Thinking Sideways: Monster of Florence

serial killer he's investigating. Sounds like one of our episodes, starring Titus Welliver as Bosch and based on a best selling novel by Michael Conley. Stream season three on Amazon Prime starting April one. Thinking Sideways roll to the what can happen today? I don't know stories of things. We simply don't know the answa ton Hey, thereon, Welcome to

another episode of Thinking Sideways. I am Joe, joined as always by Steve and Devin, and we're here for another cool mystery h this one from the lovely country of Italy. The Motherland. Yeah, that's right, Devon's motherland. And Devon has been indispensable in pronunciation for this episode. So that's like literally all I've given to this. The rest of it has been kind of negative, like, oh, are you kidding?

We're doing this one? Not interested? Now? This one's about a serial killer who roamed the streets of Florence in the nineteen eighties. You may have heard of him. But before I talk about it, word a warning. There's some really kind of disturbing mutilation here that a lot of people will find disturbing, and because really you should, because it is and if little years are around, probably should save it for later. Yeah, my kids for the next hour,

just your muff. Yeah, you have seen the script. It's gonna be two hours. I'm gonna talk fast. Days later. I'm gonna talk really one pair of hands later. Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk about murder and mayhem. We're talking, of course, about an Italian serial killer. So who else could we be talking about but the monster of Florence. Yeah, this is a big one. And by the way, this was suggested by Paulo. Paulo, thanks very much. I assume you must be our other Italian listener.

There's Luigi and others of you. So hey, dude, thanks a lot. We appreciate it. I hope you're still listening, by the way. But the Monster, and there have been other Italian serial killers, by the way, and some pretty good ones, but the Monster is really the star infamous. Oh he's huge. He's Jack the Ripper, He's the Italian Jack the Ripper and uh, which always gets the public's attention. Uh. The other thing about it was he was really praising

and the way he operated. I mean he would go and kill people, like right next to a road and stuff in view where a car could just drive on by. He's mutilating a corpse. You know that he was. He was pretty bold. Yeah, he in that regard. He makes me think of like the it's the text, are Canna Moon like murders? Yeah, I kind of like that, except a lot more sick and twisted. Well, I was just talking about being willing to do it when your a road and all of that fear. Oh yeah, for sure.

The Monster has a much bigger body count though it's a lot bigger. Uh. Another thing about and it still captures the attention of people is that he never got caught, which means there's a pretty good chance that he may still be walking around among us. Today, which is a little scary creeps me out. That's why I don't go to that country. Yeah, I stay away from Italy and all.

The monster killed between fourteen and sixteen people that we know of, and there's a little dispute about one set of murders there, which we'll talk about, and that's not a record, of course, but it's still a pretty respectable number. Respectable is that the word they care? That's a lot. It's not respectable though, but yeah, well let's just I mean, you know, I hopefully people know what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah.

The bulk of the murders took place between nine and night five, but there was also in nineteen seventy four murder that was connected, and then in nine two, after six people have been killed, another connection was made to a nineteen sixty eight double murder, which if you include that makes sixteen murders all in all. So I'm gonna start with the first murder first. Yeah, So this happened

in August one, nineteen sixty eight. The murder ease were Antonio Lobianco and Barbara Locchi, who were having sex in the front seat of Antonio's Alfa Romeo Barbara's son, Notalino made was in the back of the car asleep, So that's a little that's a little weird, I guess, I think even for the average Italian, that's probably a little weird. A little background on the whole thing, because this is kind of an important one of the murders. Uh Barbara

was married to a Starginian immigrant named Stefano Mede. Uh. Barbara herself was Sardinian and her marriage syste Hana was apparently arranged. She was twenty years older than her and apparently very unintelligence from what I have heard, and I guess that he was not quite her romantic idea, because she really screwed around on him a lot, and although later reports said that he actually didn't mind, he was actually kind of into it, so like to be cuckolded

apparently something. Barbara's latest boyfriend was Antonio Lobianco, which is why they were together. Antonio was a bricklayer, a very recent Stardini an immigrant himself. On the night of the murder, Barbara she had a date with Antonio, which involved first going to see a horror movie and then heading up into the hills for a little lover's rank Lane romance. And as I mentioned before, Barbara's son, Notalino, was along for the whole date. Barbara was not the mother of

the year. Not better than leaving him alone home. I don't know, taking your taking your six year old kids to see a horror movie that seems a little bit well, I mean like Creature Creature of the Black Lagoon, like you would take your kid to see that. Maybe, I guess it depends. I can see where some kids would be a little at that age might be a little traumatized. But he might not have been, well, he was traumatized by a later events. Probably, Yeah, we're talking about that

here in a second. Uh. And also something about Italian culture. Probably most of you have heard this. People tend to live at home until they get married, and often even after they get married, they still live at home. But that makes it kind of tricky to have romance, if you know, A yeah, and so, well, you know, a lot of Italians are Catholic. Oh there's that too, So that helps in the living at home situation. Oh yeah,

good point. Okay, Well, anyway, along, Luckily for the youth of Italy, somebody invented the car, and then about five minutes later, somebody else figured out that you can have sex in cars, and so in any given the evening, but especially on the weekends, the hills around Florence, Italy were full of little dinky Fiat and Alpha's with bumper stickers that said, don't come knocking if it's rocking in Italian. Yah. Yeah, there was lots of that going on. And of course

that's bond. It's a weird little subculture of guys that were called Indians by the locals. These were they were the lawyers all years. He sculpted around with monocular night vision devices and cameras and and spied on all these young couples having sex. Just weird in its own way. Yeah, there was, like I said, a whole network of these

people out there. So what Antonio and Barbara were doing really was not at all unusual, except for perhaps a kid in the back seat, but also maybe not that, maybe not even I don't know, maybe have the whole family in the back seat. Probably not mom and dad, I hope, because that's the whole reason you're in a car to begin with, right, Usually Yeah, But anyway, they drove up a dirt road. They were actually outside Floridence

city limits to the west. They found a nice little parking spot next to a stand of cane and proceeded to let nature take his course and a little netal you know, got a nice biology lessons. Well, he was asleep in the back right, if he was asleep, supposedly he was asleep. I know, six year olds can often sleep through kind of anything. I guess that's true. Yeah, But what, of course Antonio and Barbara didn't know, is that somebody was lurking in the cane next to the car.

Don't don't If it was corn, I wouldn't have been surprised. Yeah, not not corn. One of the rear windows of the Alpha was rolled down. It was a warm August night. Uh and at that time, of course, nobody was all that worried about serial killers. Um, but would be one of these days, but not quite yet. Somebody came out of the cane, tiptote over to the car, stuck automatic

pistol through the window, and started shooting. In the end, Antonio and Barbara were shot four times each, and little Nettie, you know, did I mentioned that he was six years old, was awakened by some blinding flashes and deafening gunshots, and uh, yeah, he had quite a night. First the horror movie, then he sees copulation, and then he witnesses a double murder. So I mean, that's quite a it's quite a night. I never definitely made an impression on him for the

rest of his life that would really say. It was the last thing on that list is what made the biggest impression. But I'm sure next he was seen at a house two and a half kilometers down the road saying, quote, mommy and uncle are dead in the carne. Apparently she called all of her boyfriend were called all of Barbara's boyfriends were called uncle. Yeah, so we had a lot of uncles. That's I mean, that's probably one of the least traumatizing ways to deal with that, right, what do

you mean? Yeah, I mean until maybe someday he comes daddy and like you just explain that to the kid and you say, like he's moving at six, it's really not an issue, right, But it's easier than saying, like, this is my boyfriend. He's replacing daddy. Oh yeah, absolutely, you know, but it also explains why he's like staying over all the time. You should like him, Yeah, all uncles do this, right, Yeah, maybe hopefully, hopefully, really hopeful. I hope. I'm an uncle and I don't do that well.

So do we know how he got to Uh No, I mean he could have walked. I doubt it. Actually, it's the smart kids think that Stefan, his dad Stefano, was there and that he took part in the murder and that he actually carried him to this house and dropped him off. Leno said that a man put him on his shoulders, saying a show tune like off a TV show that was on I believe, and that guy was probably the murderer, but that he carried him all to this house and then set him down and put

him there. And because they say that the doorbell was too high for him at a six year old at his height who have reached up and hit it, so they think that there had to be an adult there to push the button and then run away. Sounds likely, yeah, And I frankly, you know, I know we may talk about this. It sounds like his story changed a lot, and he says he doesn't remember anything, and I realistically like he was six years old and he saw his

mom get brutally murdered. So I am not surprised. I mean, I make things up from when I was six, and they were not traumatic at all, you know, So I'm not surprised that he would not have any real memories or anything he was willing to identify as real memories from that time. Well yeah, i'd be a little fragment at the league and stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I know that my memory, my memory changed in weird ways.

