by Johnny Sharp
Francesco Narducci
Victim
Pacciani’s death had widely been regarded as suspicious—many believed he had been poisoned to shut him up. The Narducci case was reopened, and more outlandish claims were made. Carlizzi argued that Narducci’s body had been switched for a decoy, and that was the one found in the lake. Investigators found the one remaining picture of the body and estimated that it was shorter than the doctor, despite a number of those present having positively identified him at the scene. They also found that the Narducci family successfully persuaded the authorities not to perform an autopsy on their son, a fact which was taken to indicate, rather improbably, that they were in on the whole diabolical conspiracy too. The explanation could have been more prosaic: The family wanted to conceal the fact that their son, according to many who knew him, had been addicted to prescription drugs. Sure enough, when Narducci’s body was exhumed and his DNA tested in 2002, it was found to be the doctor and not a decoy after all. However, this was not proof enough for Giutarri and his GIDES (Gruppo Investigativo Delitti Seriali—Serial Murders Investigation) squad, who concluded that his body had been hidden for 17 years after its initial switch with a decoy, then switched back and put in the coffin by the conspirators shortly before the exhumation. They also sent the body off for further examination and got the result they were looking for when the medical examiner reported that there were signs on the body of “more or less probable” strangulation.
In his and Douglas Preston’s book, The Monster of Florence, Spezi points out that in each case where “experts” were called up to prove a prosecution theory but had no way of doing so, they used vague language to say that such findings were “compatible with” whatever the prosecuting counsel theorized as being the case. However they came to their conclusion, the basic theory proposed by Giutarri’s team seems extraordinary when viewed in the cold light of day: An unidentified corpse had, for reasons unknown, been switched for the body of the real dead man, then switched back, as part of a wide-ranging Satanic conspiracy by infinitely wealthy professionals known as the School of the Red Rose (who, remember, may also have masterminded 9/11) to employ a bunch of decidedly hapless and invariably drunk peasants to conduct a 17-year series of highly ritualized and clinically executed murders without leaving a scrap of material evidence in their wake.
Such a theory might sound way too fanciful even for the most surreal of TV crime dramas, but having been fed the increasingly bizarre installments of this twisted tale in their morning papers, the Italian public had no reason to disbelieve it.
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Chapter 20—The “Mastermind” Is Unmasked
Since Doctor Narducci had died in Perugia, the authorities in that area had taken an increasingly active interest in the case; in particular, the Public Minster for Perugia, Judge Giuliano Mignini, agreed with Inspector Giuttari’s Satanic conspiracy theory and was keen to identify who had conspired to switch Narducci’s corpse and then unmask the wealthy Satanists who made up the shadowy, murderous sect behind the Mostro murders.
Mignini duly accused a former Perugia police chief, a police colonel, Narducci’s father and brother, members of the family’s legal team and the doctor who signed the death certificate.
Even more sensationally, in January 2004, Giuttari announced that they had identified the ringleader of the sect that met in the Villa of Horrors—a pharmacist from San Casciano named Francisco Calamandrei. His wife had suffered from schizophrenia and was eventually committed to a mental institution, but not before she had written to police accusing her husband of being the Monster and alleging that he had kept the victims’ body parts in their fridge. Although this claim was originally dismissed as a particularly deranged example of the anonymous accusation letters that had plagued the investigation for years, Calamandrei’s profession and his connection with San Casciano was enough to make Giuttari take a fresh look at the now-retired pharmacist.
Meanwhile, the chief inspector also managed to find witnesses who swore they had seen Dr. Narducci talking to Calamandrei and were frequent visitors to San Casciano, as well as acquaintances of Pacciani.
By another happy coincidence, the witnesses were Gabriella Ghiribelli, Norberto Galli and Francesco Neri, all of whom, in the original trial of Pacciani and the compagni di merendi (picnicking friends) had proved to be highly useful witnesses with incredible memories for events that had taken place some two decades previously.
The Italian media was happy to report every salacious revelation and outlandish conspiracy theory without too much critical comment. One journalist, at least, was determined to enforce a reality check. Mario Spezi had followed the case since the 1981 murders, and was regarded as one of the foremost “Monstrologists” covering the case.
However, his view of the case contrasted sharply with the new direction the official investigation was taking. He felt there had never been sufficient evidence to divert detectives from the Sardinian trail. Although official interest in this branch of the inquiry had seemingly ended with Antonio Vinci’s vanishing act back in 1988, Spezi had commented with unstinting skepticism and increasing disbelief as Giutarri and his men, later joined by Mignini and the authorities in Perugia, spun their all-encompassing web of intrigue.
Spezi outlined his alternative view of the case in May 2002 on the Italian TV show Chi l’ha visto? (“Who has seen him?”), the country’s equivalent of shows such as America’s Most Wanted.
Little did he know that he was inadvertently working his own way onto the ever-growing list of suspects.
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Chapter 21—New Forensic Evidence?
