Italy - The Monster of Florence, 16 victims, 1968-1985

Satanic Cult Probed in Monster of Florence Murders

FLORENCE (Reuters) - Almost 20 years after the last murder blamed on the "Monster of Florence," investigators have reopened the case because they suspect a Satanic cult ordered the killings and kept body parts as prizes.

"The refrigerator of horror," was Friday's headline in Il Messaggero newspaper, referring to new witness reports of female genitalia and body parts in the fridge of a plush Tuscan villa.

The villa was rented by a doctor, thought to have drowned in a Tuscan lake in 1985. But when authorities recently discovered he was a suspected Satanist and had actually been murdered, they reopened their files, a judicial source told Reuters.

Investigators now suspect the doctor was part of a clan that ordered the "Monster" to kill eight couples.

The victims were shot during romantic trysts in the picturesque Tuscan countryside between 1968 and 1985 and many suffered gruesome sexual mutilations.




Full Story from Yahoo News

Smiley face killers.. monastery where Chris Jenkins, Josh's scents were tracked to?

The case in Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_of_Florence

The Monster of Florence, also known as Il Mostro, is an epithet commonly used for the perpetrator, or perpetrators, of 16 murders, nearly all of them couples, that took place between 1968 and 1985[SUP][1][/SUP] in the province of Florence,Italy. The same gun and pattern were used in all the murders.

Four local men – Stefano Mele, Pietro Pacciani, Mario Vanni, and Giancarlo Lotti – were arrested, charged, and convicted of the crime at different times. However, these convictions have been criticized and ridiculed in the media; critics suggest that the real killer or killers have never been identified. Several other suspects were arrested and held in captivity at various times, but they were later released when subsequent murders using the same weapon and methods cast doubt on their guilt.
The English author Magdalen Nabb wrote the 1996 novel The Monster of Florence based on her extensive research and documents from the actual case. Although the book is a work of fiction, Nabb states that the investigation in the novel was real and the presentation as fiction was a protective measure. In their 2008 non-fiction book The Monster of Florence,Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi suggested the same perpetrator that Nabb had identified: Antonio Vinci (the nephew and son of two Sardinian brothers each suspected of being the Monster) as a likely candidate for being the real killer.[SUP][2][/SUP]Vinci denied this in a Dateline NBC interview with Stone Phillips.[SUP][3][/SUP][SUP][4]

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Victims[edit]

Barbara Locci​

Antonio Lo Bianco​

• August 21, 1968: Antonio Lo Bianco (29) mason worker, recently immigrated from Sicily toTuscany and Barbara Locci (32) homemaker, lovers, shot to death with a .22 Beretta in Signa, a small town to the west of Florence, while Locci's son Natalino Mele (6) lay asleep in the back seat of the car. The child woke up and, finding his mother dead, fled in fright. At 2 a.m. he arrived in front of a house nearby and knocked on the door, telling the landlord: "Open the door and let me in, I'm sleepy and my Daddy is sick in bed. Then you have to drive me home, because my Mommy and my uncle are dead in their car." Natalino initially said he had run away alone, then changed his story and stated that his father – or maybe an uncle of his, as he used to call his mother's lovers "uncle" – had driven him to the house where he asked for help. Years later he said again that he was alone, but was too shocked to remember exactly what happened on that night. Locci, immigrated from Sardinia, was famous in the town because of her multiple love affairs, and so she had received the nickname Ape Regina (queen bee). Locci's husband, an ingenuous man namedStefano Mele, about 20 years older than her, was eventually charged with the murder and spent six years in jail, but even while he was in prison, more couples were murdered with the same gun. Several lovers of Locci's were suspected to be perpetrators of the crime and even Stefano Mele stated on several occasions that one of them had killed "my lady", as he used to call Locci.

It is reported that the widow of Lo Bianco had complained with Locci's relatives several days after the murders, saying: "Why such a bad thing had happened to my husband? Now I am alone and I have three children to grow up!" and she was answered by a brother of Mele's that Locci had to die but they were very sorry that Lo Bianco was shot down as well. Another lover of Locci's testified the woman was worried about a man that had threatened her with a gun and stated she even refused to date with him by saying: "They could shoot us down while making love inside your car".

Pasquale Gentilcore and Stefania Pettini​

• September 15, 1974: Pasquale Gentilcore, barman (19), and Stefania Pettini, accountant (18), teenage sweethearts, were shot to death and stabbed in a country lane near Borgo San Lorenzo while having sex in Gentilcore's Fiat 127 not far from a notorious disco called Teen Club where they were supposed to spend the evening with some friends. Pettini's corpse had been violated with a grapevine stalk and disfigured with 97 stab-wounds. Some hours before the murder, Pettini said something to a close friend about a weird man that terrified her. Another friend of Pettini's recalled that a strange man (perhaps a voyeur) had followed and bothered the two of them during a driving lesson, a few days before. Several couples of lovers who used to "park" in the same country area where Gentilcore and Pettinin were murdered stated that particular area was frequented by voyeurs, a pair of them acting very oddly.
• June 6, 1981: Giovanni Foggi, warehouseman (30), and Carmela Di Nuccio, shop assistant (21), engaged. Shot to death and stabbed on a Saturday night, near Scandicci, where they both lived. Di Nuccio's body was pulled out of the car and the killer cut out her pubic area with a notched knife. The next morning, a young voyeur, Enzo Spalletti (30) a paramedic, father of two young children, went around speaking about the murder before the corpses had been discovered. He spent three months in jail, charged with murder, before the killer exonerated him by killing again.
• October 23, 1981: Stefano Baldi, workman (26), and Susanna Cambi, telephonist (24), engaged and due to be married in a few months' time. Shot to death and stabbed in a park in the vicinity of Calenzano. Cambi's pubic area was cut out like Di Nuccio's. An anonymous person phoned Cambi's mother the morning after the murder, to "talk to her about her daughter". A few days before the homicide, Susanna told her mother that there was somebody tormenting her and even chasing her by car.
• June 19, 1982: Paolo Mainardi, mechanician (22), and Antonella Migliorini, dressmaker (20), engaged and due to marry very soon, nicknamed Vinavil (a brand of superglue) as they were inseparable. Shot to death in Mainardi's car while parked on a country road in Montespertoli. This time the killer did not mutilate the female victim. Mainardi (although he had serious injuries) was still alive when found. Police and ambulances were called immediately but Mainardi died some hours later at the hospital. A new reconstruction of the events suggests that, after shooting the couple, the Monster drove Paolo's car for few meters to hide the vehicle and the corpses in a woodland area nearby. Then he lost control of the car and he abandoned it where it was finally discovered.[SUP][5][/SUP]
• September 9, 1983: Wilhelm Friedrich Horst Meyer (24) and Jens Uwe Rüsch (24), German both seniors at faculty of Fine Arts in Osnabrück, traveling in Italy to celebrate an important scholarship Meyer had just won. Shot to death in their Volkswagen Samba Bus, in Galluzzo. Rüsch's long blond hair and his small build could have deceived the killer into thinking he was a female. Police suspected that they were gay lovers, but this theory has never been corroborated.
• July 29, 1984: Claudio Stefanacci, law student (21), and Pia Gilda Rontini, barmaid and cheerleader (18), sweethearts, shot to death and stabbed in Stefanacci's Fiat Panda parked in a woodland area near Vicchio di Mugello. The killer removed the girl's pubic area and left breast. There were reports of a strange man who had been following them in an ice cream parlour some hours before the murder. A close friend of Pia Rontini recalled she had confided that she had been bothered by "an unpleasant man" while working at the bar.
• September 7–8, 1985: Jean Michel Kraveichvili, musician (25), and Nadine Mauriot, tradeswoman (36), lovers, both from Audincourt, France, on a camping vacation in Italy. Nadine was shot to death and stabbed while sleeping in their small tent in a woodland area near San Casciano. Jean Michel was killed a short distance away from the tent while trying to escape. Nadine's corpse was mutilated. Because the killer had murdered two traveling foreigners, there was not yet a missing persons report. The killer sent a taunting note, along with a piece of Nadine's breast, to the state prosecutor, Silvia della Monica, stating that a murder had taken place and challenging local authorities to find the victims. A person hunting mushrooms in the area discovered the bodies of Mauriot and Kraveichvili a few hours before the letter arrived on the prosecutor's desk.

