Monster of Florence: The Real-Life Horror Behind an Italian Legend

Adam Cox: [00:00:00] A gun is raised and fired. The bullet rips through Pasquale's arm to flex off the bone and slams into his chest, killing him instantly.

The attacker stabs Stephania, nearly a hundred times with a screwdriver

Kyle Risi: damn a hundred

Adam Cox: times.

A guy called Mario Betsy, publishes a front page story suggesting something Italy has never seen before. A serial killer.

It's gruesome, it's precise. .

Kyle Risi: it's definitely premeditated.

Adam Cox: It's almost a ritual and a telltale sign that this was the work of a person that would become known as the monster of Florence.

Adam Cox: Sylvia carefully opens the package and inside she finds layers of tissue paper and something thick and wet, She pulls it back and she screams lying on her desk is a jagged, rotting piece of human flesh.

Kyle Risi: God.

[00:01:00]

Adam Cox: Welcome to the Compendium, an assembly of fascinating things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

Kyle Risi: We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, and the jaw dropping deeds of extraordinary people.

Adam Cox: I'm Adam Cox, your ring master for this episode.

Kyle Risi: And I'm Kyle Risi. The interim mime translator and oversight coordinator for this week.

I'm not sure that's a job. What, what is that? So, well, okay, let me explain. So after way too many lawsuits from our audience members, it's [00:02:00] become very necessary for them to hire me to interpret what the mimes actually meant. Okay. Yeah. Unfortunately, the mimes are refusing to confirm any of my findings.

So mostly my reports are 90% wild guesswork and 10% me just practicing my court new signature, you know. Okay.

Adam Cox: I don't think this is a job, Kyle.

Kyle Risi: It is. It is. Technically I fit under hr, although there's no room for me in the admin office on account that Sue needs the extra space because her kids have lost their placement at the child minders.

So my desk is technically in the broom cupboard between pyrotechnics and unclaimed goats.

Adam Cox: We've got enough unclaimed goats.

Kyle Risi: I don't know. Guests. They come with their goats and they just leave them

Adam Cox: This is getting bizarre.

Guys, if you are new to the show and you want to support us, then the absolute best way to do that, and enjoy exclusive perks, is to join our Patreon. If you sign up for free, you can get next week's episode seven days early,

Kyle Risi: and for as little as $3 a month, yes, less than $1 [00:03:00] a week, you can become a fellow freak of the show.

And that will unlock our entire back catalog, including classic episodes like, and this week we are prepared the Amelia Earhart episode. Ah, is that in the hidden vault? I think so. I hope so. Or you could just be making that up. Yeah. Could be making it up. It's a pretty good episode.

And also the whole mystery about what happened to her. You know, she got eaten by crabs. Spoiler alert. . But things though they recently did find her bones. So that kind of shows that, well she could have been picked clean by crab. So Yeah. Which is what happens to most people when they get s td.

What? Yeah. Famously, if you get

Adam Cox: crabs, pick your bits apart. That's uh, that's brand new information to me. Yeah. Trust me with a compendium.

Kyle Risi: We fact check everything.

Adam Cox: And as a special thank you, our certified freak tier members can now receive an exclusive compendium key chain.

All you need to do is DM us your address and we'll send one straight to your door so we can always be there dangling near [00:04:00] your crotch. that was lovely.

Kyle Risi: Well, your, yours is really sensual last week. Like really? Like a smoldering kind of emphasis on it.

Adam Cox: Smoldering. Crotch,

Kyle Risi: yeah. Yes, it's on fire.

That's a smoldering crotch. My loins are on fire. That's where you need the dangling key chain to be dangling there.

. And lastly, guys, please follow us on your favorite podcasting app and leave us a review.

Your support really helps others find our show and keeps these amazing stories coming.

Adam Cox: Yes. Just leave us a review, leave us a rating on Spotify. We'd love it.

Kyle Risi: Actually, we got a really amazing one the other day, so it's from Dawn Fenton. . I love the show. She says, it gives me life. You are fantastic storytellers. And I swear you are the only two people who make me laugh out loud these days, babe. That's really nice. That's pretty sweet. Yeah, she says it's like hanging out with fun friends and I wish I could buy you both a cocktail babe.

You can ship cocktails in the post now, babe.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Porn star martini, uh, espresso martini and aero [00:05:00] spritz. Negroni. We'll take anything.

Kyle Risi: And she says keep up the amazing work. Thank you for making me so happy, Dawn.

Adam Cox: Ah, thank you very much, Dawn.

Kyle Risi: And then she says she would love to hear our take on the Netflix documentary unknown number, the high school Catfish.

Oh, she says there's pure insanity. So yeah, I mean, we do get a lot of people requesting shows more so recently bizarrely, but the quality of the ones that are coming through now, I think maybe we don't need to go off and do some research. We can just dive into what our freaks are suggesting.

