Monster of Florence
Encyclopedia
- Il Mostro redirects here. For the 2008 book, see The Monster of Florence. For the 1994 Roberto Benigni film, see The Monster (1994 film)The Monster (1994 film)Il Mostro is a 1994 Italian comedy film. It starred Roberto Benigni as a man who is mistaken by police profilers for a serial killer due to a misunderstanding of the man's strange behavior...
. For the 1977 Italian film, see Il mostro (1977 film)Il mostro (1977 film)Il mostro is a 1977 Italian thriller film directed by Luigi Zampa and starring Johnny Dorelli.-Cast:* Johnny Dorelli* Sydne Rome* Renzo Palmer* Yves Beneyton* Enzo Santaniello* Henning Schlüter* Renato Scarpa* Gianrico Tedeschi* Orazio Orlando...
.
The Monster of Florence, also known as Il Mostro, is an epithet
Epithet
An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...
commonly used for the perpetrator, or the perpetrators, of 16 murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
s that took place between 1968 and 1985 in the province of Florence
Province of Florence
The Province of Florence is a province in the Tuscany region of Italy. It has an area of 3,514 sq. km and a population of 933,860 in 44 comuni....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. The same gun and pattern was used in all the murders.
Four local men, Stefano Mele, Pietro Pacciani, Mario Vanni and Giancarlo Lotti were arrested, charged and convicted of the crime at different times. However, these convictions have been criticized and ridiculed in the media, critics suggest that the real killer or killers have never been identified. Several other suspects were arrested and held in captivity at various times, but they were later released when subsequent murders using the same weapon and methods cast doubt on the guilt of the suspects held in captivity.
The English author Magdalen Nabb
Magdalen Nabb
Magdalen Nabb was a British author, best known for the Marshal Guarnaccia detective novels.Born near Blackburn in Lancashire as Magdalen Nuttal, she was educated at the Convent Grammar School, Bury, before going on to art college in Manchester, where she studied arts and pottery, which she taught...
, wrote the 1996 novel, "The Monster of Florence" based on her extensive research and documents from the actual case. Although a work of fiction, Nabb states that the investigation in the novel was real and keeping it fiction was a protective measure. The 2008 nonfiction book The Monster of Florence, Douglas Preston
Douglas Preston
Douglas Preston is an American author who has written seventeen popular techno-thriller and horror novels, four alone and the rest with Lincoln Child...
and Mario Spezi
Mario Spezi
Mario Spezi is an award-winning Italian journalist and author. He wrote the non-fiction, true crime book, The Monster of Florence with American author Douglas Preston...
, suggest the same perpetrator as Nabb had identified, Antonio Vinci (the nephew and son of two Sardinian brothers each suspected of being the Monster) is a likely candidate for being the real killer. Vinci denied this in a Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC, or Dateline, is a U.S. weekly television newsmagazine broadcast by NBC. It previously was NBC's flagship news magazine, but now focuses on true crime stories. It airs Friday at 9 p.m. EST and after football season on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST.-History:Dateline is historically notable for...
interview with Stone Phillips
Stone Phillips
Stone Stockton Phillips is an American television reporter and correspondent. He is the former co-anchor of Dateline NBC, a newsmagazine TV show. He also has worked as a substitute anchor for NBC Nightly News and Today and as a substitute moderator on Meet the Press. He is known for his clear...
.
Victims
- August 21, 1968: Antonio Lo Bianco (29) and Barbara Locci (32), lovers, shot to death with a .22 BerettaBerettaFabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta is an Italian firearms manufacturer. Their firearms are used worldwide for a variety of civilian, law enforcement, and military purposes. It is also known for manufacturing shooting clothes and accessories. Beretta is the oldest active firearms manufacturer in the...
in SignaSignaSigna is a comune in the Province of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 12 km west of Florence. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 16,809 and an area of 18.8 km²....