Was this Beretta a .22 Short or a .22 LR?

I see in one of the books on the case that it was a .22 LR.

I can't believe this case is not more discussed here. Longest investigation in Italian history. It's link to the Amanda Knox case. The suspect who is still alive. Etc.

I have obviously seen the NBC special on it and read the MOF book by Preston and Spezzi. I have also read some case files in Italian and some other materials.

1st is that you totally understand how Amanda Knox was railroaded by the Italian injustice system.
2nd it shows how any investigation needs to stay "tight" as introducing any new piece of evidence or suspect just snowballs exponentially.

So after obsessing about this case (like Preston I kinda learned about it when I was in Mugello) I have come to the same conclusion.
The .22LR is the key to finding the monster. Since it was used in the double murder it would not have been sold or casually disposed of. It obviously stayed in the Sardinian circle and went on to kill again.

Antonio Vinci was the only one in the circle not to have been seriously investigated as he was only 15 at the time of the first serial killer murder (as opposed to the 68 murder which was almost certainly a clan killing.) Italian investigators simply (and fortunately) had zero experience with real serial killers hence other than the carabinieri suspecting him a little, he was not a suspect. Well, already at 14, he pinned his father Salvatore Vinci to a wall and threatened him with a knife. Not a shy little boy.

This is such a fascinating case to me. I've read a lot about it, from Preston and Spezi's book to Italian blogs (like
“Quando sei con me il Mostro non c’è”) as well as court protocols. There is a lot of information about this case, both the crimes and subsequent investigations. The solution seems so tantilizingly close, yet stubbornly won't appear.

I'll add a write-up I've been working on.

SCANDICCI

Saturday, June 6th 1981. It was a warm summer day when Giovanni Foggi drove his copper-colored Ritmo from the village of Pontassieve to Scandicci, a growing municipality southwest of Florence. The 30-year old, who worked for the local electric company Enel, still lived with his family, but in April he had met Carmela De Nuccio, a 21-year old who worked with her father in the Gucci factory, and the two had hit it off. Now Giovanni was on his way to Carmela’s house in Scandicci, to “officially” meet the family and take the first steps towards marriage. After dinner at 22:00, Giovanni and Carmela excused themselves for a few hours to go and get some ice cream, though that is not what they had in mind. They drove to a disco on the outskirts of Scandicci but rather than going inside, they took the winding Via dell’Arrigo up into the Tuscan hills. They stopped in a small olive grove, where a local farmer claimed to have heard the sounds of John Lennon’s “Imagine” coming from Foggi’s tape deck.

Murder site

Giovanni and Carmela had barely begun to undress when the killer struck. He sneaked up on the left side of the car and fired two shots from a 22-caliber Beretta Long Rifle through the driver seat window and into the back of Giovanni’s head. Carmela reached for Giovanni when the third shot hit her in the right arm. She fell back and tried to shield her head when a fourth bullet went through her left forearm and grazed her chin. The killer then reached into the car and shot Carmela through the neck. With both victims incapacitated, he opened the door and put a bullet in Giovanni’s chest and another in Carmela’s back. All bullets fired had been Winchester caliber 22, uncoated lead. To ensure the victims were dead, the killer then stabbed Giovanni twice in the neck and once in the chest with a notched blade.

After having reached inside and unlocked the passenger door, the killer moved around the car and opened it. Lifting out Carmela’s lifeless body, he carried it down a slope and across a path, some 12 meters from the car. As he carried her over his shoulder, her necklace fell into her mouth, something that would be regarded as deliberate in the future. After having placed Carmela on the ground he pulled down her jeans. With three slices of his sharp, notched blade, he detached the vagina from the body and took it with him into the night.

The following Sunday morning, a police officer named Vittorio Sifone was taking a stroll through nature with his son when he spied the car with a strangely still person in the driver’s seat. Coming closer, Sifone saw the wounds in the young man. Then he found Carmela, and immediately contacted his colleagues at the Florence Police. Chief inspector Sandro Federico of the Mobile Squad was dispatched along with colonel Olinto Dell’Amico of the carabinieri and the fairly inexperienced prosecutor Adolfo Izzo. Izzo and Federico would stay with the case for years, while Dell’Amico would soon discover that he had encountered the killer before. The crime scene was sloppily managed and barely secured. A reporter, Mario Spezi of La Nazione, had beaten the investigators to the scene due to his local knowledge, and was able to walk around and observe the bodies.

The crime was unlike anything the Florence police had seen. At first they thought it a crime of passion. A local youth who had been bothering Carmela was summoned to the police station, but nothing came of it. Instead the police were helped by the media. When Spezi brought the story back to his paper, one of his colleagues, Antonio Villoresi, recalled another murder he had covered some six or seven years back, eerily similar. A side story about the 1974 murder was written, and when the police read the Monday copy of La Nazione, they decided to dig up the old files and compare.

Shells had been saved from 1974, Winchester .22 rounds, though these were copper-coated. All bullets used had been manufactured in 1966. Scientific Police commissioner Nunzio Castiglione did ballistic tests on the shells and found that the bullets from 1974 and the ones from 1981 had been fired from the same gun. A defect in the firing pin made a tell-tale – and unique – dent in each fired shell. In the many murders that would come, the killer would always use the same pistol, and it would never be used in any other identified context.