I'll go back and check his story that I was sure was this way, and I find out I've got a lot of details wrong, ye, or I'll you know, I'll tell my mom this has been happening a lot all like say, oh yeah, I remember when this blah blah bla happened. And she's like, you, um, you weren't there. You've seen lots of pictures of that. And I'm like, oh yeah, and those false memories. I invented the memory because I've heard the story and seen pictures, and so

I have put myself in that position. Long story short, it's not surprising that his story is all over the map. No, not really. But back to our murder um. So, whenever a married woman and her lover murdered. Well, who do you go look at first? Stefan Stefano, the husband, Yeah,

the holiday man. At first he claimed that he was home in bed sick when the murders took place, but that alibi didn't hold up, and then police did a paraffin test on him, you know what those are protected, checking for a gunshot residue, and they found some of that on his right hand, indicating he had fired again very recently, and that didn't look so good. He also gave conflicting stories, and he sort of sort of started admitting that he had been there, but then he claimed

that a guy named Salvatore Vinci was an actual gunman. Uh. And then he changed his story and said the Salvatory brother, Francesco Vinci, was the one who pulled the trigger. Um, And then he changed his story back again and eventually recanted that story. I've always wondered if he was if his intelligence was as low as it is made out to be in the stuff that I've read. I wonder how much of his story was led. Do you know

what I'm saying, Because that's that's we think. We've talked about this before, that it's easy to get a witness to start telling you a story the way that they think you want them to, because they don't realize that they're implicating themselves. Yeah, and uh, and police do sometimes have a way of trying to put words in your mouth when they interrogate, intentionally or not. Yeah, sometimes they'll they'll they'll do sneaky stuff to get you to fest up.

But uh, well, let me give some background of Salvatory and Francesco. They immigrated to Tuscany from Sardinia in the nineteen sixties, and Salvatore rented a room for a while in Stefano and Barbara's house, and so of course he became one of Barbara's lovers and an uncle, yeah, an uncle yeah. And then later Francesco Salvatori and Francesco, even though they were brothers, they actually didn't like each other. They were rivals and everything. And so Francesco stole Barbara

away from Salvatore and became the uncle and became the uncle. Uh. And then after that, eventually it's Antonio, who was an even more recent immigrant from Sardinia, while he stole her away from Francesco, became the last uncle and became the last uncle. So this is an episode of my three uncles, my more than three probably but uh but in a sense, Salvatori and Francesco had a motive from murder, so that Stefano jilted lovers and the jilted husband. Yeah, yeah, and

uh so and uh. Plus there was some stolen money involved, There was some family honor involved, so there were some other family members possibly there. It's it's complicated anyway. Salvatore, because his name had been mentioned, they brought him down to the station for questioning, and reportedly, when Salvatore walked into the room, Stefano immediately recanted his story and just

said that he'd done the whole thing by himself. So Salvatore apparently, you know, had some sort of intimidating effect on Stefano. Well, we'll find out more about that later. If you guys are good your vegetables and maybe I'll tell you. Oh yeah, now, the gun. The police asked him what happened to the gun, and Stefano said that he's threw it into a dish. So police searched all dishes in the nearby area and never did find the gun.

They were able to idea the model of the gun though, because every gun manufacturer uses different processes for like rifling and such, so you can always check tell the model. The firing pin makes a different depending on the model, the gun makes a different imprint on the shell casing. Uh. It was a Baretta twenty two handgun, very common in Italy, and ring pin and this one was pretty unique. Uh well,

yeah it was. It was a rectangular firing pin and this particular and all firing any firing pin in the gun. And then the same model a gun, it's going to have my new differences, just like fingerprints and everything else. And this one had a special little defect in it that was that was you know, very very unique, and that it had a dimple in it, and so it

left a very unique mark on the shell casings. And it didn't it didn't tend to hit in the center anywhere near the center, and all of the images I saw it always hit on the kind of the outer edge of the shell casing. Yeah. That was a rim fire cartridge. Oh yeah, so that's why, that's why, that's that's why they call it fire. I completely just glossed over the rim fire press like it was really weird that it was always hitting on the outside. Did you write, man,

you had one job? Yeah, well, okay, you're off the force. So did they ever find it? They never found the gun still to this day, to this day, as far as I know, it was never found. Yeah, you could be the owner of that gun, you know. Yeah, I might have picked it up at the gun show you okay, Yeah, you might have picked it up a gun show listener. So yeah, if you got a Bretta twenty two semi automatic gun and take a yeah, it looks old and

it's kept blood on it. Yeah. The police, for their part, where they were a little skeptical about Stefano's story because he was a small, weak guy, not very bright. It seemed like a fairly well planned little murder, and Salvatory and Francesco were scarier, scarier guys. I mean, Francesco was known to be involved in a lot of criminal activity, and they seemed to have some motive also, so it wasn't beyond the realm of belief that they also could

have been involved in this killing at all. I mean, both of them obviously had a reason, I want to shoot Antonio right at the very least. In fact, all three of them did on the other hand, here they had a suspect who was saying that he had done it all himself. So they had a confession. This guy had a strong motive, They had physical evidence of his

involvement and his kid. By the way, Natalino and the statements to the police did say, at least at first before he said he couldn't remember anything, he did say that his dad was there at the murder scene. And so it looked, you know, it looked at them like they had a pretty strong case. He was guilty. He was guilty, apparently even if other people were involved. So

they went ahead and sent him a trial. He was sentenced to fourteen years in prison, got out after about six years and went to live in a halfway house. So that would have sorry, yeah, it just can you do the math for me real quick? That would have put him out of jail in what year. I'm not sure. I think he got out in seventy five, because I don't think the trial took place until sixty nine. He gets out in like seventy five or so, that's fine. I'm just wondering as we go forward. Yeah, yeah, well

I wanted to. I took I did the same math because I was wondering if he was out of jail at the time the nineteen seventy four murders happened, and he was not. He was still in prison when those murders happened. Speaking of nineteen seventy four, September fifties, nineteen seventy four, about ten miles nrtiess of Florence near a town called borg San Lorenzo, which is beautiful. Have you been there? Yes? Okay, how many times have you been to Italy two just to let's do Yeah, well it's

more than me. Yea, hopefully a lot more frequently in the near future. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm hoping that we can all go over there in some sort of mystery expedition one of these days. This one. Dang, Yeah, I know, we can go. We can do a remix. We'll do it again. Yeah, we'll do a mashup. And I suppose it's only fair to the citizens of Florence to note that, as far as I can tell from looking at a map, none of the Monster's killings actually

took place within the city limits of Florence. They were all in suburban, outlying kind of agricultural areas, which makes sense, those are these places to park? All right? Exactly? Uh so I guess we should really call him the monster the greater Metropolitan Florence area. Yeah yeah, yeah, Well back to our murder. Here. There were two teenagers, Stefania Pettini and Pascale gent. I think it's how this pronounced the third syllable, second syllable emphasis. Okay, uh They were in

a Fiat. Just about all these murders took places in Fiat's. Surprised popular Maybe it was that there were some alpha's in there too, yeah BMW yeah, some competitive yeah, yes, especially next year BMWK about the whole series of magazine and said, you know, and drive a beam or don't get killed crazy. Yeah. Well, they were doing something in

their car, I'm not sure what. They got bush whacked and shot, and then Stefania was dragged away from the car a little distance about ten meters or so and stabbed ninety seven times and not not deep stabbed, but they were just like more like pricks, just really shallow stabs. But I'm sorry, I'm going to be the soundtrack for the It's just like, what do you hear when you get to some of the women later on? I guess what worse. Yeah, but these steps made up and they

weren't random. They made up like an elaborate design that went around Stefani's breasts and down to republic area and around. Yeah. It also took place next to a vineyard, and the murder found a little scrap of woody grape vine material which he stuffed up into Stefani's private parts. Um, and that's about it. No evidence of rape. Oh yeah, he

didn't use his own Yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh. The gun and the knife were not recovered, but analysis of the bullets and the showcasing showed that the murder weapon was a rut A twenty two handgun. But of course no connection was made at that time. I mean, these two things were about fifteen miles apart, in six years and six years apart, and you know, one really looked like it really was a jealous husband thing that didn't and then whereas this one more like a random Cico type.

So I can see why people wouldn't associate them necessarily in their minds. And then some years went by, our next killing didn't happen until he took a long break there maybe he was out of town. Uh, but on Saturday, June six. So, by the way, these all took almost all of these murders took place on Saturday nights, some of them on Friday, but almost all of them are I think one of them was on a Thursday. Um, and there was one of I think the first one,

eight one was a Tuesday. Well I remember one of them was a Thursday because the next day was a workman's day off. Yeah, but but mostly it was a weekend thing, which is where the action is going to be. That's when people are out in their cars copulating. And uh also they have it on moonless or nearly moonless nights. Um. Yeah. Anyway, so intelligently planned, right, yeah, I think so planned being the operative word there. Yeah, yeah, that's just yeah. It

was not a random guy kind of guy at all. Uh. So this was Saturday, June six. Giovanni Fogi or fog. Giovanni Foji and Carmela di Nuccio were parked in probably a few in the hilltop area caused Sandici, which is on the southwest outskirts of Florence. Uh. It looks like Giovanni was shut first through the car window and then Carmelo was killed. She was dragged from the car about you know again the tenner fifteen meters. She was found

naked and on her back. I saw some some video this one actually, well not the actual killing, but you know, her body afterwards, there was some video taking at the crime. Yeah and uh yeah, well they had covered her body, but she was she was naked. And this one there was some escalation because her pubic area had been cut out of her body and taken away. Okay, I hate to ask this, but how much of like the whole

works Well, I mean the vagina was taken away. I mean not everything, but I mean the entire vagina was so like the whole vaginal canal and all that stuff. I'm not sure how deep down the knife went mentioned how long. So we're saying in primarily external. It wasn't like an internal internal one fairly deep. I mean it wasn't It wasn't a skin deep kind of thing. It was actually a pretty huge chunk of plastic carved out. Yeah,

it's pretty pretty pretty gross. The medical examiner concluded that the excision had been done with the one he called a scuba knife because he believed the knife had a notch in it. And I'm not sure exactly what made him to conclude that, but you know, those guys know what they're talking about, so he was probably right. There probably wasn't notch in the blade. Scool. A lot of scuba knives do have notches in the blade, but there

are different locations depending on the kind of knife. That's quite confusion, yeah, depending I I I found some pictures of various ones on the interwebs that I included one here for you guys to look at, and that's that was there's a one scuba knife picture here, and it's got one towards the base of the blade near where it means to hilt, and it looks like something for cutting line. But I've also seen basically the same thing on a scuba knife where there's a notch at the

tip near the tip of the blade for the same reason. Yeah, same thing. It looks like it's something you hook around a line or something and just like snag and just ripped, you know, just yeah, so sawing back and forth or anything like that. Something's quick and down and dirty. Uh. There's other knives that have notches in them too, Like, for example, there's a traditional the famous Gurka knife that you've seen. That's the kind of that's got the seventeen

angle bend in it. That the that the Gurka troops carried, you know, from Nepal. Now, that big old knife that's got the bent blade. Yeah, those are scary little knives. Uh, traditional Southern European dirks. Also a lot of them have notches. I included a picture for you guys to look at here. They do it too, I'm sure they do. Uh. So. On the Monday after the murders, a reporter at the

