MAKING HEADWAY
Furthermore, it could have been an alkaloid that left no trace in the stomach. That could have occurred through elimination, while the body was still alive or after death, or due to transformations occurred after dying. That assertion is much more valid in cases of volatile substances or those that break down rapidly.
Faced with these circumstances, the superior magistrates considered that it had not been established forensically whether or not Wilma Montesi had utilized some dose of narcotics. Therefore, the exam was not negative, but rather useless, since it had only checked to make sure there were no traces of narcotics in the stomach at the time of investigation. Those traces could have been found in other organs, and even in the stomach itself, at a previous moment.
“YOUR SMALL HEART”
Magistrate Sepe was struck by the small size of Wilma Montesi’s heart. He asked the specialists if that circumstance could have provoked a fainting spell when the girl was bathing her feet. The experts said no: the hypothesis was absolutely indemonstrable that Wilma’s particular physiological condition could have caused a collapse due to the small size of her heart.
However, they said something else: “The small size of her heart could have produced a collapse, given the provision of narcotics.”
The detailed examination of the body allowed it to be established that Wilma had a lower than normal sexual sensitivity. Magistrate Sepe considered that this could be an explanation for the provision of narcotics, for anyone might have put that resource in practice to provoke an arousal that would not have occurred in normal circumstances. Or to break down the victim’s resistance.
INSIDE AND OUT
They had to definitively discard the hypothesis that the sea had removed Wilma’s garments. In order for that to have occured the body would have had to be submitted to violent wave action, which the seventeen threads of the coat’s single button would not have withstood. However, the corpse was not wearing a garter, an item so tightly attached to her body that a former servant of the Montesi family declared that on several occasions, to remove it or put it on, Wilma had requested her help.
It was necessary to accept that someone other than Wilma had removed her clothes, probably by force, or probably when she was under the effect of narcotics. However, the coat continued to be an enigma: it is strange that they would have taken off her garter but not the easiest garment to remove—her coat.
Why not think of something more logical? For example: Wilma was completely undressed when she suffered the collapse. In his nervousness, her unknown companion, trying to destroy the traces of his action, had tried to hurriedly dress her. That’s why the coat was there. Because it was the easiest item to take off, but also the easiest to put back on. And that’s why the garter belt was gone.
THE DEFINITION
Magistrate Sepe, having examined these and other details, not all of which are indispensable, arrived at the conclusion that the state of unconsciousness Wilma Montesi was in before her death was the result of a culpable act, or a malicious act. Those were the alternatives. Culpable homicide would have to prove that the person responsible did not know Wilma was still alive when he abandoned her body on the beach. Curiously, one of the first to give a statement had said that Wilma had participated in a pleasure party, had suffered a collapse because of the drugs, and had been abandoned on the beach.
TWO LINKED QUESTIONS
Faced with such an alternative, there is a principle in Italian law called favor rei, the king’s favor. This means that, in the case of doubt between a serious crime and a less serious one, the suspect must be tried for the less serious crime. The first part of article 83 of the Italian penal code says: “If through an error in the use of the means of execution of the crime, or for another cause, an event different from that desired is occasioned [concealment of an alleged corpse, in this case], the guilty party responds, by way of guilt, for the undesired event, when the event has been provided for by the law as a culpable crime.” On the basis of that article, Magistrate Sepe defined the death of Wilma Montesi as a culpable homicide. Who committed that homicide?
THE CENTRAL CHARACTER
For the time being, Magistrate Sepe could not mention any names. But there were some important things: from the five bruises, it could be deduced that the positioning of the body in the water, on Torvaianica beach, could have happened when Wilma was unconscious. That is, the accident had occurred somewhere else and the victim had been transported to the deserted spot. In that place, the seashore is more than forty feet away from the paved road, where the car that was carrying Wilma Montesi must have stopped. Between the road and the sea there is a sandy area, difficult to cross. In consideration of the victim’s weight and the location of the five bruises, Sepe concluded that Wilma Montesi was carried from the car to the beach by at least two individuals.
“Who are those two individuals?” Sepe must have asked himself, scratching his bald and shiny head. Until now, he only had one clue: the possibility that Wilma Montesi had been in contact with drug traffickers. That was when the investigator, perhaps jumping up out of his chair as detectives do in the movies, asked himself the surprising question that nobody had asked up till then: “Who was Wilma Montesi?”
The Myth of the Ingenuous Girl Collapses
From the very first police reports the public was given the impression that the Montesi family was an example of modesty, tact, and innocence. The newspapers themselves contributed to creating that impression, devising the ideal image of Wilma Montesi: an ingenuous girl, free of malice or guilt, victim of the monstrous drug traffickers. There was, however, a bulging contradiction: it was inconceivable that a girl adorned with such exalted attributes would have had any connection to that class of people or would have participated, as was said, in a “pleasure party” that cost her her life.