BORGO SAN LORENZO

Saturday, September 14th 1974. Pasquale Gentilcore drove his father’s blue Fiat 127 from his home in Pontassieve to Borgo San Lorenzo, the main community in the Mugello region, northeast of Florence. Riding with the 19-year old bartender was his younger sister Cristina. Pasquale’s goal was to meet his girlfriend Stefania Pettini, who lived in a small village outside Borgo San Lorenzo. Pasquale and Stefania had been in an occasionally stormy relationship for a year. After having left Cristina at a disco in central Borgo San Lorenzo, Pasquale picked up Stefania at her home, where her parents saw them off. Cristina was waiting for them at the disco, but Pasquale had told her they might take some time, and that they did. South of a village named Rabatta, Pasquale and Stefania had parked on a side road, hidden from view by cypress trees.

Murder site

Pasquale and Stefania had likely been arguing – the relationship had been rocky – but around 23:45 they seemed to have patched things up at least temporarily, and were about to get intimate. They had undressed and Stefania had lowered her seat. At that point, the killer approached the driver seat window, much like he would seven years later. But he was not as sure as he would be. The first two shots missed, and hit the seat behind Pasquale’s back. Panicked and desperate to get away, Pasquale reached towards the passenger door when the next three bullets hit his left arm and torso. One of the bullets pierced Pasquale’s heart and he collapses on the now trapped and helpless Stefania. The killer, apparently nervous, fired four more shots, two of which hit Pasquale’s corpse, and two that wounded Stefania’s legs.

The killer then rounded the car and opened the passenger door. Leaning over Pasquale, he clamped his left hand over Stefania’s mouth, likely to stop her screams. It’s unclear what he intended to do, or what caused his rage, but soon he was stabbing Stefania in the face, neck and chest, brutal cuts with the notched knife. Pushing Pasquale off to the side, he dragged Stefania’s lifeless body out in the open. He inflicted 96 stab wounds of various depths over her corpse before he took a dried piece of vine from the ground and inserted it into her vagina. Stefania’s handbag was tossed 300 meters down the road by the killer as he fled the scene.

By midnight, a worried Cristina called both Stefania’s family and her own. In the morning, a farmer named Pietro Landi crossed a field and discovered the bodies. The screaming farmer flagged down a car and went to the police station in Borgo San Lorenzo. Half an hour later, carabinieri captain Olinto Dell’Amico arrived at the scene with the rest of the investigators. From the start it became clear there were no real suspects. The day she died, Stefania had complained to a friend that a creep had been following her around, but said creep could never be identified. A man named Guido Giovannini was briefly considered when he abruptly left town on Sunday, but was quickly dismissed. Soon the case grew cold.

On June 10 1981 La Nazione confirmed to the public that the same gun – and thus the same killer – was responsible for the murders in Scandicci and Borgo San Lorenzo. Apart from the weapon, there were several similarities. Both murders were a pair of lovers parked in a car, isolated in the countryside. In both murders the man was targeted first, seemingly to remove the threat so the killer could focus on the woman. While the mutilations were more extensive in 1981, they were all made on the woman, and focused on her genitalia. The killer had not attempted sexual penetration with his own genitalia – indeed, it was not and still is not 100% certain the killer was male. No semen or any proof of self-gratification was found. While the markings on the shells were unique, both gun and ammunition were among the most common in Tuscany, ensuring no tracing could be made, and a lot of records had been destroyed in the flood of 1966, the year the bullets were manufactured.

Indiani – Enzo Spalletti

While the killer likely waited in place or followed the cars to the isolated places, there was a good chance he would find victims. At any given night, plenty of cars with young lovers could be found in the countryside around Florence. With strict Catholic morals dictating no pre-marital sex, and most Italian youths living at home until marriage, a car trip was one of the few chances a young couple would get at being intimate. Like with most widespread moral transgressions, this custom was more overlooked than unknown, and there was a certain crowd who had used it to their advantage.

Around the parked lovers there was a society of voyeurs, sometimes called Indians, surprisingly organized. They would stake out popular spots, divide areas between them, buy and sell prime locations and of course record when they could. The police tracked one of them, an ambulance driver named Enzo Spalletti, whose car had been seen nearby on the night of the murder. A family man, Spalletti was known to be a voyeur, but when brought in, he denied even being in the area, claiming he had picked up a prostitute in Florence. Prosecutor Izzo, now aided by his colleague Silvia Della Monica, let Federico and Dell’Amico handle the interrogation. After six hours, his story collapsed, and he admitted to being in the area and knowing the car. Apparently, Giovanni and Carmela regularly visited the spot and the local perverts had made note of it.

Spalletti claimed another Indian could vouch for him, a man named Fosco Fabbri. But when Fabbri gave his statement he claimed that there was a period of nearly two hours when Spalletti was alone. Spalletti’s wife Carla added to the woes when she said her husband came home at 2 AM, hours after Spalletti had claimed. Even more damning was Carla’s claim that Spalletti talked about the poor murdered youths at 9:30 Sunday morning, before the bodies even had been discovered. The next Saturday Spalletti was arrested for perjury, and formally accused of the Scandicci murders.

While the newspapers informed of Spalletti’s arrest, investigators failed to find any physical evidence, nor any connection to Botgo San Lorenzo. No murder weapon, no blood in his car. Izzo and Della Monica interrogated Spalletti over and over again with no result. Both Fabbri’s and Carla’s testimonies turned out to be less damning than originally thought. Fabbri moved the time of Spalletti’s departure well past time of death, and Carla actually said she her husband told her of the murders when he returned from the village at noon – well after discovery. Still, a month later the prosecutors charged Spalletti with both double murders. In October the summary investigation began. A few weeks later the killer struck again.

CALENZANO

Thursday, October 22nd 1981. Stefano Baldi, 26, lived with his mother in Calenzano, northwest of Florence right by the city of Prato. Since his father’s death two years earlier he had quit his medical studies and found work at a wood mill. For seven years he had dated 24-year old Susanna Cambi, who worked at a hotel in Prato. Their wedding was planned for the spring of 1982. On that Thursday evening, the couple had dinner with Stefano’s mother at their house, after which Stefano drove Susanna back to her home in Florence in his black Golf around 23:00. On the way, they decided to make a detour to the Bartoline fields where they could find some privacy.

Murder site

This time the killer approached from the right, where bushes kept him hidden. Stefano and Susanna had started to undress, and Susanna had reclined her seat. The killer must have made some noise, because Susanna had her hand raised when the first two shots fired. Stefano was hit in the nose and chest, one of the bullets passing through Susanna’s thumb. While the killer cleared glass from the passenger side window, Stefano grasped the door handle at his left. He managed to get the door open before the third shot hit him in the back, causing him to lose consciousness. In desperation, Susanna tried to climb over her still fiancee, but was struck by two bullets, one in the left arm and one in the back, making her collapse back on her seat. The killer then shot her twice, once in the arm – perhaps due to sudden movement – and another in the heart. Walking around the car, he found Stefano hanging halfway outside the car. The killer put a final bullet in his heart. All shots fired had been pure lead, same as in Scandicci.