Florence newspaper called the Nazi on which is what the nation. Uh. He remembered the nineteen seventy four killings and noted that there were similarities. And so when the police got winded this, they didn't tell the police. They just printed in the newspaper. You know, police can find out on their own right. That's called working together. Uh huh. Yeah. They got off the evidence from nineteen seventy four and they discovered the

shirt enough that same handgun had been used in both killings. Uh. And since this indicated a serial killer was at work, well, this really kicked the interest up quite a ways. Like a notch or two, uh, not like a notch in the blade, but you know, different not yeah, okay, yeah, And and this is when the police started searching that I started questioning the local Indians. Remember those of the peeping Tom's. Yeah, and those were the names given to

them by the locals, the Indiani. That's not the name that I gave him. These guys tended to meet and they were kind of semi organized, so they would be so weird. Yeah they would well they would club, yeah, and then but they would exchange notes. And I think one of the reasons it is just so you didn't have two dozen guys showing up with the same spots

to spy on the same car, you know. Yeah, but like that necessitates you meeting a bunch of like fellow curves in the woods and being like, okay, dude, who's teenage? Like what teenage car you taken tonight? You don't talk about per club? Apparently somebody did. Yeah. Well if they hadn't, this would have happened. Yeah, I can think of better things to do with your time. And she's just a

little bit. But by talking to various Indians, they found out that the guy who would have been hanging out in that particular area that night was a guy named Enzo Spiletti because they had their own areas. Yeah, well it wasn't there all the time. Yeah, they knew he was like he was that he was in that area. He was assigned that area that night sort of. Yeah. And also Giovanni Giovanni's car was known to the voyeurs. Also Giovanni was the guy that got murdered to the couple. Uh,

it was known as a quote good car. Yeah, I mean there was lots of action, so they knew his car. Uh. And so it seems likely Enzo Spiletti would have been actually watching it when the murders took place. I probably not, but you know, it does seem kind of like I can see what the police wanted to talk to this guy. Say. Spiletti was evasive when he was hauled in for questioning.

I think they grilled in for like six hours. Most likely that might have been because he just didn't want to admit his hobby was spying on people having sex in their cars. It's just a little embarrassing as a married man. Yeah. Well yeah he was married, yeah, yeah, and he had kids. He told police first of all that he'd been with another boy or the whole evening was turned out not to be true. Uh, And then

he told the police he'd gotten home by midnight. But then when they talked to his wife, she said that he didn't get home till after two am. And so well, um, she was just trying to get back at him, maybe because she knew and she was like, you know what, No, we're punishing you. Yeah, yeah, it could have been. Cops decided he was holding back information because and I could see what they might wonder about that, because you would think he would have seen something if he's that's his

his whole thing is spying on these cars. Why didn't you see somebody murdering these people? Maybe he was away on a pea break. I was just saying, yeah, he may not have been there during the time that it took place, or he might not have been following the rule. And you know, it was a dry spot, so we went somewhere else hoping to see something and he left

too early. That's entirely possible. Or it might have been that he was somewhere else and he came along and saw the bodies and stuff, got the hell out and got the hell out of there and didn't say anything, which that wouldn't be unheard of, right. Anyway, he was not charged with murder. He was charged initially with reticence, which in Italy is considered kind of a form of perjury when you're not willing to like tell the cops

everything they want to know. And then in July they decided, well, maybe he's a killer after all, so they charged him with murder. Yeah, and that's that's the way it works in Italy. And I found out from researching this is like not nothing. I don't want to sound like him down any Italian folks. I love you guys. I'd love to see your country, but it does sound like your justice system was a little screwed up. Oh no, it is.

It's just all the systems I can tell you. Um, I'm currently in the process of pursuing my dual citizenship I forgot about. And it turns out that if you are willing to pay a ton of money, you just get it. Takes it like they're literally it's I'm waiting. I have to wait like three years before I can

even get an interview at the consulate in America. Right, But if I if I were willing to give them like a couple of thousand bucks, like I would literally have my citizenship in like a month, but nope, I can't afford that. So, I mean it's just is not on the show bank account. It's true. Yeah, I mean, it's even I mean it's it's even stuff like that. It's all of it. Yeah, and this this kind of stuff happened, and honestly, most people who live in Italy

will tell you the exact same thing. Oh yeah, no, it's it's not steadily. There's a lot of countries where it's just expected that you're going to bribe people. It's like tipping here in America, you know, it's expected. So ends, yeah, yeah, back, oh yeah, so back to Ends. Spiletti. Luckily for him, the monster didn't win another seven years before he struck again, because that would have that actually would have been a

bad break for him. Yeah. So on Friday October one, so just several months after the murder stuff, Nobaldi and Susannah Combie, we're parked in the Bartolian net Fields that I get that right, Bartolian Yeah, alright, okay, well that's west of Florence. And their car was found the next morning. The driver's side window had a bullet hole in it, just like the previous murder. Passengers side door was open.

Susanna had been dragged about ten meters in the car and mutilated like before you know what I'm talking about. And they found the usual showcasing from a bread of twenty two they matched. They also found a strange stone about twenty meters from the murder side, which was shaped like a truncated pyramid red herring. Uh, well, not even a red herring. I don't, I don't think. I think it was just randomly there, and I doubt that the murderer even which now actually what it was was a doorstop.

And uh but apparently this this police where this prosecutor who found it and didn't really know what it was. There was a journalist who us there who wrote quite a lot about this. His name is Mario Spetsy, and he co wrote a book about this was Douglas Preston called The Monster of Florence. Very good book, by the way, the to read if you're more interested in this and

if you want to hear more about it. Uh. And later on that little perimid caused trouble for none other than Marios Betsy because it turned out he had a doorstop in his house and it was japed sort of kind of like this one. And later on, I mean years later, and when the investigation really took a left turn and started getting into strange accusations, crazy territory, seriously crazy satanic death cult accusations, and all kinds of looney conspiracy theories, not on the part of the Internet, but

on the part of the police and the prosecutors. Their killer left behind a paperweight and desk. That's about. That's about it. That about I mean yeah, because um yeah, And it was only much later that the investigation became as loony as it was. But why did it get looney? Our next killings were in June two? So, Devin, you pronounced their names? Um oh, Paulo, my Mari and uh Antonella million, Mini, Medio Meani. Yeah, okay is how I would say those? All right? That works, Yeah, alright, let's

government work. Yeah all right. So they pulled these these two pulled their fiad, I believe it was. It's a freaking fiod. I've never got to drive one of those cars. I'm gonna go buy one tomorrow. Yeah, uh yeah. They were parked. They pulled off what was actually a fairly

busy road. They pulled up this short little dead end road at the Edison Woods and parked for the usual stuff, right, and Paulo violated the first rule of parking on the creepy dead end lover's lane in serial killer territory, which is that you always turn your car around a point it towards the exit before you shut off the ignition. Right, Yeah, absolutely, that's what I do. I think he probably had something else on his mind besides that rule. Probably. Well, anyway,

here's how it here's how it all shook out. The police reconstructed the scene. Uh, it looked like from what they've seen, and it's from the evidence it they had finished having sex Antonella had climbed into the back seat to put her clothes on, and at that point the monster was lurking nearby and apparently was not as stealthy as he had been previously, because Paolo heard him or saw him, and so he quickly started the car, jammed it, reversed, and backed out of there as quick as he could.

