The core DNA of Italy’s famous “cold cases”

It is one of Italy’s most famous investigations. Between 1974 and 1985, the “Monster of Florence” terrorized the Tuscan capital and its countryside by killing 14 people, including six couples, during or after sex, most of them in their cars.

Italy then went through its sinister “lead years”. Violence by the Mafia, the Red Brigades and far-right armed groups left thousands dead. More than half a century after the first murder, doubt still collides with judicial truth in this extraordinary case, which has caused psychosis in Tuscany and continues to delight publishers.

Hope in DNA

In fact, according to the courts, Hydra had several heads, and three men were jailed for their direct involvement. But these trials do not cover all crimes, and the prospect of new light from science has brought new hope to some families, but also caused warnings from experts.

Dr. Lorenzo Iovino, a renowned Italian oncological hematologist practicing in the United States, recently analyzed DNA samples extracted from Winchester 22 long rifle bullets found in the cushions of Frenchmen Nadine Maurriot and Jean -Michel Kraveichvili (who had been shot in their camping tent in 1985).

The same DNA was extracted from the murder of two young German men, Horst Wilhelm Meyer and Jens-Uwe Rüsch, in September 1983, who were undoubtedly mistaken for a couple, and from the murder of Italians Pia Rontini and Claudio Stefanacci in July 1984. These findings could prove “very important,” explained Daniele Piccione, a jurist who chairs the parliamentary investigation committee.

“Like Christ on the Cross”

The murder weapon – a Beretta semi-automatic pistol – was never found. Typically, the assassin would stab his prey after they were dead and perform brutal sexual mutilations on the bodies of young women.

This sprawling investigation, shaped by rivalries between prosecutors and investigators, carabinieri and police, has multiple threads, from a Sardinian vendetta to the Italian secret service, from a religious sect to a celebrity conspiracy.

Finally, Pietro Pacciani, a Madre peasant and sexual deviant, was arrested after a tip-off and convicted of murder in 1951 and jailed for the rape of his two daughters in 1987. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994, but was acquitted on appeal two years later for lack of evidence.

The verdict was overturned. Pacciani, who claimed to be “innocent like Christ on the cross,” died of a heart attack in 1998 at the age of 73 and had to be retried. Two of his alleged followers, Mario Vanni and Giancarlo Lotti, were also found guilty and imprisoned. Both have since died.

Genetic comparison

The civil parties’ lawyers are now asking for a comparison of the DNA identified by Lorenzo Iovino. But what are those genetic fingerprints?

Me Vieri Adriani, who represents the families of the French victims, wants to exhume the body of Italian Stefania Pettini, murdered together with her boyfriend Pasquale Gentilcore in September 1974. “We know from the forensic report that she could have fought with her killer and it is not difficult to imagine that there were traces of organisms under her fingernails, for example,” he explained in a daily newspaper this week. Republic.

DNA could also be extracted from French belongings for the same reason. Lorenzo Iovino said the new DNA was neither compatible with the victim’s DNA nor with the “DNA of those involved” for decades.

For Roberto Taddeo, a former lawyer and author of The Monster of Florence, this could simply be a case of genetic contamination caused by investigators, technicians or forensic scientists. He preached “utmost caution” and warned against the temptation of judicial “revisionism.” “From the point of view of Italian law, Pacciani did not die innocently, he died before the new trial,” he recalled.

The first murder, sometimes attributed to the “Florence Monster,” dates back to 1968, when a woman and her lover were murdered while secretly making love in their car. The cheating husband was blamed. Years later, investigators discovered that the murder weapon was the famous Beretta pistol. Did the weapon change hands? Did one innocent person pay for another? This double homicide remains one of the many mysteries of the case.