To get at Susanna, the killer pulled out Stefano’s corpse, stabbing him four times in the back just to make sure. To minimize the chance of discovery, he draghed the body to a nearby hollow before he went back for Susanna. After a final stab in the back, he carried her over his shoulder into the bushes from where he had emerged, where he placed her down and stripped her body. Her vagina was cut out and removed in pretty much the exact way as in Scandicci.

On Friday morning, two old men go to water their garden and make the grisly discovery. Policemen from Florence and Prato soon followed, picking up shells and an odd, pyramid-formed stone that would enter the narrative much later. Ballistic tests confirmed what everyone already was certain of – same gun, same killer. Two days later Spalletti left prison.

There were two couples who claimed they saw someone at the Bartoline fields at the time of the murder. One of the couples, parked nearby shortly before the murder, saw a strange man limping around the car, leaving when they turned on the headlights. The second couple saw a red sports car an hour later, with an upset-looking man behind the wheel. Identikits were drawn, which but for the hairline were considered similar enough by the police to be the same man. The composite identikit wasn’t released to the public, however. Colonel Dell’Amico and Mobile Squad chief Grassi decided against it.

The reason was the increased hysteria in Florence. Three murders, bloody enough to be done by Jack the Ripper and two of them in the same year had set the city ablaze. Seizing on an unfortunate phrasing by a newspaper, the rumor that the killer was a physician was spread. Like in Jack’s case, the most appealing killer was the respected, the well-educated, even the noble, whether surgeon, gynecologist or even priest. Anonymous tips flooded the police, along with others denouncing their spouses, neighbors or co-workers.

A prominent gynecologist, Garimeta Gentile, was one of the first victims of gossip. Popular rumor claimed that his wife had found the removed genitalia hidden in one of their freezers, a motif that would continue among the stories long after Gentile was forgotten. Chief prosecutor Carabba had to publicly denounce the rumors about Gentile, threatening to prosecute those who would continue to spread them. Another doctor was suspected for a while, Carlo Santangelo, especially when it turned out that he wasn’t a doctor at all, but a mythomaniac who liked to frequent cemeteries. But his alibis held up and he was released. A prisoner claimed to have “inspired” the real killer with a shooting of his own. The “real killer” would later emerge as one of the popular favorites among the suspects, and still largely is.

In the popular gossip, the killer would often be referred to as the monster in the hedges. Reporter Mario Spezi, who had seen the murder sites of Scandicci and Calenzano, and had written extensively on the subject in La Nazione, would call the killer Monster of Florence. The name stuck.

BACCAIANO

Saturday, June 19th 1982. Paolo Mainardi and Antonella Migliorini were inseparable, their friends always said. The 22-year old mechanic and the 19-year old seamstress would seldom be seen outside each other’s company. That night they had eaten dinner with Paolo’s widowed mother and spent the rest of the evening in the company of friends at Piazza del Popolo in their hometown of Montespertoli, southwest across the hills from Scandicci and Florence. At 22:30 they got into Paolo’s Fiat 147 and drove off to find some privacy. Antonella had spoken of her fear of the Monster, so they decided to try a safe place. Outside the village of Baccaiano led the Via Virginia Nuova, an asphalted, well-trafficed road that seemed a good choice. They parked at a small patch right beside the road and made love.

Murder site

Once they had finished, the couple got dressed, Antonella moving to the back seat to get more space. The car stood parked with its rear facing the road. They were just about done dressing when Antonella noticed something outside the car. Leaning forward between the front seat, the first shot from the Monster grazed her nose and sent glass shrapnel from the driver side window into her face and hands. In panic and pain, she clutched Paolo’s head in her hands as the next two bullets flew. Paolo was hit in the jaw and Antonella in the middle of her forehead. Dead, she fell backwards while Paolo collapsed over the driver seat door, bleeding profusely. As Paolo’s blood poured through the door, the Monster stepped back into the shadows, allowing cars to pass by. One of them belonged to Francesco Carletti, a driving instructor who noted the Fiat by the road, windows dark and nothing looking out of order.

The Monster had been bold in choosing such an open place for his work, and now it came back to haunt him. Paolo wasn’t dead, and while the Monster was holding back, he managed to get the car started, put it into reverse and mostly pulling the handbrake down. As Paolo backed the car onto the road, the Monster fired a shot that hit Paolo in his shoulder. Running after the car, the Monster placed a shot through the windshield, hitting Paolo in his left ear. For all his effort, Paolo’s escape attempt proved in vain. The rear of the Fiat went down in the ditch on the other side of the rode, completely stuck. However, any hope of people passing by without noticing the deed was now gone. The Monster’s first instinct was to shoot out the headlights, one shot in each. The position lights were tougher. One bullet went into the right one, while the other one was cracked with a hard object, probably to save the last shot. He then reached into the driver seat window, past the bleeding Paolo, and removed the keys, and moved around the car to the door where Antonella’s body lay.

Before he could get to Antonella, a car carrying two youths named Adriano Poggiarelli and Stefano Calamandrei, passed by on its way to Baccaiano. Not many seconds later, the couple Concetta Bartalesi and Graziano Marini came from the opposite direction. All of them took notice of the car in the ditch, and not even a minute later both have turned around to assist. The Monster stayed hidden in the bushes, letting the keys fall to the ground. Any chance of making his incisions to Antonella was now gone. It doesn’t take long for the four youths to discover the bullet holes and the bloody bodies inside the car. They saw the bloody body of Paolo still moving in the front seat, and they fled in panic. As they rushed away, the heavily wounded Paolo pulled himself between the front seats, back to the woman with whom he was inseparable. That was when the Monster stepped out of the shadows to put a final bullet in Paolo’s temple.

Soon the ambulance arrived while prosecutor Silvia Della Monica got a call from the Montespertoli carabinieri, telling her that the Monster had struck again. Both victims were found in the backseat, something that would cause a lot of confusion when the youths testified about seeing Paolo in the driver’s seat. Astonishingly, Paolo was still alive. He would pass away the next day in the Empoli hospital, never having regained consciousness. Della Monica decided to try a gamble. She asked some journalists, Mario Spezi included, to write in their papers that Paolo had regained consciousness at the hospital and had spoken to the police before he died. The idea was to scare the Monster into making a mistake.

Another decision was made. The investigators, now headed by examining magistrate Vincenzo Tricomi and joined by rising star prosecutor Piero Luigi Vigna (who had taken on an organized kidnapping ring and triumphed), released the identikit from Calenzano on June 30th. Phone calls and letters, anonymous as well as not, poured into the police stations. The identikit proved of little value – one man who looked like the sketch ended up killing himself despite being cleared – but it added significantly to the hysteria.