The monster fire shot hit Paolo in the left shoulder, but didn't completely incapacitated or anything. The car kept backing up it hit the main road, but unfortunately Paolo did not make the turn, and the car went across the road and the rear wheels went into the ditch where he was stuck. He put it and he put in put in first gear or forward or whatever drive, but was not able to get out of the ditch. Meantime, the monster is advancing upon them, stands on the opposite

side of the road. They reconstructed when the suspenseful music would play in the movie. Yeah, and I'm imagining things inside that car were probably a little tense right about probably, Yeah, he she He stood across the road and shot both headlights out and walked across the road, pulled open the driver's side door and shot each of them in the head. He pulled Polo's body out of the car and threw him to the ground. He got into the car and

tried to get it out of the ditch. And presumably I think he did this because he wanted to transport Antonella's body a little further away to a more private spot so he could do some of his usual surgery. If you know what I'm talking about. Trophy taken. Yeah, but the car luckily for her, I guess was stuck. It didn't really matter for her. I guess she was dead. But at the same time, you know, better for the

next can right, Yeah, he so he did leave. He went up the hillside across the road and threw the car keys away. They were found about three feet away, along with a bottle of some over the counter medicine that was never apparently any use in tracing the killer. What was the medicine for. I'm not sure, Norris of tam I didn't really like, like check it too closely since then the police were never were actually making anything of it. And I had to say, by the yeah,

that's true. I mean it could have been check chucked out there by anybody. Yeah, I mean I remember growing up at people had their trash bags in the back of their truck open and things flew out. So that's you know, stuffings up on the side of the road for a myriad number of reasons. Oh yeah, definitely. Um. When the car was found, Paula was still alive. He was he was unconscious, but he was when he was

taken to the hospital. He died later at the hospital, but police took the opportunity to plant some disinformation in the newspapers with the cooperation of the local journalists. They said that, and the reporters knew it was alive, but they knew why. Uh. They said that Polo had lived long enough to give them some information. And this might just have paid off for the police. We'll see, didn't get them actually the real killer. In the end, it did maybe get them a little action. But anyway, we'll

talk about that later. But news of the murders hit the papers two days later on June twenty one, and that same day police down the Tuscan Coast always Away found a car that had been hidden in the woods covered with brush. Uh. They didn't get around and running the plates for a couple of weeks. So, and of course the public was going nuts. Tons of tips were flowing into the police via the phone and via mail, lots of anonymous tips. Uh. And yeah, very few of

them are worth anything. But then one day a letter arrived with an old newspaper clipping and it I a should say an envelope arrived. It wasn't a letter, Uh, it was about a nine double murder, which was you guessed at the murder of Antonio and Barbara somebody had written on the clipping you should take another look at this crime except for an Italian. Yeah, yeah, not ye, not New Liaisy, but yeah Italiano, um Italiano. I'm sorry, I just gotta get into the whole swing of the Italian.

You know, we've already been banned in China. Don't get a banned in Italy. I like my process to not take any longer than that. Yeah, you get back to the back of the line. And I'm sorry about that. Uh. This is one of the most one of the more intriguing little sub mysteries in the story, which was who set this clipping in? Ye, I'd really kind of like to know. They never did find out. So was it the monster to send it in? Seems unlikely unless he wanted to tease the cops a little bit. But was it?

Was it somebody who knew the monster but didn't feel like he could really read him out directly, so he sent in some hints to the cops. Maybe there wasn't just some alert citizen. Was the little historical knowledge, which is entirely possible. I could sort of see that, actually

there are people who really stay up on this like us. Yeah, well, I mean the other other option is somebody who either was related to Stefano or or close to him or something who always thought he's innocent and was trying to advocate for him and saw the opportunity to say, like, these are looking kind of similar, like let's prove his innocence years on, and let's still try. Yeah, maybe exonerate his record or anything like that, because he was out of out of jail by then. Yeah he was. Yeah,

he was a little in his heap. Frankly, maybe it was him. Yeah, maybe it was Stefano. Yeah, that's the newspaper clipping in. I don't know. Stefano was not that smart. Maybe, how I guess that's true. Yeah, but I said, I need our listeners to know that Joe just looks like genuinely shocked. I would even suggest that Stefano might have sent this thing. Come on, you got to be kidding. Maybe with his son Natalie. No, how old would he have been, then it would have been about it was

he was six, and then it was fifteen years later. Yeah, yeah, so it could have been. Yeah, it could Yeah, it could have been. Anyway, that's a different mystery for a different times. Yeah, totally another one that's probably not going to get solved. But but police did go back and they looked at the files and they found that this is amazing, by the way, that the evidence had not been lost in this place. How does that actually surprising? It is? Yeah, and I'm not putting out the Italians.

This happens all of the Oh yeah it does. Yeah, but they still have some shells from the gun that they collected. By the way, the monster never troubled to pick up any of the shell casings, of course not yeah, of course not. Uh, And so they still had those shells. They compared it to the more recent killings and by the way, perfect match, same gun. So it appears that that first killing might have been the first monster killing. Maybe it's a it's a long run. Yeah, it is

a long way to seventy four. That's six years, and then then then what's seven more years. Although I guess there's some kind of I will probably talk about this in theories, but there's some there's escalation that is happening. I mean, the first bodies weren't mutilated at all or

anything like that. They were just shot. Yeah, it could have been or it could have been just diferen emos, or he could have left town been in jail for a while, and there's all kinds of yeah, yeah, I mean this the same set of style of murder could have been happening I don't know in India at the time, and that wouldn't that didn't get tracked totally. I mean, yeah, I don't know why I picked out India, but I did. Yeah, And they've had their sericular is too, so yeah, they

all everybody does. But of course Stefano Meda could not, Uh, he could not have committed those nineteen seventy four murders since he was in prison. Um and then after prison he went to a halfway house run by Catholic priests, and he was still there in nineteen eighty two. By this point he was old. He was physically very weak, not a big guy to begin with, and not in great shape and mentally not with it at all. Uh, And the police got really no useful information from him.

So did the monster commit the nineteen sixty eight murders. Well, that's hard to say. I mean, it's it's hard to say if he was even there. He might have been there or maybe not. Apparently they were like a number of people there. It was not according to the according to the reigning theories out there, the reigning theory about the nineteen six crime, he said, it was actually a clan killing that involved members of the Mainland clan, the

Medle clan, and and then then the Vinci clan. Uh. And that the theory is at Barbara he had Yeah, lovedn't she Okay, I sudden thought that there was an inventor involved. Yeah, Well, the theory is that Barbara is going to call us on that. Keep going McDonald's hope. Yeah, Barbara had brought this honor on the Meila clan with their behavior, and of course Salvatare and Francesco we're probably feeling a little about her, that Barbara had ditched him

for Antonio, right. Uh. And also there was some stolen money involved, which was probably the straw that broke the camels back. But I'm not going to go into that because the story is already complicated enough. But even if even if it was a clan killing in night is, Stefano should have known something and piracy was there. He was placed at the scene and convicted, and so the problem was, you know, the police couldn't get anything out of reporters. We're going Brasier trying to get trying to

get into the halfway house to talk to him. With the priests around the place, wouldn't let them in. And then and then Mario Spezzy, who I've mentioned here before

the report trupid reporter uh fates being on a documentary crewman. Essentially, they said that they wanted to do a documentary about these priests and their good works, you know and stuff, and so they totally lied and get in there and and and just happened to like interview Stefano and they and they started talking a little bit about the murders, and he was kind of vague and evasive about the whole thing. It didn't really say much useful except for

one thing. He said, quote, they need to figure out where that pistol is, otherwise there will be more murders, they will continue to kill unquote so almost words there. Yeah, so he seemed to know something, huh yeah. So when he said they need to figure out where the pistol is, I'm not sure if they meant the police, or if he was talking about somebody else, or if he was old and like messing up his words. Oh, there's that too, I suppose. Yeah, but yeah, he seemed to know all

about the pistol. He seemed to know that there were people out there who murder on their minds. I guess because he know that they were going they were going to continue to murder. The other thing I will just

briefly mentioned. And I guess they don't really know enough Italian to really know this, But in English, there is such a thing as a singular they, and it's when you don't know what that person's gender is, that's a they, right, And so it's possible that that's how he was using it, although again I don't know, I don't know Italian enough to know if that is something that exists in Italian or not, but that it's possible that he was just saying, like that person, yeah, I have no identity for will

continue to Yeah, I mean they is like you know, it can mean a lot of things in English too, so I assume we can do the same in Italian. So they can mean the authorities, or can mean society in general, or can mean a certain group of people or whatever. Yeah, we don't know. But and as far as but but as far as I'm saying that they will continue to kill same confusion. They're it's like, wow, does you know something? Is it more than one person?

Maybe because you know something like we don't know the kinda Binieri that's like the what the like the National Police, I think they're kind of military called paramilitary in Italy. They opened up the nineteen caseum and that began a phase of the investigation that came to be called the Sardinian trail because this whole nineteen sixty eight thing, everybody

involved was Sardinian. And by the way, there, I don't know if I mentioned that there was a big, a big accidents of people from Sardinia to Italy in the nineteen sixties. Well, it's an island. I mean, it's it's an island off the coast of Italy. That yeah, it's like south of Corsica and west of Italy, right. But I mean if they're and again I had research on this, but if there were some sort of blight or any you know, hard times from the island, that what you

you get? Yeah, and so somewhere else, uh, well, back to our investigation. The police looked at and Notalina, Notatalino's statements. Remember he was a kid. The six year old, and he had said, of course said his father was president of crime. He also said he saw Salvatore there, changed that to Francesco, and he also said something about an uncle Piero, which was assumed to be his uncle, Piero Muccarini,

and I said, saw the shadow of somebody else. And then later on the course she decided he hadn't seen anything, couldn't remember anything. Uh. And then Stefanos, of course his statements to the police also was Salvatory and Francesco there, which of course he retracted. So the police it seemed to them there were four accomplices there. I mean actually besides Stefano, there were the Vincy brothers, and then Piero and then the shadow. They weren't sure about that person, uh,

their their first focus. And by the way, the shadow, eventually, as far as the police was were concerned, did turn out to be Stefano's brother, Giovanni Medde. But they focused on Francesco first because he was the one who had the big criminal record um. And they were able to place him here in the nineteen seventy four killings because he was in the area apparently taking care of some

business with his favorite nephew, Antonio Vinci. Uh. And then during the most recent killings, Francesco was actually visiting Antonio at his home, which is only about six kilometers from the murder scene. And so that looks suspicious to the police. And of course, like I said, he was criminal, like a career criminal. And remember I said that a car had been found on the June one, Yeah, in the woods.