Sepe realized the character was badly constructed and arranged to verify it with an in-depth investigation into the true family atmosphere and into Wilma Montesi’s secret life.
THE FALLEN IDOL
“Wilma’s mother,” wrote the magistrate once his investigation was completed, “did not enjoy a good reputation in the neighborhood and had imparted to her daughter, from the early years of her childhood, a not very strict upbringing, accustoming her to not washing and to dressing with a luxury disproportionate to her economic and social condition.” Wilma Montesi’s image as a poor, ingenuous girl, victim of drug traffickers, began to crumble before the onslaught of a cold and impartial investigation. Wilma Montesi’s own mother set a bad example at home of pompous elegance and bad taste. “She was,” says the summary, “authoritarian with her husband, despotic toward the whole family, and even violent to her own mother, uttering vulgar words and coarse expressions during the frequent scenes of domestic strife.”
THE MYSTERY OF THE PURSE
That behavior influenced Wilma’s upbringing to such an extent that in an altercation she recently had with a neighbor, she used a string of unpublishable swearwords, literally transcribed in the summary. Shortly after her death, the proprietor of the Di Crema department store, on Vía Nazionale, heard that two girls who knew Wilma, but not later identified, said, referring to the victim, “It was to be expected, the life she lived couldn’t have ended any other way.”
Rodolfo Montesi’s daily earnings were no more than fifteen hundred lire. However, in the final days of Wilma Montesi’s life she owned a genuine crocodile-skin purse, estimated by experts to be worth eighty thousand lire. It was not possible to establish the origin of that purse.
STRONG WORDS
One of the first things the police had proven seemed to have been forgotten: after her fiancé was transferred to Potenza the girl acquired the habit of going out every day, in the afternoon. She never returned home later than half past seven, it was claimed. But an unidentified doctor, who lived in the last building of number 76 Tagliamento, told a pharma
cist on Vía Sebazio, who in turn revealed to the police, that he had, on occasion, opened the main door for Wilma after midnight.
For five months, Annunciata Gionni worked as a servant for the Montesi family household. The maid revealed to the police the exact opposite of what the family had told them: loud arguments were frequent in Rodolfo Montesi’s absence, and sometimes Wilma’s mother had shouted at her using very strong expressive words, which slightly toned down might be translated as “whore” and “wretch.”
TWO LITTLE SISTERS
It was also said that every morning, around eight, once their father had left the house, the two sisters would go out, until two in the afternoon. The former maid confirmed that fact, but said she hadn’t thought it important because she imagined the two girls must have jobs.
In the afternoons, even after her engagement to Giuliani, Wilma Montesi received numerous telephone calls. Before answering, she closed the door of the room and spoke in a low and cautious voice. But nobody was in a position to say whether it was always the same caller, or whether they were long-distance calls. If this were the case, they couldn’t have been from Giuliani, in the last months, because at the time Wilma Montesi died there was not yet direct telephone communication between Rome and Potenza.
SUSPICIOUS ATTITUDE
As for the behavior of the family after Wilma’s death, the magistrate verifies, by tapping their telephone, that Wilma’s mother took advantage of the publicity the newspapers gave to her daughter’s death. She herself charged several hundred lire for information and “on a certain occasion,” says the brief, “deplored the scanty fee and urged the journalists to write a spicier article.” From this and other inquiries, the investigating magistrate reached the conclusion that Wilma Montesi had led “a double life.” Used to luxury beyond the means of her social position from an early age, raised in a family environment not exactly characterized by excessive severity in its habits and customs, Wilma dreamed of a better future and enjoyed total freedom to go out when she wanted, morning or afternoon.
It was therefore not implausible that this real Wilma Montesi—so different from the one constructed by the newspapers—should have been in contact with drug traffickers and might have participated in a “pleasure party.”
THE TELEPHONE
The magistrate then looked back and remembered Wanda Montesi’s first declaration, later amended: “Wilma had gone out without fixing herself up, simply because she hadn’t had time. Maybe she’d had to run out after an urgent telephone call.” That declaration leads us to think that Wanda was sure that her sister could receive urgent telephone calls and rush out without previous plans and that she even had secret relationships, never revealed by the family to the police.
Rodolfo Montesi, the only person who could have imposed an atmosphere of severity in his home, did not have time to attend to such obligations. His work absorbed almost all his hours and he barely had time to go home for lunch.
WHAT DID THE PRINCE DO?
But before going any further, one testimony must be analyzed: someone declared that they’d seen Prince D’Assia in a light-colored automobile in the company of a girl, on the afternoon of April 9, near the area where the crime was committed. A lawyer heard about this and told the lawyer representing Ugo Montagna, who stirred up a huge scandal: he spoke to the witness, who confirmed the testimony. When the witness’s wife learned that he had spoken, she exclaimed, “Idiot. I told you to keep your mouth shut. That girl was Wilma Montesi.”