The break-through came when three anonymous letters were sent from a “friendly citizen” in July 1982 to the carabinieri station in Borgo Ognissanti, central Florence. The first letters hinted at an earlier murder that might shed light on the Monster’s activities, and the third had a news clipping attached. The murder had taken place fourteen years earlier, two lovers shot in a car much like the Monster, but a person had already been charged and convicted. Marshal Fiori took the letter to Dell’Amico who in turn informed Tricomi. With the trial having moved between Florence and Perugia, by a stroke of fortune the material evidence had been forgotten and not destroyed. Tricomi ordered a quick ballistic test and found a match.

The gun of the Monster had first killed in Signa, 1968. The police were about to start the investigative track known as Pista Sarda – the Sardinian trail.

SIGNA

Wednesday, August 21st 1968. Barbara Locci was born in Sardinia in 1937. Like so many from that at the time impoverished region she had moved to Tuscany, where a whole community of Sardinians had established themselves. In 1960, Barbara had married one of them, a man almost twenty years her senior named Stefano Mele, but she had never stayed faithful. She would frequent a bar in Piazza Mercatale known for its Sardinian clientele and find lovers there. Stefano had never stood up for himself, which ended up getting them both thrown out of his father’s house. Barbara was known as the Queen Bee of the community, but she was also a mother – her son Natalino was six years old that summer. Natalino was used to his mother’s lovers. He would call them his “uncles” (he already had a lot of real ones).

Antonio Lo Bianco was Barbara’s latest lover, a Sicilian this time, who was himself married with three children. Two years her junior, he had become Barbara’s lover in the summer of 1968. That Wednesday they had taken little Natalino to the cinema in Signa in Antonio’s Alfa Romeo. When the movie ended, they drove to a secluded spot, a small dirt road by the Vingone stream where Barbara had taken many of her lovers. Natalino lay sleeping in the back seat when Barbara started pleasuring Antonio.

Murder site

The driver seat window was slightly open, enough so that the killer could insert the gun. Barbara, who sat in the driver seat with her face in Antonio’s crotch, took three bullets in her left side, one of which passed through Antonio’s left arm. Her heart was pierced and she died immediately. Antonio, who had been leaning back on the passenger seat tried to buckle his pants and rise but the gun fired three more times, piercing his left arm and torso. All shots were precise, copper-coated bullets striking vital organs. Then something happened, and the gun was inserted a second time, this time through the rear left window which had been half open. Two shots were fired into Barbara’s back, one of which missed and hit the dashboard. These shots were sloppy and unnecessary – Barbara was already dead. A hand reached inside and pulled her body into an upright position.

At 2 in the morning, a man named De Felice heard a knock on his door and opened it to find a shoeless and crying Natalino outside. De Felice’s house was two kilometers from the car where young Natalino claimed that his mother and uncle lay dead.

Soon the carabinieri arrived at the scene – lieutenant Dell’Amico among them – where Natalino told them his father lay home sick in bed, and that he had walked all the way to De Felice’s house on his own. In the morning they went to Mele’s house in Lastra a Signa, where the husband appeared fully dressed with dirty hands at 7:00. Taken in for interrogation, Stefano confirmed he had been home sick all day, and that Antonio and his wife had taken Natalino out to the cinema in the evening. He had no idea who might have killed his wife. But the Carabinieri had already taken in another suspect, another of Barbara’s lovers named Francesco Vinci.

Pista Sarda – Stefano Mele

There were three brothers Vinci from Sardinia. Giovanni, the oldest, had met Barbara in Piazza Mercatale and became her lover. It was he who introduced her to his younger brother Salvatore. When Stefano and Barbara were kicked out of the Mele house, Salvatore moved in with the couple in their new apartment, an arrangement that lasted five years. While Giovanni and Salvatore had bad reputations from their time in Sardinia, they had respectable professions. The same wasn’t true for the youngest brother Francesco. Notorious for his skill at stealing livestock as well as using a knife, Francesco moved around in criminal circles, including people close to the kidnapping ring Vigna would later take down.

Barbara got together with Francesco in 1967, and as usual Stefano had no objections. When Francesco got sent to jail for a short while, Stefano took care of his Lambretta. But Barbara and Francesco had an acrimonious break-up – Francesco tore Barbara’s dress off her and left her in the street – and she moved on to Antonio Lo Bianco the week before her death. Francesco’s temper and violent tendencies were notorious. At Francesco’s appearance in the carabinieri station, Mele claimed Francesco and another of Barbara’s lovers, Carmelo Cutrona, had been jealous of Lo Bianco, and that Francesco owned a gun and had threatened Barbara in June. Stefano, Francesco and Cutrona were all given paraffin tests to see if they might have fired a weapon. Francesco came out negative, Stefano and Cutrona positive, but Stefano was allowed to leave with Natalino.

The next day, Stefano returned to the carabinieri station, now accompanied by his brother-in-law Piero Mucciarini. Now he had a new story to tell. Salvatore Vinci, his former tenant, had also harbored jealousy towards Locci and her new lover. Salvatore had borrowed 150 000 lire from the Mele couple, and when Stefano asked for it in return, Salvatore offered to kill his wife, since Stefano himself was unable to do so. When Stefano declined, Salvatore would have said that he’d do it himself and that he had already killed his own wife back in Sardinia, using gas and making it look like a suicide.

The carabinieri were skeptical, and as soon as Mucciarini left for his nightly work at the bakery, they got a new story out of Stefano. He confessed to being the shooter, with the aid of Salvatore Vinci who had met Stefano when he was out looking for his wife. Salvatore had lent Stefano his gun and the two had then followed Lo Bianco’s car from the cinema. Stefano claimed to have done all the shooting, but more importantly he correctly identified the number of shots fired as eight. Stefano then threw the gun away while little Natalino ran into the night.

Mele was taken to prison, but the next day Salvatore had provided an alibi by two friends who spent the evening with him in a bar. Salvatore and Stefano were brought together and the latter fell to his knees begging forgiveness. Stefano changed his story: it was Francesco Vinci who had accompanied Stefano, shot the victims, and even carried little Natalino to the De Felice house. However, during the day, Natalino had been to the crime scene with marshal Ferrero of the Carabinieri to trace his walk, and had confessed that he had indeed been accompanied the whole way – but by his father, not Francesco. Stefano hastily amended his version.

That also changed quickly. When informed of the paraffin tests Stefano switched out Francesco Vinci for Carmino Cutrona, though he returned to Francesco in February of 1969. Meanwhile, Natalino, admitted to a hospital, spoke of the night to marshal Ferrero, saying he had seen “Salvatore in the reeds”, referring to the dense vegetation near the car.