Uh yeah, by the Tescan police. Well, they finally ran the plates and it turned out the Carblong didn't not other than Francesco. Uh. Yeah. And that was the same day that the false reports were printed in the papers saying that Paolo had lived long enough to give a statement to the police. Yeah. So did the news spook Francesco. And certainly the police were kind of like, you know,

intrigued by this. Uh. They hauled him in and his he didn't have any really good stories to account for his whereabouts on the day of the murder, and he really had no good ex planation as to white hid in the car in the woods, And so he was arrested in the August two and set off to jail. He spent a little time in jail, uh, and the monster for his part, did not strike for well over a year. But then September, German tourists were camping in

their Volkswagen bus. Uh. That's was like, this was like just outside Florence to the south, and there were two guys, but one of them was small and had long blonde hair, and so from a distance in the dark, maybe possibly the the monster could have mistaken him for a woman and thought that they were a couple, had a sexual couple. Yeah, exactly, it's two men. Yeah, it was two men. Thought they

were a man and a woman. Anyway, they were shot to death and the small the small guy did not get his private parts cut out, presumably because that was not what the monster was expecting. Yeah. I think probably got a nasty little shock and when he pulled down his pants and found out that, we see the usual what he was expecting, wasn't there long kind of serving right, Actually, the pattern of the bullet hole suggested that the killer

was tall. And I don't know, you guys, remember the old, old, old looks like the extra little windows on the top of the little skinny windows. Yeah, and you can if you if you google v W bus, you'll find those. You'll find pictures of that, but the initial bullet holes apparently were through There were a couple of them through

those windows, firing downward into the bus. So from that you can you can presume that the killer was fairly tall to be able to stand up on his tiptoes, looked down inside, see the two guys in there, and then fire down in there. Uh the monster. By the way, I always shot the man first, if that hasn't already been clear, which is kind of a good tactic because if somebody in the car is going to have a weapon like a knife or a gun, it's probably gonna

be the guy or to be able to overpower you. Yeah, exactly, so you want to shoot the guy first. So uh so it appears that it appears at the larger the two was presumed to be the man in the relationship. He was shot first. But yeah, the larger I didn't mention their names. Larger the two was was was Wilhelm Meyer and then Swan was. I don't know if it's apronounced Ui, it's u w E, So we'll call it you. You're the one who knows German. Yeah, but you know,

it's been a long time and I'm rusty. That's why we don't let you go out in the rain. Yeah it appears, oh yeah, give me my w D forty. But it appears the monster shot Willehelm down through the glass and then you skidaddled into the rear of the van and scrunched himself into a corner as far as he could, probably thinking that, you know, hoping that you know, whoever it was would didn't see him, it would go away.

But unfortunately for him, the monster was aware of what and where he was, and so he just walked around the vantaged, shot through the side of the van and killed him. Then he walked back around and slid open the side door, and that's when he apparently got his nasty little surprise because he left without He left without

taking himself a prize or anything. And now, since the prime suspect, Francesco was in jail, this could kind of put a damper on the cave against him being the monster, right yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, I kind of did a little bit. But police didn't let him go. They noted that the killer did appeal appear to be a tall guy, and Francesco, frankly was a not terribly tall guy or it could have been a short guy who took a footstool with him when he went on his

murder spreeze, but probably a tall guy. Yeah, And the police also noted that Francesco's favorite nephew, Antonio Vinci, was also a tall guy, so they theorized that Antonio had staged this killing just to exonerate his uncle, which was nice of him. I mean, that's seriously and that's above and beyond in my opinion. Yeah, and who knows, maybe actually targeted this couple, these two guys, and it's thought that they were a gay couple because they found some

gay literature there. But maybe he deliberately targeted these two because that would that would mean he wouldn't he wouldn't have to do the surgery, which maybe he didn't really wasn't on a key, Yeah, you know, if he wasn't

actually the killer. But Antonio was arrested about a week later for illegal possession of firearms, and it turns out the firearms in question were it's hard to say if they were actually his or if the police just kind of planted them somewhere because they weren't even in his house, and so, you know, there was no actual evidence. He actually they it went to trial, he represented himself. He didn't even bother him. Okay, now he got off, Yeah he got he got off. He just he just said, hey, look,

you know, they weren't even in my house. There's no connection at all, no evidence, and by the way, they were probably planted. And so that was enough. He got off. But Francesco, for his part, stayed in jail. And then the examining magistrate he's kind of the guy that like a judge who supervises the prosecution and the police and everything, he decided he want to take a crack at Stefano himself. Uh, and so when he talked to Stefano, he he still

wouldn't neiplicate Salvatore and Francesco. But Rotella, the judge, said that Stefano did confess that his brother Giovanni and his there in law Piero were present at the scene. So but maybe Pierre was the uncle Piero that Natolino said that he saw, and then maybe Giovani was the shadow that he saw that night, And so I guess what they were. Those guys got arrested too. They were charged

with monsterism. Yeah, how many arrests were their total. There's so many people arrested for I lost track too, That's why I asked. Yeah, there were quite a few people got arrested. Actually, so there were a number of different A lot of different people got convicted in jail and it happened and didn't let get let go right away. Yeah,

some of them did, but some of them that they anywhere. Well, even though the police had a triumphed and they had arrested the three most likely suspects in the whole thing, well, unfortunately the killer struck again. The next murder was July. Claudio Stefanacci, and I think that sounds per Pierrontini murdered in the usual way of Claudio is still in the car, had dragged out of the car a few dozen meters away,

a mutilated and this time he escalated again. He not only took out her public area, he tore off her left breast. Yeah, I didn't cut it off. Apparently it's pretty pretty hard, Like I literally physically don't understand that. It seems like it would be really hard to do. I mean, maybe partially cut in part you got to start an incision. Yeah, he must have done at least a little bit of cutting. But oh yes, it's gross. But hopefully she was dead by the time that happened, right, yeah,

I do. Yeah. Well, so anyway, there's there's this murder, horrible murder, and the three favorite suspects are all in prison. Um then they were all eventually released, although in uh Francesco's case it didn't Actually he didn't get released until November that year. So they kept him around for months because the police felt that even though obviously this meant he wasn't guilty, they were pretty sure he knew who was, so they felt like they just hang on to him

and keep the pressure on for a while. Yeah, he never cracked apparently. And I don't want to sound like I'm stereotyping people, but from what I've heard about here, he comes from the mountain, the inner mountains of Sardinia, where it's kind of a very traditional kind of society and there's clans and and the code of Omerta and all that, you know, just like with the Sicilians and stuff, and so these are not the kind of guys that even if they know who it is, they're not going

to tell the police. Now that's just yeah, and if you're one of our Sardinian listeners and I've got it all wrong, police, send us an email. But Francesco was eventually released and head threw a little his friends to a little party for him. That was November, and Mario Spetcy, the journalist, attended his little party and got a little a little alone time with him and said and said, so, what do you think the monster is really like? Then?

What's your theory? And Francesco said a few things, but the last thing he said was that the monster was quote one who wants upon a time experienced a very very great disappointment. I mean, and he didn't say exactly what that man, that's just what he said. It so vague. Well it's vague, but at the same time it's kind of specific. I guess I don't know that that's necessarily true. I think he probably had a lot of time to

think about what kind of guy could be doing this? Right, And as we are, we three are wont to do. We just try to like dig into the psychology of somebody. And I think we would all agree that like whoever was doing these things suffered some kind of very big trauma or something, or some self perceived trauma, just had something in and that was just missing on it. Something was going on, some kind of great disappointment, if you will,

I would agree with you. Yeah, probably, or or it could mean that he knew exactly who it was, why he was doing it. I don't know, but you can you can sort of understand that why the police might think that these guys really kind of knew what was going on and just weren't saying when they go around saying stuff like this. Alright. So, uh so there were three out of four suspects in the nineteen six killing, they were eliminated, so that leaves one was his Salvatore Vinci.