Prince Mauricio D’Assia, a young Italian aristocrat, over six feet tall and as thin as a rake, was called to make a statement. He denied that his companion had been Wilma Montesi. But he also refused to reveal the girl’s name, because Prince D’Assia is a total gentleman.
LET’S SEE
However, chivalry must be set to one side, for Magistrate Sepe does not accept such alibis as valid. He revealed the name of a distinguished young lady of Roman high society, who was called to make a statement, and confirmed the prince’s version of his trip to the Capacotta estate on April 9. Furthermore, the gasoline receipt demonstrated that the prince had bought five gallons of fuel that afternoon for the trip.
The allegations against Prince D’Assia turned out to be inconsistent. But there were other concrete allegations that it was necessary to examine: those against Ugo Montagna and Piero Piccioni. But before going any further it is time to inform the reader of something he has undoubtedly been wanting to know for several days, but only now is it appropriate to reveal: Wilma Montesi was a virgin.
Revelations About Piccioni and Montagna
The magistrate for the Montesi case established the following facts about the life of Piero Piccioni: He had a bachelor’s apartment on Vía Acherusio, at number 20, for his exclusive use, at which he organized parties in the company of friends and women. That apartment was not registered with the building’s concierge. The actress Alida Valli admitted having been to that place several times “to listen to records.”
According to various testimonies, Piero Piccioni is a man “of refined taste in love.” They revealed that he resorted to the use of narcotics as stimulants.
It was demonstrated that, in Montagna’s company, he frequented a small bar on Vía del Babuino, where, as will be recalled, someone heard Andrea Bisaccia say, “Wilma Montesi could not have died by accident, because I knew her very well.” That establishment was closed by the police, owing to the fact that “young existentialists, and people who used narcotics or were at least of dubious morality, congregated there.”
“THE MARCHESE”
Regarding the life of Ugo Montagna, known as the Marchese of San Bartolomeo, an elegant and well-connected man, it was established, according to the terms of the pretrial brief:
“Born in Grotte, in the province of Palermo, on November 16, 1910, into a family of very modest social and economic position, some of whom had prison or police records. His father, Diego, was arrested on the first of April 1931, ‘on the orders of a higher court,’ in Pistoia, and banished on the 27th of the same month. One of his brothers was condemned to several years in prison for fraud and concealment.
“In 1930, Ugo Montagna left his hometown and moved to Pistoia, and later returned to Palermo, where he was arrested for the first time for falsifying bills of exchange. Released from prison, with provisional liberty, on May 23, 1936, he was banished to Rome on the 28th of the same month.”
MARRIED WITH CHILDREN
“Ugo Montagna”—the brief went on—“married Elsa Anibaldi in Rome, in 1935. Imprisoned again, he was freed, by an amnesty, in 1937, when he was serving a sentence for the usurpation of the title of a chartered accountant.
“After a brief period of cohabitation with his wife, with whom he had a son, he separated from her for reasons of jealousy and interests and, especially, because, dissipating all his earning on women of easy virtue and pleasure trips, he did not even provide her with the basic means of subsistence.
“In May of 1941, due to a neighbor’s complaints, he was advised by police to abstain from holding the nocturnal parties that, with dancing, singing, and commotion, took place in his residence, in the Flaminio area, and went on past midnight, to entertain his numerous string of guests of both sexes.” Currently he is a multimillionaire.
WITNESSES
The mechanic Piccini, who a year before had rushed to declare to the police his certainty that Wilma Montesi had been with a man, in an automobile stuck in the sand near the Capacotta estate, in the first half of March, was now summoned to make a formal statement. Piccini stated what he had seen: the man was approximately the same height as himself, five foot nine, balding, elegant, hatless, who spoke proper Italian, with a slight Roman accent.
However, this time it was revealed that Piccini had not gone alone to help the stranger. He’d gone with a workmate whose surname was De Francesco, who agreed with everything, except that the
man spoke Italian properly. According to De Francesco, the man in the car had a slight foreign accent. The two witnesses confronted each other. Piccini remained firm and in a formal identification picked out Piero Piccioni from among another three individuals with similar physical characteristics. Nevertheless, the fact should be taken into account that Piero Piccioni’s photograph had appeared, by that time, on innumerable occasions in all the newspapers.
THE MAN ON THE TELEPHONE
Among the things that Piccini said in his declaration, he remembered that the man in the automobile had been in a suspicious hurry to make a telephone call. At that hour it is not frequent for someone to speak on the telephone. The investigator called the administrator of the tobacco kiosk at the Ostia station, Remo Bigliozzi, so he could describe the man who made the telephone call. As far as he could remember, Bigliozzi described a swarthy man, with an oval face, dark hair, receding hairline, and in an incredible hurry to make a call. The witness said that as soon as he saw the photographs of Piero Piccioni, he had recognized him as the man who made the telephone call from his tobacco kiosk, in early March.
The Scandal of the Century Page 11