Natalino had spent the fall and winter in the Vittorio Veneto hospital, when marshal Ferrero informed the investigators that the child had started to change his story. On April 21 1969 Natalino was interviewed in the hospital. Answering the questions posed by the police, he said that he had been woken by the shots, and that the one who fired them was “uncle Piero of Scandicci”, who was there with his father. His father and uncle had arrived on bicycles, and had tossed the gun in a ditch after the deed. His father had told him to name Francesco as the shooter, while “uncle Piero” had claimed to see “Salvatore in the reeds”.

Two days later, a new interview saw Natalino naming his uncle “Pietro” as the shooter. To identify “Pietro”, Natalino gave many conflicting details, though most fit with Piero Mucciarini. He lived in Scandicci, worked nights (though not, as Natalino claimed, as a tiler), parted his hair on the right and was married to aunt Antonietta. However, Natalino also had an uncle Pietro Locci, Barbara’s brother, and at one point Natalino claimed the one who walked him to the De Felice house was “uncle Vincenzo’s brother” (i.e. Pietro Locci). When pressed, the boy proved confused by his many uncles with similar names. Natalino also claimed that “Pietro” had rummaged around the glove compartment after the shooting. Barbara’s bag, tucked under the chair, had 27,000 lire in it.

The money was the last of a settlement paid to Stefano – ultimately by his own father, in an apparent scheme by the Vincis, where Salvatore had Francesco’s Lambretta registered to Mele and then Francesco and Stefano had an accident, putting Stefano in the hospital. While Stefano recuperated, Francesco took up residence in his house, eventually getting him charged and convicted with family abandonment. Stefano, in the company of Piero Mucciarini, had withdrawn 500,000 lire to pay for house repairs in june of 1968 (the bricklayer hired was one Antonio Lo Bianco). But the money had largely dissipated, with 150,000 loaned to Salvatore Vinci. Excepting the contents of Barbara’s purse, the rest of it was never found.

Natalino repeated his story to the examining magistrate a month later, claiming he had forgot about uncle Pietro when first questioned back in August. An astonished Stefano proclaimed he had no idea why Natalino would indicate one of his uncles. But as the case went to trial, Natalino retracted all accusations against his uncle Pietro to the judge, while in the company of another uncle, Giovanni Mele. On March 25 1970, Stefano Mele alone was convicted of the murders of Barbara Locci and Antonio Lo Bianco, despite Stefano’s insistence that Francesco Vinci had done the crime. The murder weapon had not been found, not at the site nor in any house belonging to the suspects. After an appeal trial, Stefano went into prison where he would sit when the gun was fired again at Borgo San Lorenzo in 1974, and again in Scandicci in 1981. At that point, Stefano had been moved to a halfway house near Verona, where on July 27 1982 Tricomi and Dell’Amico came to visit.

Pista Sarda – Francesco Vinci

Confronted by the investigators, Stefano Mele retracted any confession and placed all blame on Francesco Vinci alone, who had threatened to kill his wife and did so when Stefano was sick at home. Natalino would have told him of this when he brought him home the first night after the murder. The investigators, happy to finally have an investigative track, started to investigate Francesco Vinci, and immediately found something.

In the evening of June 20th, the day after the Baccaiano murder, Francesco Vinci’s car was found by in the Grosseto province, more than 100 km south of Florence, hidden within some foliage. The Grosseto carabinieri had thought little of it at the time. Francesco himself had not been seen since. After the interception of some phone calls, and an interview with his wife, an arrest warrant was put out on Francesco Vinci for spousal abuse, and he was finally arrested on August 15th in Firenzuola, just north of the Mugello valley. Neither the suspect nor the public knew the real reason for his arrest.

The Mele clan were once again interviewed, under the cover story that a revision of Stefano’s sentence for the Signa murders was planned. Natalino, now in his early 20s, claimed not to remember anything but a “shadow” that led him away from the scene. Mele’s sisters and father all suspected the Vincis, with 92-year old Palmerio Mele claiming Francesco Vinci had lured his son into a trap. Antonietta (Mucciarini’s wife), dying of cancer, revealed that the eldest Vinci brother Giovanni had come to her in the days of Stefano’s trial and claimed to know who the “real killer” was. Younger brother Giovanni Mele summed up the family’s view of Stefano: that he was weak and easily led by his friends, and not capable of planning a murder on his own.

When presented with a guarantee that he wouldn’t be charged again, Stefano asked to see his son before telling everything. Natalino met his father for the first time in years, then told the investigators what Stefano had said: that he had been at the scene with Francesco Vinci, who had done the deed and escorted Natalino. What happened to the gun he had forgotten. Stefano confirmed the story. Now the investigators had a self-proclaimed witness to Francesco’s deed.

Prosecutors Vigna (who more and more had taken lead on the case, in spite of Izzo) and Della Monica arranged a confrontation between Francesco Vinci and Stefano Mele. Down from Verona, Stefano accused Francesco of murdering his wife while Francesco calmly watched. Only when Stefano claimed Francesco cleared himself of the paraffin test by washing his hands in gasoline did Francesco in any way seem nervous. The investigators had also ascertained that Francesco Vinci had gotten out of prison five days before the 1974 murders and had headed up to Borgo San Lorenzo to confront one of his lovers around the time of the killings.

Francesco Vinci’s relatives were interviewed, starting with his nephew. The son of Salvatore, Antonio, had been a suspected accomplice in many of Francesco’s criminal activities. Antonio informed the police that the rest of the family rejected Francesco as the black sheep of the family, Salvatore in particular. Salvatore himself claimed that his sister-in-law had told him Francesco kept a gun in the Lambretta, though he had never seen it himself. Salvatore blamed his hate for his brother on Francesco’s “misleading” of his son Antonio.

Eldest brother Giovanni Vinci was also heard, regarding his contacts with Antonietta Mele. Back the 60s, Giovanni had heard from a friend, Silviano Vargiu (who had been Salvatore’s alibi for the murder) that Francesco had been the shooter. When Giovanni tried to confront Francesco, he retaliated by spreading the story that Giovanni, back in Sardinia, had slept with their underage sister Lucia. Old rumors of that event had made Giovanni an outcast, and combined with the rumors surrounding Salvatore’s wife’s death, it had been an impetus for the brothers to move to the mainland. When Francesco brought it back to light, Lucia had attempted suicide, and an enraged Giovanni had even acquired a gun.

On November 6th 1982, the public finally found out about the suspect when Francesco Vinci was charged with the Monster killings. Apart from Stefano’s accusation, the case was based on testimony from Lo Bianco’s relatives about Francesco’s jealousy (Antonio Lo Bianco had made a wager with Francesco that he would “get” Barbara Locci, which Francesco didn’t think him capable of). After the murders, Francesco’s wife would have apologized to the Lo Biancos at Antonio’s funeral. A neighbor claimed to have seen Francesco practice shoot with a handgun in a field.

