because it was crawling with soldiers," his wife said later.
The possible existence of Stakeknife was exposed a few years later when a Sunday newspaper alleged that the British army's Force Research Unit had colluded with loyalist paramilitaries in the killing to protect a high-ranking mole within the IRA.
The decision to target Mr Notorant-onio is alleged to have been taken at the highest levels in the British intelligence establishment.
The Force Research Unit (FRU) was the team responsible for running UDA double agent Brian Nelson, who passed on information about Catholics targeted for assassination.
Yesterday, the Notorantonio family said their anger was not directed towards Alfredo Scappaticci, the man alleged to be Stakeknife, but towards the British government.
Indeed, Mr Notorantonio's daughter Charlotte has only sympathy for his family, whom she believes are like them – victims.
"I was shocked, but at the end of the day Stakeknife was not responsible for my father's murder," she said.
"He didn't give any surveillance on my father, he didn't give any data on my father, it was the British. What are the chances he knew himself that he was the original target?
"We are angry but he was not directly involved. It could just have easily been him. At the end of the day we have no interest in Stakeknife."
Ms Notorantonio also revealed that members of the Scappaticci family had attended her father's funeral.
"They are nice people. His (Alfredo's) father was at my daddy's funeral. My daddy and his brother knew the family," she said.
"We do feel for his family, they are the ones that are going to take all the flak.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with them. We know how we felt, gutted and numb at what happened to my dad.
"When a thing like this happens, it is just like losing a life. Nobody knows what it is like but the person involved."
But Ms Notorantonio is also fully aware she is not the only family affected by alleged security force collusion with loyalists in the murder of their loved ones.
"My daddy was an innocent victim. My father is dead nearly 16 years and we feel it every day. They took my mummy's whole dependency away, she depended so much on my father," she said.
"We are not point-scoring on this. The British have a lot to answer for.
"I think there should be an international, judicial, public inquiry into all collusion in any shape or form, irrespective of who the person is, whether it is republican, loyalist, policeman or soldier.
"We will be asking for a meeting with Tony Blair and the Stevens team and hopefully we will get somewhere. We will also raise it with Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan.
"We wondered why my daddy, why not some Dick or Harry who was highly involved?"
Questioning how any double agent of such a standing within the IRA could operate unnoticed for more than 20 years, she added: "Their (IRA) intelligence is so fantastic, I can't believe Stakeknife wasn't found before."
