However, Wanda, Wilma’s sister, had a different opinion: she thought the girl had gone out without fixing herself up simply because she hadn’t had time. Maybe, she thought, she’d had to leave the house in a rush, after an urgent telephone call.
However, there was a third hypothesis: Wilma had run away with her fiancé and had traveled to Potenza that very night. To establish that, Rodolfo Montesi phoned Giuliani, Friday, April 10, at seven in the morning. But the disconcerted carpenter got nothing but the astonished reply of his future son-in-law. Giuliani had no news of Wilma, except for a letter that had arrived the previous afternoon. That letter offered no clues. It was just a conventional love letter.
Worried about his fiancée’s disappearance, Giuliani prepared to travel to Rome immediately. But he needed an urgent excuse to give to his superiors. So he told Rodolfo Montesi to send him a telegram. And at noon Rodolfo Montesi sent him a dramatic telegram. In four words, he said that Wilma had committed suicide.
A BODY ON THE BEACH
During the night of the 10th, the Montesi family and the Rome police force continued their search. It was a futile search, which Wilma’s fiancé joined after midnight, as soon as he arrived from Potenza. Nothing had been discovered by seven o’clock in the morning of the following day, Saturday, when a bricklayer, Fortunato Bettini, arrived by bicycle at a police station, to say there was a dead woman on Torvaianica beach, twenty-five miles from Rome.
Bettini told the police that when he was on his way to work he had seen the body on the beach, almost parallel to the water’s edge, with her head resting on her right shoulder, and that same arm raised and her hand beside her chin. The left arm was stretched down along her side. The body was missing her skirt, shoes, and stockings. She was wearing only an ivory-colored slip, a tight-fitting pair of white piqué underpants with embroidered edges, and a light sweater. Around her neck, held by a single button, she had a coat with green hexagons on a dark yellow background. The jacket was almost completely covered in sand, and open like a wing in the direction of the waves.
THE DEAD CHANGE POSITION
Bettini’s revelation was given to the agent on duty, Andreozzi Gino. At 9:30 in the morning, Carabinieri Amadeo Tondi, Sergeant Alessandro Carducci, and the local doctor, Agostino di Giorgio, met at the place of the macabre discovery. They discovered that the corpse was not in the same position in which the bricklayer said he’d found it: it was almost perpendicular to the shore, head toward the sea and feet toward the beach. But they did not think the bricklayer had lied, but rather that the waves had moved it from its earlier position.
After a brief examination of the cadaver, Dr. Di Giorgio verified:
That it was in the early stages of rigor mortis.
That external appearances suggested death had been caused by drowning, and had occurred approximately eighteen hours before discovery.
That the condition of the clothing and external appearance of the corpse ruled out a long period of time in the water.
“IT’S HER!”
At 11:30 Sergeant Carducci sent a telegram to the attorney general of the Republic, announcing the find. But at seven that night, having received no response, he decided to make a telephone call. Half an hour later the order was given to remove the cadaver and transport it to the Rome mortuary. It arrived there at midnight.
The next day, Sunday, at ten in the morning, Rodolfo Montesi and Angelo Giuliani went to the mortuary to see the corpse. Recognition was instantaneous: it was the body of Wilma Montesi.
The Reader Should Remember
That the concierge saw Wilma leave at 5:30, as she revealed to Rodolfo Montesi, who in turn reported it the police.
That on the night of April 9 nobody in the Montesi family home mentioned a probable visit to Ostia on the part of the girl.
That Wanda Montesi spoke of a mysterious telephone call.
In his report on April 12, Sergeant Carducci expressed the opinion, based on Dr. Di Giorgio’s conclusions, that Wilma Montesi’s death had been caused by asphyxiation due to drowning and there were no lesions caused by acts of violence. He also declared that, based on the same report, three hypotheses could be established: accident, suicide, or homicide. He also expressed the belief that the cadaver, from the area of Ostia, had been swept away by the sea and returned to the beach in the early hours of April 10. The same informant declared that on the night of April 10 a violent storm had raged in the area, and that the sea had afterward remained in a state of agitation, due to the effects of the wind that continued to blow in a northeasterly direction.
A CRUCIAL HALF HOUR
On April 14, the Salaria police station produced its own report on the Montesi family. According to that report, the carpenter’s family enjoyed a good reputation. Wilma was known to be a serious, reserved young woman without friends, who was officially engaged, since September 1952, to Officer Giuliani, who had been transferred, a few months before the death of his fiancée, from Marino to Potenza.
According to that report, Wilma’s behavior toward her family had always been excellent. She wrote to her fiancé often, and the last of those letters, dated April 8, which she had copied out in a notebook seized by the police, revealed a serene and calm affection.
The building’s concierge, according to the same report, agreed with Rodolfo Montesi on every point except one: she said she’d seen Wilma leave at five o’clock. Rodolfo Montesi said it had been 5:30.