Mario Spezi had long held the view that the 1985 murders were, in fact, committed on the night of Saturday, September 7, rather than Sunday night, as the prosecuting authorities claimed. The journalist claims to have spoken to witnesses who reported seeing the tent surrounded by a foul stench and swarms of flies on Sunday afternoon (a date his source remembered because it was her birthday), and also pointed to forensic evidence such as the food found in the stomachs of the victims—rabbit tagliatelle, which a San Casciano restaurant waiter swore he had served to the couple on Saturday evening. Furthermore, Spezi argued that Nadine Mauriot’s daughter was due to start school on the Monday morning, which she had been due back home in France for. That would mean the couple would have expected to set off home from Italy early on Sunday afternoon at the very latest. He also ridiculed the investigators’ assertion that a curious pyramid-shaped object found at one of the crime scenes had occult significance and was evidence of the Satanic conspiracy. Spezi pointed out that these objects were commonly found in Tuscan households and were used as doorstops.
The main focus of this edition of the May 2002 edition of Chi l’ha visto?, however, was on a new examination of the 1985 crime scene by a forensics expert. The bodies had been badly decomposed, and larvae on the bodies had reached such a size that they could clearly be seen in photos taken on the afternoon of Monday September 9 when the bodies were discovered. The stage of development they had reached meant the bodies must have been dead for at least 36 hours when the photo was taken on the Monday afternoon.
This revelation was explosive, because the whole case against Pacciani, Vanni and Lotti had been based on sworn witness statements placing the accused at the scene (and committing the murder, which Lotti claimed to have taken part in) on the evening of Sunday, September 8. Pacciani had proof he was elsewhere on Saturday night, so any shift in the date of the murder would mean he had to be innocent. And without the whole Sunday night crime scene painted by the motley crew of witnesses, the Satanic conspiracy theory surrounding it, along with its link to the murder of Doctor Narducci, would irreparably collapse.
Giutarri, Mignini and the GIDES squad were too far down the road of demonic intrigue to turn back now, however, and they dismissed the program’s findings as insignificant. However, Spezi’s determination to disprove the official line of investigation—and expose th
ose behind it to public ridicule and professional humiliation—had not gone unnoticed. Giuttari became convinced that the wily old newshound had some highly sinister motives driving his tireless media campaign against them.
This tale of a thousand twists was about to take an even more surreal turn.
Chapter 22—The Hunter Becomes the Hunted
In November 2004, police raided the home of Mario Spezi, confiscating all his files and computer data about the case, and began to build a case against him for obstructing the course of justice.
Despite protests from official journalistic bodies such as the Committee to Protect Journalists that the raid was an attack on the freedom of the press, Spezi found himself threatened with imprisonment. That, it turned out, was just the start of the authorities’ case against him. Over the 18 months that followed, the spotlight of suspicion began to focus on a doorstop found in his house, which Giuttari claimed was identical to the occult ornament found at one of the murder scenes. Investigators also discovered that Spezi had also been a casual acquaintance of both Mario Vanni and Francisco Calamandrei as a young man, which they regarded as more than mere coincidence. In 2006, Mario Spezi found himself an official suspect, first for the murder of Francesco Narducci, the doctor found in Lake Trasimento, and then for involvement in the actual Monster of Florence murders!
The journalist had been writing a book on the case with American author Douglas Preston, which was due for release in April 2006.Soon enough, Preston also found himself the subject of unwelcome attention from the authorities. Less than two months before the book came out, Preston was interrogated by Judge Mignini and accused of trying to cover up for his co-author’s attempts to derail the GIDES investigation. He was told that he might consider it highly prudent to leave Italy if he did not want to face criminal charges.
In the end, Spezi spent 23 days in prison before the Italian Supreme Court ordered his release on the grounds that the prosecution had insufficient evidence to press criminal charges.
All this, of course, made for an even more compelling revised edition of his book with Spezi, which was released in English in 2008. Fox 2000 also snapped up the film rights to their story. A movie set to star George Clooney is slated for a 2013 release.
Nevertheless, in 2008, authorities leveled a new round of charges against Spezi, including murder (yet again), “vilification” (of Mignini) and disturbing the public order by means of the press. In a court deposition, Mignini also wrote that Preston was “undoubtedly involved” in the same murder cover-up and conspiracy, and he told several reporters that he would have Preston arrested if he ever returned to the country.
Meanwhile, the case against other accused individuals continued.
After a trial lasting nearly eight months, in May 2008, Francesco Calamandrei was finally cleared of all charges. Then in April 2010, 20 people indicted by Mignini and accused of involvement in the conspiracy also had their case thrown out of court by Perugia judge Paolo Micheli. Before either of those decisive blows to the investigation, Mignini was indicted on charges of abuse of office.
Guiliano Mignini
www.bbc.co.uk
He remains in power, and he was also one of the driving forces behind the investigation into the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, for which American student Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted in 2010, based partly on similarly shaky Satanic conspiracy theories, then subsequently released on appeal in October 2011.
