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.