That half-hour difference was crucial, because in Italy trains are very punctual. And Doctoresa Passarelli, a serious and reliable employee at the War Ministry, said she’d seen Wilma Montesi the afternoon of April 9 on the train to Ostia. And on April 9 the train to Ostia left at exactly 5:30.
THE HOUSE KEYS
After seeing photos of Wilma Montesi and reading about her death in the newspapers, Doctoresa Passarelli turned up on Monday the 13th, very early, at the family’s apartment, to tell them what she had seen on the Thursday. She said that Wilma had been in the same compartment of the train to Ostia as she, and that the girl had been traveling alone. Nobody had approached her or talked to her during the trip. According to Passarelli, Wilma got off the train at Ostia Lido, without haste, as soon as the train stopped.
The police established with the family what other garments Wilma was wearing when she left home, apart from those found on the body. She had been wearing stockings and high-heeled, deerskin shoes. She was also wearing a short, wool skirt, of the same material as the coat found on the body, and elastic garters. The family confirmed that when she went out she had left behind not only all the gold jewelry her fiancé had given her, but also his photograph. They also confirmed what the concierge had said: Wilma was carrying a square black leather purse, with a gold-colored metal handle. Inside the purse she had a little white comb, a small mirror, and a white handkerchief. She also had a key to their apartment.
NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING
This first police report declared that they hadn’t been able to establish any reason for suicide. Moreover, in the letter she had written to her fiancé the previous day, there was no indication that she would have made such a decision. It was also established that no member of the family, neither on the mother’s side nor on the father’s, had suffered mental disturbances. Wilma was in very good health. But it supplied a piece of information that could be of extraordinary importance in the investigation: on April 9 Wilma had just finished her menstrual cycle.
Despite numerous investigations, it could not be established that Wilma’s family had any knowledge of a possible trip to Ostia she might have planned. Her father had looked for her insistently along the Lungotevere, believing she had thrown herself in the river, but he could give no explanation other than a premonition. It was clearly established that the family had no idea if the girl knew anyone in Ostia. They assured the police that they
didn’t even know the way or the bus or streetcar connections they’d need to take to get to San Pablo station, where the trains leave for Ostia.
AN ENIGMA FOR THE EXPERTS
On the afternoon of April 14, at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Rome, Professors Frache and Carella performed an autopsy on Wilma Montesi. The police presented the experts with a questionnaire, with the aim of establishing the precise time and cause of death. And they specifically wanted them to determine whether it had been the result of drowning or if the girl was already dead when she was thrown into the water. They should also establish the nature of any anatomical irregularities discovered in the cadaver, and the eventual presence in the intestines of any poisonous or narcotic substances.
The experts were also requested to specify if death had really been caused by drowning, and the distance from the beach that Wilma fell into the water. They were asked to establish at the same time if the death could have been a consequence of special physiological conditions, or from the state of her digestion. This investigation was important, for it could be related to the fact that Wilma had wanted to dip her feet in the sea during the process of digestion.
SIX THINGS TO REMEMBER
On October 2, 1953, the experts returned the questionnaire with the following answers:
The death of Wilma Montesi had occurred on the “ninth of April,” between four and six hours after her final meal. According to the examination, her last meal (which must have been lunch at home) had been verified at between 2 and 3:30 in the afternoon. So the death must have occurred between 6 and 8 that night, for the digestive process was completely concluded. The team of specialists established that shortly before she died, Wilma Montesi had eaten ice cream.
Death had been occasioned by the asphyxia of total immersion and not by syncope in the water. No traces of any poisonous or sedative substances were found in the viscera.
At the moment of death, Montesi was in an immediate postmenstrual phase, that is to say, in circumstances of greater sensitivity to an unexpected immersion of her lower extremities in cold water.
The presence of sand in the lungs, in the gastrointestinal tract, should be interpreted as proof that the asphyxia had occurred in proximity of the beach, where the seawater has a notable quantity of sand in suspension. But at the same time, the ferruginous content of that sand was not consistent with the sand at Torvaianica beach, but rather with the sand from another nearby beach.
They observed, among other things, the presence of small ecchymosis, almost round in shape, on the lateral surface of the right thigh and on the upper third of the upper face of the left leg. They considered that those small bruises had been caused before death, but they were not deemed to have any forensic significance.
They did not find any elements that would allow them to determine if death resulted from “an accidental misfortune,” suicide, or homicide. The hypothesis of an accident was founded exclusively on the possibility that Wilma Montesi had suffered from a fainting spell while wading in the sea in the special physiological conditions she was in that day.
The Press Sounds the Alarm
Four days after the cadaver of Wilma Montesi was identified—on April 16—the investigation was considered definitively concluded, described as “an unfortunate accident.” The victim’s family, which on the day of the disappearance presented the police with sufficient arguments to sustain the hypothesis of suicide, contributed to the destruction of that hypothesis in the days following the identification of the corpse.
