Monster of Florence

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Monster of Florence ( Mostro di Firenze ) is the name coined by the Italian media for one or more perpetrators who are held responsible for a spectacular series of eight double murders in the province of Florence (now the Metropolitan City of Florence ) between 1968 and 1985. The victims were shot or stabbed in their vehicles and the sexual organs of the female victims were mutilated. The deeds are among the most sensational in Italian criminal history.

The main suspect of the serial murders was Pietro Pacciani (born January 7, 1925 , † February 22, 1998 in Mercatale in Val di Pesa ). He was found guilty but acquitted after an appeal. The Italian Supreme Court annulled the controversial acquittal and called for a new trial, but this did not come about because Pacciani died in 1998 under unsettled circumstances. Whether he was the culprit and whether he had accomplices or even clients has not yet been clarified beyond doubt.

Series of murders

  • On the evening of August 21, 1968, 32-year-old Barbara Locci and her 29-year-old lover Antonio Lo Bianco were shot in their white Alfa Romeo Giulietta near Lastra a Signa . The double killer takes Locci's little son to a nearby farm, the owner of which discovers the boy and calls the police. Whether this act was actually committed by the monster of Florence is controversial; however, the same weapon was used as in the later murders.
  • On September 14, 1974, a passer-by found the bodies of 18-year-old Stefania Pettini and 19-year-old Pasquale Gentilcore in a Fiat 127 near Borgo San Lorenzo . Both were shot. Pettini's body also had 96 stab wounds, almost exclusively around the pubic and breasts.
  • On June 6, 1981, a police officer found the bodies of 21-year-old Carmela De Nuccio and 30-year-old Giovanni Foggi in a red Fiat Ritmo near Scandicci . The killer cut out Carmela's shame, "with a very sharp object and almost perfect," as one pathologist describes it.
  • On October 23, 1981, the murderer kills 24-year-old Susanna Cambi and her 26-year-old friend Stefano Baldi in their Volkswagen Golf near Calenzano . They were shot several times through the windshield and were still alive when the perpetrator stabbed them several times. Susanna's pubic area was also mutilated.
  • On June 19, 1982, 22-year-old Paolo Mainardi and his 20-year-old friend Antonella Migliorini were shot in their Fiat 147 near Montespertoli .
  • On September 9, 1983, the perpetrator shot the two Germans Horst Wilhelm Meyer (24) and Jens-Uwe Rüsch (24) in their Volkswagen T1 bus in Galluzzo , a southern district of Florence . Probably because of his long blond hair, the murderer thought Rüsch was a woman. The police initially suspected that Meyer and Rüsch were a homosexual couple, but this theory was never confirmed.
  • On July 29, 1984, the bodies of 21-year-old Claudio Stefanacci and his 18-year-old friend Pia Rontini, shot and stab wounds, were found in a Fiat Panda near Vicchio in the Mugello . Pia's pubic area was mutilated and her left breast was severed.
  • The perpetrator strikes for the last time on September 8, 1985: the French lovers Jean Michel Kraveichvili (25) and Nadine Mauriot (36) are shot dead near San Casciano . Nadine's body was also mutilated with a knife.

The same weapon was always used in the crimes, namely a Beretta 22 caliber.

enlightenment

Over the next eight years, investigators interviewed more than 100,000 people to find a clue or lead. In 1985 the perpetrator sent evidence to prosecutors and taunted them for their incompetence. Interior Minister Oscar Luigi Scalfaro offered a reward of 500 million lire (about 250,000 euros, not adjusted for inflation).

A first hot lead for the police was a tip from the population about an old murder case from 1968; it turned out that the weapon used at the time was the same (see above). There was only one problem with this: the convicted and confessed perpetrator, Locci's husband Stefano Mele, cannot have committed the later murders because at that time he was partly still in prison and partly in a kind of assisted (and monitored) living. There are many indications that Mele did not do the deed alone (such as the fact that he did not even know his wife's usual meeting place with her lovers and had no car to get there) and the brothers Giovanni, Salvatore and Francesco Vinci who each had affairs with Locci. The journalist Mario Spezi assumes that Salvatore Vinci took the murder weapon and hid it and that it was stolen from him during a burglary in the spring of 1974, which his son Antonio Vinci committed. The key, according to Spezi, is the weapon; whoever finds them will also find the perpetrator. In the course of the investigation, Francesco and Antonio Vinci, as well as members of the Mele family, were arrested. Because of the Sardinian origin of all those involved, this investigation approach was called "la pista Sarda", the Sardinian trace.