And then when police started looking into him, they discovered that he actually had some perverse sexual appetites, which of course doesn't make him a serial killer, but apparently he was promiscuous like groups sex, would do it with anybody, a man and woman, a chihuahua, whatever, you know. Yeah, he and uh he's also suspected of murdering his wife

in Sardinia back in nineteen sixty one. Uh And so when they were investigating Salvatory, and by the way, they had a bunch of surveillance too, while they were doing this, Monster Boy struck again one last time, which was Saturday, September seven, ninety five. This send the victims were a couple of French tourists who were camping. Uh and uh, this is a little bit different. Rent. They weren't in the car. They were in a tent. Apparently they were

naked and it just had sex. And then the killer approach crashed down in front of the tent, made a noise by slitting part of their tent with his knife, and then when they popped out of the tent, un zipped the fly and came popping out. He was crouching down in front of the tent. He opened fire on them, killed the woman and immediately, Yeah, Nadine and then her her boyfriend Jean. He was hit four times, but they

were all superficial. He got like hit and like the like the wrists and the elbow and saying all painful wounds and everything, but nothing nothing, nothing, not debilitating. Uh. And so it looked like from the physical scene that Jean bolted from the tent and sprinted it out into the woods. And it looks like he probably knocked the

knocked the killer down. The killer was probably crouching again and he just got caught by surprised, got knocked over, but you know, picked himself up when running after John and stabbed him in the back and then stabbed him a few more times in the abdomen and then cut his stroke. Then he goes back to the tent, does the usual mutilations of Nadine as she shot her as well,

and she was yeah, she was already dead. But he goes back and then and again, this time the PBC area and the left breast again, and then later be abled a part of that breast to the state prosecutor. Yeah, along with a note. Yeah, apparently this scared the crap out of her, and so she resigned this a shock. I was gonna say, if you guys ever want me to stop doing the podcast, you can do something much less terrified. Yeah, it wouldn't take. It wouldn't take. That

wouldn't take much for me. The really Yeah, yeah, just a mild threat and I'm done. Yeah. At this by this point in time, police really turned up the heat. The offerat reward of about half a billion lira, which

is about five bucks. Um, Yeah, that's not true, and they started putting decoys and cars in the hills, and the joke was that they were more police parents of policemen in cars, and then the hills around Florence and they were actually the lovers and uh but it was was this the same style as you always see those It was the eighties and nineties TV show where the gruff cop is dressed up as the prostitute walking down the street hoping the bad guy will will try and

take her out so that they can get your rest. Is it this level of absurdity when it's uh, there was two men cops, one dressed up to look like a girl. That really stupid. There was a little wig wearing yeah, because I mean they're trying as much as possible to get police women out there as decuse. But apparently there was a bit of a shortage of them, and so some guys had to shave off their mustaches and put on wigs and uh. Yeah, and but unfortunately for them, uh you know, they never had this was

that was his last murder. It might have been that he just decided, for whatever reason, it was time to back off. Maybe when of the hills are all full of cops in cars, it's a good time to retire or maybe move on somewhere else, because it really was his last killing. Uh. And the meantime, the police investigate towards sort of went reached the intersection, and some of

them went one way, some of them one another. Uh. Some of them still like to start eating in connection, and some of them decided that that whole thing was all played out and they should look at other possibilities. Mario Rotella was still fixated on Salvatory Vinci and was still working on building a case against him. At the same time, the police in September eighty five got an anonymous letter accusing a farmer who was pih Ro Pacciani of being of being the monster. And Pacciani, by the way,

was was not a model citizen. I mean, I don't think he did it, but he eventually was tried for the crime. The police looked into his background. He had actually killed a young couple in their car in n It was it been supposedly his girlfriend at the time, and she was having sex with some traveling salesman or something. Yeah.

Essentially he bushed so he bush whacked them and took a rock and bashed the guy's head in with it and then stabbed him to death and then apparently raped his girlfriend in the in the grass next to the corpse, you know, just to let's heart, his dominance, her ownership or something. Yeah, yeah, a nice guy. But rumor also had it that he was a peeping tom, a porn freak, a wife beater, and then he sexually abused his daughters. Apparently all that stuff was true. Like I said, he

was not a model citizen. So yeah, yeah, I think eventually we need to talk more about this guy because a little bit. But well, back to Salvatory though, uh meantime, Mario Rotella. The magistrates finally formally accused SALVATORI of being the monster. Uh, he couldn't actually build a case against him, so he decided instead to charge him with murdering his wife back in nineteen sixty one, back in Sardinia. And I've heard the details of this case, and it was

really highly questionable. She supposedly committed suicide, but it looks sure as hell, looks to me like he murdered her, and he had he had motive. She was screwing around on him, so you know, honor and all that stuff, but he a motive in his mind in his mind. Yeah, or and even for his pillow villagers off in the hills of Sardinia, that was probably justifiable and enough to make them, you know, look the other way when it happened.

But Salvatore was charged with murder put on trial, and that was in eight so he spent early nine six eight eight in jail, and then prior to that he was under surveillance. So I'm not sure if he's good for the murder or not. But anyway, after the trial he got off and he left and immediately went back to Sardinia and went up into the mountains and disappeared.

He has never been heard from again. So much for Salvatore. Uh. But Pietro Pacciani did not go away, and a different set of prosecutors have tried to build a case against him, and of course there there was for one thing they looked at. They did a search of his house. They

found a painting that was extremely disturbing. It was a really weird and I've not seen the painting, but I've heard it described have been great detail, and it does sound a little bit creepy, but it was signed, It was signed by him and had a little title like

a science fiction dream or something like that. And and it also one of the most damnit things about it has had seven crosses that we're in the painting that we're planted in the grass in the painting with the prosecutors thought might be significant because that's seven seven crimes committed by the monster. But if it was him, that number is not right because he killed in fifty one and if he was also responsible for the early six or the sixty killings, it should have been nine crosses,

should have been eight. I guess eight or nine if there's the also killing because he's the guy who, Yeah, he's the one who in fifty one killed the other guy. So like the number doesn't work. Did he kill his girlfriend or his ex girlfriend? Now, he did not kill her, And that's why that that particular crime didn't really fit the d m O the well. I mean, one can

certainly see how that would escalate. I mean, if that was the trigger point, right, that would escalate into him doing what he wanted to do to this woman many many times over to other women. You know, like I can under I can see that that escalation there. I can see that argument. But knowing what I know about this guy. I don't think he's he's the Monster's not our best suspect. I don't think but he But the

prosecutors were actually liking him quite a lot. But the painting that the painting they leaving aside the cross thing. As far as as far as the prosecutors were concerned, they felt the monster committed seven crimes because they weren't

counting the sixty eight shootings. They don't think um. And although they did find trying to find a really tendentious, I think way to link him to the sixty eight shootings, just so they could find an explanation as to how he had gotten his hands on this gun which was used in sixty eight, because there was no connection between the Vinci's or the Malays or anybody so in him. So you know, that was a kind of tricky, kind

of a little trick on their part. Uh. The whole thing was actually the whole prosecution was of Pacciani, even though the guy was a jerk. It was ludicrous. They took the painting to a psychologist like and and showed it to him, and the psychologist came back with an opinion that, well, yeah, you know, it's not inconsistent with being painted by a serial killer, I guess. And uh, And it turned out that actually Paciani had had plagiarized a little bit. Actually was not his painting at all.

He just he had just like signed his name on it, but it was actually painted by some Chilean artists. And uh and uh, he's the wrong height, Yeah, yeah, he's he's the wrong eye. He's five foot three, I should say it was. I don't think he's still alive now. He was in poor health, he'd had a heart attack, he had a pasima. Not the kind of guy to be running around in the woods chasing somebody with a knife. Well, yeah, that's it. John the French guy who was killed in

who bolted from the end. He was twenty five years old and he was an amateur track star. He specialized, specialized in the hundred beaters sprint, you know, and so quirk off the blocks, cook off the blocks and fast, I'm sure and so that, you know, Pacciani was was going to catch up with this guy, I don't think so. Yeah,

I doubt it. Yeah, So, I mean, do we have more stuff to talk about before we start talking, because it feels like we're starting to talk about theories kind of well, I just yeah, we're getting close to theories here, were sort of yeah, we are, we are sort of disparaging the guilt of this guy. Uh. And of course there was his height out of the shoot downwards in the in the windows of that b W van. Yeah, that must have been that. Uh. They actually kept going

after Pacciani. They did this unprecedented search of his house, which involved like digging up his whole yard, going over his house with scientific instruments and everything else. And the only thing they found was a twenty two shellcasing. The twenty two showcasing was actually had never been fired and had the bullet had been removed and there was no powder in it, but there was no firing pin market so it was, you know, an unfired shell. Uh. And

so that's all they found. And it did have some marking south that looks so it looked like maybe it had been loaded in the gun at some point. So they showed it to experts, ballistics experts, who came back and said, well, yeah, I guess the marketings are not totally inconsistent with it being loaded in the twenty two like the monster had. And while that was good, in that. So it was a pretty pretty weak tea, but the

prosecution went with that. They prosecuted the guy. There was a huge trial that lasted like six months and he was convicted on basically no evidence at all, and eventually it got thrown out a couple of years later on appeal and he was set free, and I think they were going to reprosecute him. And they also arrested a couple of his associates. Uh, this this whole thing is again ludicrous. He had this one associate that that wasn't

in no way linked to it. And then this other guy, as young Carlo Latti, was a village idiot, this this little village called San Casciano. And this guy came forward. I don't know if he came forward on his own. The police just found him and got him taught to say this, but he said that he had actually taken part in the killing and of the in the tent and everything, and and so so seven charged people later. Yeah, I know exactly what. And so these guys were charged

and convicted even though it's just ludicrous. Uh, and kept getting weirder. The police really got into this whole thing about the satanic death cult and all this stuff and using the monster to get body parts for these rituals, and as like as two thousand seven, a pharmacist from the town of Sankoskiano, because apparently the police believed that this was ground zero for all the satanic activities that

were going on. So this pharmacist was charged as he was accused of being one of the masterminds of the monster's killing, and in the end of trial judge dismissed the charges, and he actually did so with kind of contempt. He basically said, there's just no He didn't say the evidence isn't quite there. He said there's no reason to believe any of this, and so he threw it all out. Uh, and that's about it. Unless the monster moved away, changed his m O and kept on killing. The killing seemed

to have ended in I would say that inaccurate. As far as I know the the investigation is still going on, and I would not be surprised to read one of these days that's yet somebody else has been indicted and being put on trial for this thing. I mean, as looney as this whole thing has been, and I haven't totally captured the insanity of the whole thing. If you really want to know here the entire incredible bizarre story, read The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston, great book,

and you'll get the whole insane story there. All right, we're gonna let's go to series. But before we do that, let's take a quick break. But even towed ongulates mill about and wait until it's their turn. Their patients they have all night. They'll just stand bunch together, chewing their cud and occasionally letting out a bleak, which is a bit ironic if you think about it, because it's that vocalization, not their order jumping over the fence, that's most likely

to keep you up at night. Actually, now that I think about it, what's most likely to keep you awake is their smell. Oh and um, do you have hardwood floors, because if you do all of that jumping up and down and milling around is going to do a real number on it. Luckily, there's a better way than counting sheep to get a good night's sleep, and that's what the Casper mattress. Casper is an obsessively engineered mattress at