Contradicting everything she had said on the first day, Wanda Montesi declared before the investigating magistrates that her dead sister had invited her to go to Ostia on the morning of the 9th, “just” for a footbath in the sea. She wanted, according to what Wanda said, to submit an irritation on her heels caused by her shoes to the action of the seawater. To confirm that statement, Wanda remembered at the last minute that on that morning she’d gone to her father’s workshop, at Wilma’s request, to get a more comfortable pair of shoes. She said previously that both of them suffered from the same irritation and had tried to cure it with tincture of iodine. Later, methylated spirits having proved useless, they had resolved to travel “one of these days” to the beach at Ostia, in the hope that the natural iodine of seawater would bring them the longed-for improvement. But they had not spoken again about that trip. Only on the morning of the 9th, according to Wanda, her sister had remembered the trip again. But Wanda declined, because she was interested in seeing The Golden Coach.
IF SHE’D SAID SO EARLIER
After her refusal, Wanda said that Wilma did not mention the trip to Ostia again but said that she’d rather stay home while her mother and sister went to the cinema. And unlike what she’d said the first time, Wanda explained to the police that her sister had left her gold jewelry at home because her mother had repeatedly begged her to do so, to prevent them from getting lost or deteriorating. She also declared that she had not taken her fiancé’s portrait with her because she was not in the habit of taking it outside. Finally, she offered two important pieces of information to rule out the suicide hypothesis: In the first place, Wilma had seemed very serene on the morning of the 9th. And in the second place, before leaving she had washed her undergarments, after changing the ones she’d been wearing, for a clean set.
THE MYSTERY OF THE GARTER
In the inquiry carried out among Wilma’s relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances, another important truth was established: Wilma did not know how to swim. That’s why the previous year, when she was in Ostia with her family during the summer vacations, she had only sunbathed on the beach in her bathing suit or waded up to her ankles in the sea.
Wilma’s father also took back his original version that the girl had committed suicide. Rodolfo Montesi justified his first impression that Wilma had taken her own life with a very comfortable explanation: he said when he went out to look for her, on the night of the 9th, he did not know she’d invited her sister to travel to Ostia to take a footbath. And he explained that the dramatic telegram he had sent to Giuliani had been suggested by him during the telephone call: only with this shocking news could he get quick permission to travel to Rome that very night.
One thing still needed to be established: Rodolfo Montesi’s opinion on the fact that his daughter’s body had been found without her garter, which is intimate apparel, and which does not need to be removed for a footbath. Rodolfo Montesi explained: Wilma was an exuberantly shapely girl and did not enjoy sufficient freedom of movement when submitted to the pressure of garter belts.
A PAIR OF GLOVES
Signora Montesi also ruled out the hypothesis that her daughter had committed suicide. And she set out a strong argument: Wilma had taken her house keys with her, which demonstrated that she intended to return. However, she did not agree with the accident hypothesis, but instead tried to reinforce that of homicide. According to Signora Montesi, her daughter had been the victim of a seducer, who had found it necessary to remove her garters to carry out his brutal intentions. And to demonstrate how difficult it is to take a woman’s garter off, she showed the investigator one of Wanda’s garters, similar to the one Wilma was wearing and which was not found on the corpse. It was a black satin garter, eight inches high on the front side, decreasing toward the back, with a metal fastening of hooks and eyes. And she made the police realize that not only her skirt and shoes had disappeared but her black leather purse had disappeared as well.
The Reader Should Remember
That the notebook in which Wilma copied the letter she’d sent to her fiancé had been impounded as evidence.
That the Salaria police station’s report affirmed that the concierge saw Wilma leave at 5:00 p.m., and not at 5:30, as Rodolfo Montesi had said.
That the experts observed small bruises, but did not suggest the hypo
thesis that Wilma had been forcibly grabbed.
That the analysis to establish the presence of poisonous or sedative substances had only been done on the viscera.
Doctoresa Passarelli’s declaration.
On that occasion, Signora Montesi enriched the inventory of her daughter’s clothing with other objects. According to her, Wilma was wearing a pair of black musketeer’s gloves and a gold-plated wristwatch.
THE SILENT ADMIRER
However, Signora Montesi’s arguments were not given sufficient weight, and more importance was attributed to the reasons stated by Wanda to rule out the homicide hypothesis. Wanda explained that, when she told the police that her sister had left after an urgent telephone call, she’d forgotten two things: the conversation about the trip to Ostia, and the fact that there was nothing in Wilma’s life she didn’t know about. And incidentally, she remembered a recent case, five days before the death. Wilma told her that a young man had followed her in his automobile from Plaza Quadrata to her building, but without saying a word to her. According to Wanda, her sister had not seen her silent admirer again, for she surely would have told her.
The Scandal of the Century Page 7