Francesco maintained his denial without falter. While there was some disbelief (and perhaps disappointment) that the killer was a Sardinian gangster and not an upper-class doctor or priest, the public was relieved that the Monster was caught. The prosecutors started to build their case. Since the gun hadn’t been found, a lot of time was spent trying to find out if Francesco used Norzetam – an empty package of the medicine had been found at Baccaiano. Francesco’s son-in-law Antonio Giovannetti provided him with an alibi – he had helped him fixing his roof in Montelupo until nearly midnight, but the investigators considered that the relatively short distance between Montelupo and Baccaiano made this irrelevant. As for the car in Grosseto, Francesco claimed he was looking into a vacation destination, something his wife denied. Francesco was suspected of crimes in the area.

In April 1983, Tricomi was replaced as examining magistrate by Mario Rotella, who immediately commissioned new psychological evaluations, and scheduled new interviews for the summer. The investigation seemed well on track, until it was – once again – completely upended by a new murder.

GIOGOLI

Friday, September 9th 1983. Jens Uwe Rusch, a 24-year old student from the University of Münster, and his friend and secret lover, Horst Meyer, had parked their Volkswagen van in a scenic field just off Via di Giogoli. On the other side of the road was Villa la Sfacciata, ancient home of the Vespucci family. The 23-year old Horst, who had studied arts and graphics at the University of Osnabrück, had taken a trip with Uwe after finishing his courses. They had created a makeshift bed in the back of the van, elevating a mattress on which Horst lay on his stomach. Beside him, Uwe was leafing through a magazine. The car radio played a cassette with the Blade Runner soundtrack on repeat.

Murder site

The first bullet was fired through one of the right side windows of the van, hitting Horst in the side. He died immediately. The Monster fired once more, striking the dead Horst in the buttocks. Meanwhile, a terrified Uwe leaped from the bed into the back right corner of the van, where the shooter wouldn’t have an angle. The Monster ran around the van and fired twice through the left-side windows. Uwe was struck in the neck by ricocheting bullets, but managed to get to the right side of the van, once again denying the Monster a proper angle. In frustration, the Monster tried shooting through the metal where Uwe would be, to no avail. But unfortunately, the youths had forgotten to lock the side door.

Once the Monster had stepped inside, there was little Uwe could do as he sat hunched in the back. The last two shots hit him in the face, killing him. After the deed, the killer picked up the magazine Uwe had been reading, a pornographic magazine called “Golden Gay”. Perhaps since he couldn’t use his knife on a female victim, the Monster took the magazine outside, across a hedge, where he cut and tore the magazine to shreds.

The next morning, Rolf Reinecke, like the victims a German citizen ,who lived in one of the houses belonging to Villa la Sfacciata, passed the van without noticing anything wrong. In the evening he took a closer look and found the bullet holes. The police soon arrived, and while they had never been good at securing the previous crime scenes, the Giogoli scene preservation was notoriously poor. Autopsies soon showed that one of the bullets in Horst was copper-coated, like the ones from Signa and Borgo San Lorenzo. All the rest were lead bullets, and would remain so for the remaining murders.

Pista Sarda – Giovanni Mele & Piero Mucciarini

Rotella and the prosecutors, with a suspect about to go on trial, at first thought it was the work of a different killer, perhaps someone who wanted to free Francesco. The first one considered was his nephew Antonio, who was charged with theft of weapons at the end of October. Due to jurisdictional issues, Antonio was tried in Prato where he was acquitted. Silvano Vargiu, who had given Salvatore his alibi for Signa, and told of the argument between Giovanni and Francesco, was further investigated and found to have lived next door to De Felice, the house where Natalino had been led, in 1968. Still, no real connection could be found.

Rotella decided to have another go at Stefano Mele in January 1984. After a long and confused two-day interview, Stefano retracted his accusations against Francesco, accused an otherwise unknown Sicilian named Angelo or Salvatore, then Carmelo Cutrona again (though he had managed to forget his name) and at one point – astonishingly – his wife’s brother Pietro Locci. Rotella found this strange, and also thought the behavior of Stefano’s brother Giovanni, in whose house Mele was interviewed, suspicious. A few days later Rotella returned with a search warrant for Giovanni’s house, where he lived with Stefano, his sister Maria, and the widowed Piero Mucciarini with his daughter.

The search proved fruitful. In Stefano’s wallet was found a note from 1982, written by Giovanni, said Natalino had mentioned his “uncle Pieto” to the police. Rotella remembered Natalino’s confused accusations against what was first “Piero of Scandicci”, then “uncle Pietro” (with traits seemingly taken from both Piero Mucciarini and Pietro Locci) and finally retracted to the judge in Giovanni Mele’s company. The solution seemed obvious: It was Piero Mucciarini who had fired the gun at Signa and led Natalino away, then took Stefano to lie to the Carabinieri and say Salvatore Vinci had been the shooter. “Uncle Pietro” from 1969 and “Uncle Pieto” from 1982 would then be attempts by Giovanni and Piero to divert the authorities from Natalino’s admission and lead them towards Pietro Locci instead.

All in all, it was a rather complex theory, and not everyone agreed with Rotella. Giovanni himself claimed he was just writing down some facts for Stefano, who was easily led to changing his stories. But Stefano changed his story once more – now he claimed that his brother and brother-in-law had been with him in Signa and orchestrated the murder. Stefano had complained to Giovanni and Piero about his wife’s infidelities, and they had decided to have her killed while in the act. The blame would then naturally fall on one of the Vinci brothers.

Rotella immediately arrested Giovanni Mele and Piero Mucciarini. The former’s car had been searched, and ropes and knives had been found. Giovanni claimed that he used the knives to cut corks, which forensic tests confirmed, but the large number of blades in his possession worked against him. Antonio Lo Bianco’s widow testified that Giovanni had spoken to her at her husband’s funeral and told her that Barbara was a dead woman walking and that Antonio just happened to be the one with the bad luck to be with her when it caught up with her. As for Piero Mucciarini, it emerged that two months after the murders in Signa, he had left his job at the bakery and began a long descent into alcoholism that lasted throughout the seventies.

In further interviews with the Mele clan, their distaste for Barbara Locci and her adulterous ways became clear, as well as their disdain for Stefano. It was revealed that Stefano did not just stay passive regarding Barbara’s lovers – he sought them out for her. Some of them even believed Natalino to be Salvatore Vinci’s son. Even worse, when Stefano and Barbara briefly moved back in with Stefano’s father, Barbara argued with and mistreated old Palmerio until he sold his house at below market value (dividing the money between his children) just to get away. Stefano and Barbara bought a run-down house in Lastra a Signa where they lived at the time of the murder. Palmerio, still concerned for his grandson, had his kin settle the many debts Barbara acquired on behalf of her lovers.