The case offers disturbing echoes of the Monster investigation. The couple was accused on the basis of precious little material or forensic evidence of murdering Amanda Knox’s roommate when she refused to take part in what Mignini and colleagues described (again without a shred of evidence) as a “sex game.” This theory played well with an Italian public who already tended to view visiting foreign students as being morally decadent, and the theory was widely disseminated via media across the globe, all of whom were happy to lap up such salacious speculation and report it with very little skepticism. Similarly, in the Monster case, there is a very strong possibility that this kind of wild theorizing resulted in a huge miscarriage of justice.
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Chapter 23—The Mystery Endures
At the time of this writing, it is 43 years since that infamous .22 Beretta pistol claimed its first known victim, and 26 years since the last murders attributed to The Monster of Florence.
The trail of the killer now finally seems to have gone cold. Even the ever-growing and all-encompassing conspiracy theories that have dominated the official investigation over the last two decades have resulted in no lasting convictions, few satisfactory answers and, most importantly, precious little justice or feeling of closure for the many family and friends of the victims. In all honesty, the prospects of ever finding the answers they crave have never seemed more remote.
Those of us looking at the story now can only try to look again at the facts surrounding the case and try to make our own minds up from information which, in many cases, we cannot even be sure is entirely reliable.
Personally, after looking at the major theories about this case, my own view is that some may have come close to the truth, but no one as yet has identified The Monster of Florence.
Initially, it was perhaps understandable that increasingly desperate investigators should have homed in on Pacciani as a suspect. He continually came up on computer searches as someone with previous convictions for offenses involving both sex and violence, including a murder of a couple with superficial similarities to the Mostro murders. He had lived in the areas where the crimes took place and was at liberty to commit them.
The evidence now suggests he was elsewhere when the 1985 murders took place, and it also seems highly unlikely that a man of Pacciani’s age, stature, poor health and limited mobility could have performed murders that clearly appeared to have been committed by a man of above-average stature and athleticism, rather than a semi-invalid alcoholic peasant.
So what are we to make of apparently convincing evidence such as the bullet cartridge found in his garden? We could dismiss it as having been planted there by investigators to help them build a case; indeed, in The Monster of Florence, Mario Spezi describes interviewing a cop who claimed it had been planted there, and filming an interview with him saying as much. The film was pulled from TV transmission at the last minute. Whatever we make of that, though, in the cold light of day, it is the opinion of one person as to how the bullet shell got there. Yet even if we take that piece of evidence at face value, its significance fades in the shadow of the logistical and forensic clues that have since pointed to a very different conclusion.
The evidence against Vanni and Lotti looks even more suspect, and despite the latter’s “confession,” it surely resulted in an appalling miscarriage of justice when they were convicted in 1998. Both have since died in prison.
Likewise, the Satanic conspiracy hypothesis is severely lacking in substance. Inspector Giuttari never really came up with any convincing evidence beyond woolly assertions from self-appointed occult “experts” and barely credible statements from the same untrustworthy clutch of “witnesses,” whose words were contradicted by the evidence in the trial of Pacciani and friends. It all added up to a wafer-thin prosecution case that would be laughable if it hadn’t had such serious repercussions for those on the receiving end of it.
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Chapter 24—Sardinian Trail Or Blind Alley?
If we don’t buy the official line of inquiry that has seemingly been the only one pursued for more than 20 years now, we have to go back to the theory Judge Rotella, Judge Ferri, Spezi and Preston and the majority of the initial investigators followed—the belief that the .22 Beretta gun and its Winchester “H” series bullets must hold the key to the whole mystery.
Winchester cal .22 Bullets
Those distinctive shells were found at the 1968 murder scene, so we need to ask: Were the 1968 killings committed by
the same man responsible for the seven double murders that followed between 1974 and 1985?
The fact that the same bullets and the gun were used would suggest they were. At the very least, it suggests that the killer or killers of Barbara Locci and Antonio LoBianco had a close connection with the man who would become the Monster. Or are we to believe that a gun and two boxes of bullets would change hands between total strangers and then be used for a series of double murders strikingly similar to those 1968 murders several years later? It sounds unlikely, perhaps, but far from impossible.
Before we go down that route, however, we should consider one intriguing theory about how the gun connection was originally made.
Investigators originally had cause to look back on the 1968 murders some 14 years afterwards, in 1982, after they received a newspaper clipping suggesting they revisit it. By all accounts, it was something of a stroke of luck that the physical evidence from the murder scene had been preserved, as this was often not the case.
Some commentators on the case have suggested that the bullet shells that were found in the 1968 case file might actually have been planted by the murderer, or someone close to him, in order to send the investigation off on the wrong course and deflect attention away from himself.
It’s a tempting idea, not least because it would tally with some observers’ suspicions (which we will discuss in more detail shortly) that the Monster might well have had links to the police. However, no one has yet presented any solid evidence that the bullet shells were planted there, and the killer would need to have shot more bullets and then have access to the original evidence files to do that. What are the chances of that happening? Of course, we have learned from elsewhere in this case that theories can be very dangerous things when you let them lead an investigation and then look for “evidence” to back them up.