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That's www dot Casper dot com slash sideways and the offer code sideways. Terms and conditions apply because hardwood floors are a lot more expensive. And we're back, so we're gonna actually talk about theories now, not just disparage the story as we're going through, Like, yeah, let's talk about theories. I guess we could, um, I guess we could start with as we just talked about Piero, I guess we

could talk about him a little bit. Uh it just you know, let's knock him out real quick, like, I mean, it seems to me like he's just not a good fit at all. There's not a shred of evidence too small, too out of shape, and they well, and it seems like he and then all of his associates. The it feels like somebody in the prosecutor's office realized they had a gold mine of possible people and just win after them all. And it was just a charge fast, like

we do this, we do that. Because you were talking about the fact that they they went after some of his associates, right, yeah, they did, yeah so, And he was like, yeah, let's just it's the smartest board of people.

Let's just chorge. I don't know. I think probably what they did is they looked at situations in which they had a convicted killer who had killed somebody in a similar situation which he had hum and he was also, by the way, and not a good not a nice person, nice person, and they were like, yeah, he probably could have done it, just totally ignoring the fact that physically he could not have done it, at least not the

last ones. Yeah so, and there were probably plenty of other people out there in the countryside who were also as big as jerks as he was too. Unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately, that's a sad fact. But next okay, so Piano was

out Let's see who next to this one? And just because not let you know, okay, not so I threw him in because, let's face it, if you were going to ask Hollywood to make a movie about this story and he told the screenwriters to throw in a killer twist at the end with a surprise killer, well you know,

Nataline would probably get the part. Yeah, he would. I mean think about it, what this whole draw, this whole trauma and everything, And then he could sort of see why he would come back and and read that at least in the cliche, in the clich minds of Hollywood script writers who know what was what was that? Remember the good son with what's his name from Home Alone Macauley Culkin, where he was just he was the psycho kid.

I mean, if this was the Hollywood version, it could be he could actually have been the one who shot his mom and his uncle from the back of the car. He could have done the initial killings and it was his gun the whole way, like how he statues it. Hollywood has to figure out. I mean, it seems like a hell of a stretch that bunk, right. A six year old kid doesn't like hide a gun for I mean,

that's not that's not it doesn't matter. I don't care anyway. Um, but to suppose that he witnessed and kill his mother and then um and you know, presumably, then I guess we can say like he was awake and like saw them having sex, and they saw the whole thing. And if it was somebody who was related to him, he could have gotten the gun from it, especially if it was his dad who did the shooting. You know, it could have been his dad's gun and he just hit it.

And I don't think his dad actually owned a gun. I mean in any way, in any case, anybody who was related to him, you know, having the gun given it to him and let him live out his childhood traumas. Yeah, I thought would be therapeutic for him to go out listen, just so you know, this is the gun that killed your mother. We thought you should have it because people do weird stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, maybe, I you know,

it's and that bent him permanently. Yeah, it could be. Uh, in fairness to him, I have to say, that is not a shred of evidence. So you know, it's just that, you know it just like again, if Hollywood were making a movie out of this, he would definitely be big. It would be him. Oh yeah, it probably would be him. It would be because of what he went through. But you know, I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, so

I I really can't say how. You know, lots of kids go through traumas and don't become serial killers, you know, So there's that too. Well, if his I mean, if the people who ended up and I don't know what the situation was, I don't know who ended up raising him or like anything like that, but it sounds like the people who were close to him, at least the male people that were close to him, were kind of

all messed up in some way or another. And so if if his father and the quote unquote uncles, you know, it's even possible that they were saying things like, listen, your mother died because what she was doing was a sin. But they didn't ever say to him what aspect of that was a sent right, So in his mind, it's just drilled into him that like having sex in cars is horribly horrible and they have to be you know, put right, and then there's some weird sexual I'm so

sure Freud would have a heyday with this. So I mean, I think I agree. I don't think he probably actually did it, but I think it's a really compelling, interesting rabbit hole to fall down. Oh yeah, And I'm sure whatever if he did, even if he didn't become a serial killer, I'm sure he has some issues. Yeah, you would think, Yeah, quite the evening he had. But so I'm not gonna say I don't, I don't. I'm not

gonna say he was you know, who knows. Maybe. I mean, he definitely is not a good fit for the nineteen seventy four murder. Be guess he would have been about like what twelve I mean conceivably, I mean, twelve year o k could have drugged you know, could have used again. Sure dragon a body about ten twelve meter And I thought that seventy four murder was the one where she was just stabbed repeatedly but no actual times excision was made. Yeah, exactly, Okay,

I mean a twelve year old. Although maybe, I mean, I guess it's true he could have had help. I mean, you know, if he was raised by crazy uncles, maybe he could have been like, all right, it's time for you, let's go, let's go have this cathartic experience, and then how he liked it. It's your Yeah, there you go, coming of age kid. Yeah, yeah, I don't, but I agree. I don't think he didn't. Probably not because who's next up on the list. Let's see Francesco Francesco Vinci. Okay, so, um,

there's there's three Vinciese or something like that. So which one is this? This is? Uh? Salvatori and Francesco were the two brothers, and then Antonio Benc she was Salvatory's son. Okay, and Antonio and and and they were by the way, a strange Salvatory and anywhere there's a bunch of Vinci. So I just wanted to clear it up again because it's been well since we talked about him. That's a good point. Yeah, So Francesco the two brothers, and and

then and then Francesco's nephew, Salvatori's son Antonio. Uh so Francesco, well, you know, I mean it does seem like he knew something, although again, maybe, like you said, he was just speculating that that time to think about it. Two of the murders took place while he was in jail, so uh, you know, I guess we want to take the theory that it was there was more than one monster, one of one person doing it. Perhaps Antonio was committing these murders just, you know, while he was in jail, is

a way to exonerate him. The police were saying, yeah, although I'm not sure that I buy that, because if he was doing it to just to to get him out of jail, then okay, So he kills the two German guys and anyway, it's well over a year for the next killing. Well maybe he I mean, it doesn't doesn't sound like he really liked his brother that month. I was just no, we're talking to Antonio and so Antonio because Francesco was locked, say, I know it's gonna

used one last time. So Salvatory's son was Antonio and uh and then his and then Francesco was Antonio's uncle, and they actually, Francesco and Antonio had a very great relationship. They were never very good close buddies. Good neither of them like Salvatory. Yeah, neither than did. And so if so, if you're gonna take the idea that he committed these two murders, I don't think it's the case because I don't think he would have waited as long as he did. He let his uncle like sit in jail for quite

a while. Uh where he could have actually, well, okay, one murder wasn't enough. Okay, I'll go murder somebody else again. Okay, But but to put it, but to put the shoe on the other foot, you don't want to press it, You don't well, I mean, you know, the cops are everywhere. They're out there looking, you don't. You know, it's it's kind of a it's a dangerous game to be like, well, let's go do it again and try and get him out faster. Well, you know, you've got to be really

really careful. And he may have he if it was so in this theory, what you're saying is we're you're saying it's Antonio who's doing that to get to get Francesco. To get Francesco out, he would he would maybe he was very very very cautious. He could have been out, you know, once every month or two, spotting and going up. Now, now you know that guy, that guy livets some weights. Um, he will he will club me. I'm not going after or no, those people. I don't like to look at him.

I mean there's a whole whole slew of reasons he may have just taken his time. Well, I could think of actually one reason that would spoil his kills. You know a lot of times as he's the chasing out these guys and that some of these some of the Varriors show up with their cameras and craft, it's like, oh, well, there's Scott. So that must have been a major impediment for him with one of those guys were hanging out

there at the same time. It's kind of kind of amazing that this guy really was pretty good that he was never spotted by any of these Varriors who were hanging out there all over the places those whats. But you know what's funny is that I remember reading about the Voyers is that they know not only did they have cameras and listening devices, but they had weirdly some of the latest technology in night vision goggles. Well let's

take this. Let's back up. Let's say I'm wanting to kill somebody and I come across the Voyor and I'm like, you jerk, you just screwed this up, and you beat the crap out of the guy and you take his stuff. He's not going to call the cops and say, some guys stole all of my equipment for people on people who were having section cars like so then he would get he'd suddenly have things to you. So he might be like, oh, hey, these goggles are great. Ope, Nope, nope,

I see I see Peep and Joe over there. No, definitely can't go on that one. This night is a bust. And if he's going for nights where it's dark, you know, no moon. It's a limited time each month. Yeah, and yeah, and so yeah, there was just that small, that small window time and there was always going to be these guys out there screwing things up. So yeah, Antonio springing Francesco.