Florence now had two Monsters – three in fact, since Francesco Vinci wasn’t released. Rotella and the others still believed he knew something. But if Rotella thought the case would be busted wide open, he was to be disappointed. Apart from his proclivities for knives, there was nothing connecting Giovanni Mele to any of the post-1974 murders. One of his old lovers was brought in to testify about Giovanni’s morbid sexual life, but added little that was damning rather than salacious. Stefano had claimed Giovanno had taken them all to Signa in a car, but he didn’t own one in 1968. For Mucciarini, there wasn’t even that. Attempts were made to compare him to the notorious identikit taken of the Alfa Romeo driver at Calenzano, but Mucciarini hadn’t driven a car in his life. Still, Stefano had put them at the scene, and the gun was the same, so a connection had to be there.

While in the middle of building a case against Mele and Mucciarini, Rotella and the investigators were informed that the Monster had struck again.

VICCHIO

Sunday, July 29th 1984. When he was a child, Claudio Stefanacci’s father died in a car accident. Since then, the 21-year old had been balancing his law studies with helping his mother run her store in the village of Vicchio in the Mugello valley, not far from where, ten years earlier, the Monster had struck. His girlfriend, 18-year old Pia Rontini was born in Copenhagen to a Danish mother and the son of a famous Italian painter. In May 1984 she returned to her family home in Vicchio after having attended culinary school in Denmark. The two had been childhood sweethearts, and everyone assumed they would marry. On July 29th, she had been let off early from her job at the bar “La nuova spiaggia” and her father suggested she’d go out with Claudio and have some fun. He picked her up at nine in his Fiat Panda 30, and they drove to a secluded spot not far away.

Murder site

The Fiat Panda had seats that could fold down into a bed, making it a favorite among Italian youths in the 80s. The bed was partially made and the youths were frantically undressing each other, Claudio sitting in front of Pia. Perhaps the Monster made a sound, making the couple turn to look out the window. Shooting through the passenger side window, the Monster’s first bullet hit Claudio in the left side. Instinctively, Claudio leaped forward to shield Pia with his body. The Monster’s second shot missed, hitting Claudio’s discarded trousers, but the third took him in the stomach. Unfortunately, Claudio’s deed had pinned down Pia, leaving her helpless when the Monster slowly reached inside and placed a bullet each in their heads.

With both youths immobilized, the killer opened the door, leaving partial (and useless) fingerprints. Claudio was stabbed ten times with the blade, then turned over so that the Monster could drag Pia outside by her feet. Once she was out of the car, she received two stab wounds to the neck before the Monster got to work. Perhaps it frustration over the two missed opportunities that made him go further than ever before. Not only did he cut off and remove Pia’s genitalia, he also ripped off her left breast.

The murders in Vicchio were devastating for the prestige of the Florentine investigators. Three men had been publicly arrested for the murders that just wouldn’t stop. Piero Luigi Vigna took the initiative to show the resolve of the police and prosecutors and organized a special task force, Squadra Anti-Mostro, the Anti-Monster Squad (SAM). SAM incorporated prosecutors, police and carabinieri, and was headed by Sandro Federico who had been the leading policeman on the case since Scandicci 1981. Two new prosecutors were added to SAM, Francesco Fleury and Paolo Canessa, the latter of which would eventually replace Izzo as the lead prosecutor. Vigna also commissioned a detailed forensic and psychological evaluation from Francesco De Fazio, criminology professor at the University of Modena.

The lawyers of the three imprisoned Sardinians immediately called for their release. Rotella still believed that all suspects knew something at the very least about the Signa murders, but was forced to set the prisoners free in October 1984. Undaunted, he then turned to a name that had been reoccurring throughout the whole investigation. The first one accused by Mele, and one who seemed to hold a special power over him. The last of the Sardinians, Salvatore Vinci.

Pista Sarda – Salvatore Vinci

Faced with the clear innocence (at least for the post-Signa crimes) of Francesco Vinci, Giovanni Mele and Piero Mucciarini, Salvatore became an appealing target for Rotella. One of Stefano’s least convincing elements in the latest accusations against his relatives was the question of transportation. At first Stefano claimed that Giovanni drove them all in his car, but his brother didn’t own one in 1968. Stefano then started involving another brother-in-law, Marcello Chiaramenti, the only one in the family with a car at the time, making the murder seem like a family outing.

Salvatore did own a car, though, and had seemed keen to accuse his own brother of owning the gun. The episode back in 1968, where a tearful Stefano apologized to Salvatore for accusing him, also interested Rotella. And as a final oddity, when testifying at Stefano’s trial, Salvatore was wearing Barbara Locci’s wedding ring on his finger. Rotella, Izzo and colonel Torrisi of the carabinieri started digging into the life of Salvatore Vinci, and soon found, if not a smoking gun, then at least an explanation for Stefano’s behavior.

As it turns out, Salvatore was notorious for inviting both men and women into his bed, often at the same time. His second (ex-)wife Rosina Massa told of being forcibly shared with other men or couples. Armed with this knowledge, Rotella questioned Stefano Mele in May of 1985, and he admitted to being one of Salvatore Vinci’s lovers, often together with his wife Barbara. Fear of outing and lingering sentiment for Salvatore would have kept him from giving him up to the police. Immediately, Stefano added Salvatore to the now large crowd of relatives that accompanied him Signa.

Salvatore had claimed an alibi for the 1968 murder, having played billiards with two friends, Silviano Vargiu and Nicola Antenucci. The alibis had seemed shaky even back then, with Antenucci getting the weekday wrong, and Vargiu admitting he had talked to Salvatore about the alibi before the questioning and had been unsure of the exact date. Antenucci (who had been 18 at the time, and had since fallen out with Salvatore) had already retracted his alibi in 1983, when Salvatore wasn’t a suspect, now certain they had played on Tuesday, not Wednesday (the day of the murder).

While Salvatore Vinci was investigated in Florence, colonel Torrisi had gone to Sardinia to check on the death of Salvatore Vinci’s first wife in 1960. According to Stefano Mele, Salvatore had confessed to killing her with gas and making it look like a suicide, while keeping his infant son Antonio safe. In the Vinci hometown of Villacidro, the already tragic story took on even darker shades, and the investigators thought they had a solid case for murder, which if successful, could be a stepping stone to prove Salvatore Vinci was the Monster.

Perhaps the biggest find was a rag, stuffed into some other rags, found in Salvatore’s house on a search the day after the Vicchio murders, but not tested until April 1985. On the rag was found blood of the type 0, and traces of gunpowder.

Throughout the summer, Salvatore was under intense surveillance, and as September approached it seemed they had driven their target to caution. For unknown reasons, the carabinieri let their guard down and left Vinci without a tail for an entire weekend. Naturally, that’s when the Monster struck again.