, a small town to the west of Florence, while Locci's son Natalino Mele (6) lay asleep in the back seat of the car. The child woke up and, finding his mother dead, fled in fright. At 2 a.m. he arrived in front of a house nearby and knocked on the door, telling the landlord: "Open the door and let me in, I'm sleepy and my Daddy is sick in bed. Then you have to drive me home, because my Mommy and my uncle are dead in their car." Natalino initially said he had run away alone, then changed his story and stated that his father – or maybe an uncle of his, as he used to call "uncle" his mother's lovers – had driven him to the house where he asked for help. Years later he said again that he was alone, but was too shocked to remember exactly what happened on that night. Locci was famous in the town because of her multiple love affairs, and so received the nickname Ape Regina (queen bee). Locci's husband, an ingenuous man named Stefano Mele, was eventually charged with the murder and spent six years in jail, but even while he was in prison, more couples were murdered with the same gun. - September 15, 1974: Pasquale Gentilcore, barman (19), and Stefania Pettini, accountant (18), teenage sweethearts, were shot to death and stabbed in a country lane near Borgo San LorenzoBorgo San LorenzoBorgo San Lorenzo is a comune in the Province of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 20 km northeast of Florence...
while having sex in Gentilcore's Fiat 127Fiat 127The Fiat 127 is a supermini produced by the Italian automaker Fiat between 1971 and 1983. It was introduced in 1971 as the replacement for the Fiat 850...
not far from a notorious disco called Teen Club where they were supposed to spend the evening with some friends. Pettini's corpse had been violated with a grapevine stalk and disfigured with 97 stab-wounds. Some hours before the murder, Pettini said something to a close friend about a weird man that terrified her. - June 6, 1981: Giovanni Foggi, warehouseman (30), and Carmela Di Nuccio, shop assistant (21), engaged. Shot to death and stabbed on a Saturday night, near ScandicciScandiccithumb|250px|Pieve of Sant'Alessandro a Giogoli.Scandicci is a comune of c. 50,000 inhabitants in the Province of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 6 km southwest of Florence....
, where they both lived. Di Nuccio's body was pulled out of the car and the killer cut out her pubic area with a notched knife. The next morning, a young voyeur, Enzo Spalletti, went around speaking about the murder before the corpses had been discovered. He spent three months in jail, charged with murder, before the killer exonerated him by killing again. - October 23, 1981: Stefano Baldi, workman (26), and Susanna Cambi, telephonist (24), engaged and due to be married in a few months' time. Shot to death and stabbed in a park in the vicinity of CalenzanoCalenzanoCalenzano is a comune in the Province of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 11 km northwest of Florence...
. Cambi's pubic area was cut out like Di Nuccio's. An anonymous person phoned Cambi's mother the morning after the murder, to "talk to her about her daughter". A few days before the homicide, Susanna told her mother that there was somebody tormenting her. - June 19, 1982: Paolo Mainardi, mechanicianMechanicianA mechanician is an engineer or a scientist working in the field of mechanics, or in a related or sub-field: engineering or computational mechanics, applied mechanics, geomechanics, biomechanics, and mechanics of materials...
(22), and Antonella Migliorini, modiste (20), engaged and due to marry very soon, nicknamed Vinavil (a brand of superglue) as they were inseparable. Shot to death in Mainardi's car while parked on a country road in MontespertoliMontespertoliMontespertoli is a comune in the Province of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 20 km southwest of Florence....
. This time the killer did not mutilate the female victim. Mainardi (although he had serious injuries) was still alive when found. Police and ambulances were called immediately but Mainardi died some hours later at the hospital. A new reconstruction of the events suggests that, after shooting the couple, the Monster drove Paolo's car for few meters. Then he lost control of the car and he abandoned it where it was finally discovered. - September 9, 1983: Horst Wilhelm Meyer (24) and Jens Uwe Rüsch (24), German tourists. Shot to death in their Volkswagen Samba BusSamba (bus)The term Samba in VW circles refers to a specific model of the Type 2 bus which was manufactured with the highest trim level available. A Samba is a Standard microbus with additions that include trim strips along the beltline and a dash clock. They were marketed for touring the Alps, as they had...
, in GalluzzoGalluzzoGalluzzo is a suburb of Florence, Italy, located in the southern extremity of the Florentine commune. It is known for the celebrated Carthusian monastery, the Galluzzo or Florence Charterhouse , which was founded in 1342 by Niccolò Acciaioli.- History :- The autonomous commune :Galluzzo was an...