Now I think that probably Francesco just wasn't the killer. Again, although we don't know for a fact that the monster was just one guy. Yeah, we don't know that it could have been more than one, although probably not. I mean, that's a pretty specific mutilation and it's pretty brutal, and I mean I guess I just in my brain hope that like there's not more than one person in any given region he was willing to do that. But I could be a wrong assumption, but it's my hope in

this world. Yeah, yeah, most of us, I don't. I hope that most of us can't do stuff like that. I don't think I could. Mostly, I just hope that, you know, the one if it was one of the Vinci's, you know, they came back and they were like, oh, yeah, I just did this thing, and like look at this thing that I got and everyone was like dude, no, no. But in that story, right, we're saying that he came back he was like, look at what I just did, and everyone was like, yeah, I can get on board

with that. I could do that problem. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, maybe it was an initiation, right, that's some like Texas chainsaw mask her crazy. Yeah, it's like like the hills have eyes kind of yeah. Sorry, yeah, it's that kind of Yes. Yeah, I don't think. I think these guys were not model citizens. I don't know if they were all that twisted and messed up. So, I mean, so, do we have a good suspect. I mean, well, there's there was one possibility because salvatare Um, you know, salvotare Is.

Maybe because he's the other brother, Yes, Salbotore uh Antonio's dad. He left the country well, he was in jail from early eight six onward. He was under surveillance prior to that, but then and then he left in ninety eight, so that would account for if he was the killer, that would account for why they stopped so, which makes salvatory. Although at the same time he was being followed by the police quite a lot. I can't imagine that they

were all too subtle about that. No, they weren't. He was aware of being followed generally at least, and so he knew he was being followed. So it would have been pretty ballsy on his part to go out and commit a murder. I mean, all the other ones you have with the murder, that was when he was really, you know, starting to come to their attention. Can you remind me what was the progression of her of Barbara's progression through the Vinci brothers. Was it Francisco first or

was it Salvatory. It was Salvatory first, and then Francesco Francesco and then and not Antonio the nephew, but Antonio Lobianko, who was not related to them. Yeah, okay, I mean, I guess I can see Stefano feeling really jilted. And then again doing nothing that we're kind of talking about with um with Natalino, where he just never quite got over the slight and you know, maybe because he when he initially murdered Barbara, he was feeling like, oh, um, I can't you know the kids right here, I care

about this kid. I can't you know, take out all of my rage on her. And so he had that kind of weirdness in his brain and that he was trying to work out. You know, again that's probably cognizant of like what but yeah, I mean I'm talking Salvadora.

I mean, yeah, so you think he was feeling a little guilt over the well that he didn't that he had more anger towards Barbara than he was able to express because Natalino was there in the back seat, and so he cared about Natalino, and he you know, took him and took him to a safe That's yeah, that's why the six one didn't have any mutilation. And then maybe he was able to kind of or he was trying to suppress it, you know. So that's why there was such a big gap between that one and then one,

and then it just kind of ramps up. He does it once and he's like, oh no, he's like so compelled to just keep working it out. I don't know, I have no idea. I had no idea either, Yeah, but not a criminal psychologist. I mean he eventually, yeah, they got over and he went back to um Sardinia and became a serial killer there. I don't know. Yeah, I mean it's possible, Yeah, it could be, but yeah,

uh so possible. But again, it's these guys were sneaky because they never really left much in the way of evidence. There's one of the last guy, and this guy is actually kind of the favorite of a lot of people, and that is Antonio Vinci. We've talked at length about already. Yeah,

we talked about him a little bit. Well, you'll remember police were suspicious Francesco because he was close to the scene of to kill things and he was actually at both those times he was hanging out with Antonio, so that was and in one in one case, Antonio lived a mere six kilometers from the murder side, so that that's that's actually as much of a finger of guilt towards Antonio as to Francesco, just for that alone. Uh. He was talking to Mario Spetcy the journalist and Douglas Preston.

They actually pit and cornered him in his own kitchen, and he at that time acknowledged that he owned a scuba knife. Now, whether he was just tweaking them, I don't know us, but a scuba knife, because he was talking about how his bad relationship with the smothered salvatory and he talked about how they got in this really big knockdown fight and he had him down on the floor pin then he had a scuba and I had

my scuba knife to his throat. Yeah, And maybe he was just being kind of actually kind of being taunting them about the case, because he had to have known that they thought he was maybe the killer. He was according to what they talked to him, they found that he was extremely up on the case. He was very familiar with it. Although that's to be expected even if he's not the killer, he's involved. He likes to be or not he's It pays to know the details of

the case that you were suspected of being involved in. Yeah. Another thing about Antonio is he'd be about the right age for it. And he actually moved away from Florence between the years night so that means that whole gap between the seventy four killing and killing, well, that could sort of be accounted for by Francesco being out of town. Uh. So that would account for why there had been no murders between the seventy four murder and the nine eighty

one murder. So that fits. Uh. And he knowledged to Preston and and Spetcy when he talked to them that he was with Francesco when Francesco hid the car in the woods way back in like eighty two. And that's about it. That's not a huge amount of evidence. I mean, what what My biggest problem so far with all of this is that, with the exception of Pietro, this is all focused on one family. Oh well, we can't make it work with this guy. Let's try the other guy.

Oh it didn't work with him, Let's try it with the other relative. Like this, this is so easy to me too. Well, let's expand their scope of the investigation from this one family. And I know that they looked into a lot of people, but it is just so easy to have been somebody completely unrelated to this family. And that's what I think, that's what makes this case such a winner for people and so intriguing and why

it's been around so strong. But it's like, I don't know why the cops went about it in the way that they did in terms of the Vinci's like, we've

got to focus on the It's frustrating to me. Yeah, Well, after the connection was made to the Buretta handgun, I can understand why they would want to give them a good thorough look see, but overboard, well, yeah, I mean the thing about it is is it's always possible that the gun actually left their hands and they might have sold it, lost it, they could have been stolen from them. I mean, it's always possible that and if they are associating with ne'er do wells, it could very easily end

up in the hand of yet another murder. I mean, we've seen these stories in the news before where somebody gets found with a gun on them and they say, well, I bought that gun, and that gun is connected to murders via the blistics. How did you get it? Well, I bought it from the kid on the corner who I buy I buy my coke from. You know, I needed a gun, so I bought it from him. It turns out it was a gun that was using a crime happen. These things happen, I mean, or the Vinci's

knew a bunch of kind of crappy people. Well they did, especially Francesco. He was he hung out with a lot of criminals. And so, you know, he says, I gotta get rid of this gun. It's hot. I used it in murder. The cops are onto me. It's really it's got a really specific shot pattern. And some guy says, yeah, I'll buy from you. Yeah. He probably didn't even say it was used in a murder. He probably just said, you know, he had a friend who was looking for a gun. He says, I'll sell you this one. Yeah.

Problem yeah, which is joe Y, I don't buy guns from you, a smart reason. Yeah yeah. Yeah. And and so it's entirely possible. Yeah that that this. I think that the crowd that committed the six St eight murder. I believe that those guys probably were all involved the family. It was a clan killing, but not necessarily. All the

later killings not necessarily, but beyond that, who the hell knows. Yeah, I I struggled to believe that the entire thing was done by that that entire family, because that is just such. There's an a level of organization to it that I cannot see a fighting family being able to maintain, especially with some of the specificity that was done in terms of the attacks on the women and stuff like that. Yeah.

Long term, it's like, if you're capable of doing that just for this, you probably are doing a whole bunch of other things and you should have been found. Yeah. So I think we can all agree that we don't like any of them. Yeah, no, I mean I think that's Antonio definitely as possible as a possibility. But you know, as far as you know what, I sent him to jail, what I vote to send him away now because now, no,

the oven'tence really isn't there. Um, And you never know, I mean, maybe someday the gun will turn up and we'll find out where it's been all these years, and we'll get a better idea of you know, maybe who really was was the killer and that's in the bottom of a river. Yeah, probably that. There's always that possibility. Oh yeah, yeah, so the monster. Unfortunately we didn't quite solve this one. Or hanging on Choopy, Sorry Choopy. He likes a notoriety. He does yeah, he does. He enjoys

that stuff. You guys got any more theories for I think we've exhausted this one pretty well. I think so well, let me let me tell you guys a few fun facts you're really gonna want to know. First off, you might want to like, you know, especially if you're the killer, please send us an email. And our email is Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. And uh, and we also have one of those website thingies. That website is thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can download listen to

our episodes right there. H And also we've got a link for merch there too. Oh yeah on the website yea, yeah, yeah, so you can there's there's a survey is on their The merch is on there, all of that stuff stuff so you can buy mugs, t shirts, all kinds of good stuff. Uh what else? Other places you can find us would be on iTunes, where you can subscribe. You can rate us, preferably a five star rating. We like those better and give us a review. That's great to uh.

And streaming we can be streamed like from everywhere. Google Play is a big one. I know there's a lot of others this anywhere you find good past anywhere you get fine podcast, there you go. And social media we're there too. We're on Facebook where we have a group in a page. So joined the group, like the page or is it like the group joined the page. I can't remember just joining the group liking the page. There

you go. Okay, sorry with the confusion. We're on Twitter, where we are thinking sideways without that g And we have a subreddit thinking sideways. What's going on the subreadit these days? And stuff okay and junk okay. Uh yeah, and that's about it. I already told you about the merchant and stuff like that. So I think we're done for this week, all right, until next week. Chow, I don't know the language by