In the early 1990s, the 68-year-old farmer Pietro Pacciani came into the investigators' field of vision. In 1951 he had stabbed and kicked a passing businessman, only to rob him afterwards. After spending 13 years in prison, he married and raised a family. He was detained again between 1987 and 1991 after beating his wife and sexually molesting his two young daughters. He should also belong to a secret group, which also included the men Mario Vanni, Giovanni Faggi and Giancarlo Lotti, who allegedly held black masses and sacrificed female body parts. When searching his apartment, the police found not only pornographic drawings but also newspaper articles about the couple murders as well as a picture allegedly painted by Pacciani, which the police considered "satanic", and a matching cartridge case. In 1992, various anonymous writers denounced him.

Pietro Pacciani was arrested on January 16, 1993 and sentenced to 14 life imprisonment on November 1, 1994 in Florence . He appealed and was surprisingly acquitted on February 13, 1996. The main reasons for the acquittal were considerable doubts about the single perpetrator theory and numerous unexplained evidence that pointed to previously unknown co-perpetrators or main perpetrators. The Supreme Court overturned the acquittal on December 12th and ordered a new trial, which never took place because Pietro Pacciani was found dead in his home on February 22nd, 1998. The circumstances of his death remained unclear. Michele Giuttari , who took over the head of the Florence homicide squad in 1995 and later published various books on the series of murders, claims to this day that important data were withheld on several occasions and that the perpetrator carried out the murders on the orders of clients who are still at large to this day. In particular during the investigation into the possible involvement of the doctor Francesco Narducci, who was found dead from Lake Trasimeno a few weeks after the last murder , he was hindered by superiors and the judiciary.

In 2004, the apartment of the pharmacist Calamandrei from San Casciano was searched for the third time . Investigators had already come under suspicion in 1988 after an accusation by his ex-wife who had seen a Beretta in the refrigerator. In 1991 she repeated her allegations in a detailed brief. The investigation had then been stopped. During the renewed search, the police seized documents and video cassettes that the investigating commissioner considered to be relevant evidence. Calamandrei was accused of commissioning the series of murders in order to get the body parts of the murdered women for "satanic masses". In 2007 the first trial took place, and in 2008 Calamandrei was acquitted by a Florentine court.

There were three suicides and seven other murders in connection with the manhunt. Possible traces at the scene of the crime were not secured due to the negligence of the police or were spoiled; Files have disappeared, the judiciary and the rival police forces paralyzed each other. There is a persistent rumor among the population that influential backers were protected by parts of the judiciary.

literature

Non-fiction
Fiction
  • Laura Grimaldi: The Monster of Florence. Roman ("Il sospetto"). Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-455-02488-2 .
  • Magdalen Nabb : The Monster of Florence . Roman ("The monster of Florence"). Diogenes Verlag, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-257-23097-4 .

filming

The book "The Monster of Florence" by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi serves as a template for the film of the same name, which is due to hit cinemas in 2012. Shortly after the book was published, Tom Cruise secured the film rights, but had to cede them due to the bankruptcy of the production company MGM. The main role, which is about a man who writes a book about the truth of the series of murders and gets caught in the crosshairs of the police, is now played by George Clooney .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Spezi, Mario, Preston, Douglas: The Beast of Florence . Knaur-Taschenbuch-Verl, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-426-50436-9 , pp. 68-83 .
  2. ↑ Mostro di Firenze indagato farmacista. La Repubblica. 1984.
  3. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung. 2008.

Web links

Commons : Monsters of Florence  - Collection of images, videos and audio files