. Rüsch's long blond hair and his small build could have deceived the killer into thinking he was a female. Police suspected that they were gay lovers, but this theory has never been corroborated. - July 29, 1984: Claudio Stefanacci, student (21), and Pia Gilda Rontini, barmaid and cheerleader (18), sweethearts, shot to death and stabbed in Stefanacci's Fiat PandaFiat PandaThe Fiat Panda is a city car from the Italian automobile manufacturer Fiat. The first Fiat Panda was introduced in 1980, and was produced until 2003 with only a few changes. It is now sometimes referred to as the "old Panda". The second model, launched in 2003, is sometimes referred to "New Panda"...
parked in a woodland area near Vicchio di Mugello. The killer removed the girl's pubic area and left breast. There were reports of a strange man who had been following them in an ice cream parlour some hours before the murder. A close friend of Pia Rontini recalled she had confided that she had been bothered by "an unpleasant man" while working at the bar. - September 7–8, 1985: Jean Michel Kraveichvili, musician (25), and Nadine Mauriot, tradeswoman (36), lovers, both from AudincourtAudincourtAudincourt is a commune in the Doubs department in the Franche-Comté region in eastern France.-Population:-External links:*...
, FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, on a camping vacation in Italy. Nadine was shot to death and stabbed while sleeping in their small tent in a woodland area near San CascianoSan Casciano in Val di PesaSan Casciano in Val di Pesa is a comune in the Province of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 15 km southwest of Florence....
. Jean Michel was killed a short distance away from the tent while trying to escape. Nadine's corpse was mutilated. Because the killer had murdered two traveling foreigners, there was not yet a missing persons report. The killer sent a taunting note, along with a piece of Nadine's breast, to the state prosecutor, Silvia della Monica, stating that a murder had taken place and challenging local authorities to find the victims. A person hunting mushrooms in the area discovered the bodies of Mauriot and Kraveichvili a few hours before the letter arrived on the prosecutor's desk.
Books and movies
The 2011 e-book The True Stories of the Monster Of Florence by Jacopo Pezzan and Giacomo Brunoro (April 2011) gives a detailed account of all the murders and the different investigative theories.The 1996 book "The Monster Of Florence" by Magdalen Nabb
Magdalen Nabb
Magdalen Nabb was a British author, best known for the Marshal Guarnaccia detective novels.Born near Blackburn in Lancashire as Magdalen Nuttal, she was educated at the Convent Grammar School, Bury, before going on to art college in Manchester, where she studied arts and pottery, which she taught...
doubted Pacciani as Il Mostro and was based on actual and extensive case documents.
The 2008 book The Monster of Florence: A True Story by Douglas Preston
Douglas Preston
Douglas Preston is an American author who has written seventeen popular techno-thriller and horror novels, four alone and the rest with Lincoln Child...
and Mario Spezi
Mario Spezi
Mario Spezi is an award-winning Italian journalist and author. He wrote the non-fiction, true crime book, The Monster of Florence with American author Douglas Preston...
casts doubts on the culpability of Pacciani as Il Mostro. Writer/producer Christopher McQuarrie
Christopher McQuarrie
Christopher McQuarrie is an American screenwriter, producer and director. His screenplays include The Usual Suspects, for which he won the 1996 Academy Award, The Way of the Gun and Valkyrie....
has purchased the screen rights to the book.
In 1986 a movie was produced by the Italian film director Cesare Ferrario based on the original book of Mario Spezi, The Monster of Florence (1983).
External links
- The Monster of Florence at Crime LibraryCrime LibraryThe Crime Library is a website documenting major crimes, criminals, and trials, forensics, and criminal profiling from books, police reports, crime television shows, and writers...
- "The Monster of Florence", TIMETimeTime is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
- A shorter account on Douglas Preston's narrative can be found here: "The Monster of Florence", The Atlantic
- A Map of the murders can be found here: http://maps.google.it/maps/ms?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hl=it&ie=UTF8&t=h&source=embed&msa=0&z=10&msid=207168611562461025753.00049974853473c1f3aea
- 2004 interview with the author Magdalen NabbMagdalen NabbMagdalen Nabb was a British author, best known for the Marshal Guarnaccia detective novels.Born near Blackburn in Lancashire as Magdalen Nuttal, she was educated at the Convent Grammar School, Bury, before going on to art college in Manchester, where she studied arts and pottery, which she taught...
here: http://italian-mysteries.com/nabb-interview-part08.html detailing her research on the case and Mario SpeziMario SpeziMario Spezi is an award-winning Italian journalist and author. He wrote the non-fiction, true crime book, The Monster of Florence with American author Douglas Preston...