Adam Cox: we'll just put Netflix on and we'll just play that out loud and then we'll just comment every now and then

Kyle Risi: There are podcasts out there that are just commentary. Podcasts, there's this one out there where

they just commentate on Netflix documentaries, which we do occasionally.

Adam Cox: Yeah, no, we won't even comment. We'll literally just like hit play and then just play it through speaker. See you in an hour. Okay. So enough of the housekeeping because it's time to get to today's story, Kyle.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: Today on the compendium we are going to be traveling to the hills of Florence.

Meeting doomed lovers and follow a manhunt that lasted decades. [00:06:00]

Kyle Risi: Oh, interesting. Florence. Is this like another Amanda Knox kind of a gig going on here?

Adam Cox: Oh, it's interesting you say that. She does turn up in this story. Shut up. Well, she's referenced. There's a connection. Let's put it that way.

Okay, go on

Kyle Risi: then. Tell me more.

Adam Cox: Okay, so a word of warning. This episode does feature mutilation and murder. So here's your warning, if you'd rather skip this one.

Kyle Risi: So what is the issue there? Is it the mutilation or is it the murder? Because we've dealt with murder a lot in the past, and we've not given a PSA.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Most people are here for the murder. Um, it's the mutilation, which people might be basically mish about.

Kyle Risi: Are you gonna be really graphic?

Adam Cox: To be fair, it's probably the first half where it'll be quite, it's gonna be factual, let's put it that way.

Kyle Risi: Factual, clinical.

Adam Cox: Yeah. It's not nice. ,

To give you a little bit of insight into today's story, we're gonna start on a warm September night in 1974. There's two teenagers who are newly engaged madly in love, and they're dancing the night away at a disco in Bogo San Lorenzo.

Kyle Risi: Wow. That's a

Adam Cox: good pronunciation. Adam, I think, do you know what?

I [00:07:00] think my Italian is gonna be pretty good. Well, most of it. There's some words. I'm not too sure. Listen, Duolingo is doing you no favors. How would you know? That's how I know most of these words. Really? Okay. Well, they're mainly names that I'm gonna be,

Kyle Risi: but right now off the bat, I'm getting Zodiac vibes.

Ooh.

Adam Cox: Another good reference.

Kyle Risi: only 'cause you said 1974 and two lovers kind of dancing the night away,

Adam Cox: dancing the night away in Bogo San Lorenzo. It's a, wow,

Kyle Risi: you did it again.

Adam Cox: It's a quiet mountain town about 20 miles north of Florence. the girl is Nia Pettini, she's 18 and her new fiance is Pasquale Gentil.

Kyle Risi: Wow. Adam,

Adam Cox: I think you're more Italian than I am. yeah. Uh, he's 19 years old, so they're very young. they're high on music, adrenaline and that kind of young love that just, they don't care who's watching. After the club, they leave in search of privacy because like many young couples in a small town in Italy, they live at home with their parents.

Yeah. And they can't do it under their roof. They need a rummage. Mm-hmm. So they drive up into the hills, find a secluded spot near the edge of a [00:08:00] vineyard and park the car. Ooh. Definitely getting zodiac vibes. And it's meant to be their moment. It's intimate, quiet, just the two of them. But they're not alone.

A shadow moves outside the car before either of them can react. A gun is raised and fired. The bullet rips through Pasquale's arm to flex off the bone and slams into his chest, killing him instantly. Stephania, she's hit too, but I believe she's still alive at this point when she's dragged naked outta the car and towards the back of the car away from Pasquale.

Wait, did he make her naked or was she already naked? I think they were already, you know, in a state of undress because they were. I'm sorry

Kyle Risi: if horror movie law is anything to go by, the second you get naked, you're dead. So I kind

Adam Cox: of saw this

Kyle Risi: coming.

Adam Cox: Okay. Well, she's been pulled outta the car, round the back of the car, away from Pasquale and laid on the ground.

Mm-hmm. The attacker stabs her nearly a hundred times with a screwdriver or an ice pick. So we don't know at [00:09:00] this point, but

Kyle Risi: damn a hundred

Adam Cox: times. Mm. Now most of the wounds are concentrated around her chest and her pubic area. Then the attacker spreads her legs and he disgustingly violates her with a grapevine torn from near him.

It's gruesome, it's precise. It's not some random crime. It's almost a ritual and a telltale sign that this was the work of a person that would become known as the monster of Florence.

Kyle Risi: wow. Okay. Brilliant setup. Horrible. First of all, horrible setup. Horrible. Yeah. Poor woman. So, just a couple clarity questions.

Is that his mo? Is that what he will typically do? Put a grapevine in them in some way?

Adam Cox: not specifically that in this instance, yes. There's other instances, but Yeah. we'll try and uncover some of the motives potentially later on. Sure. but initially we're just gonna go back in time to kind of look at the murders because I dunno if you knew much about the Mons Florence at this point.

Kyle Risi: uh, only from the connection to the Amanda Knox, so I can't [00:10:00] remember his name, but the lead detective that was dealing with it, who was very, very religious. Mm-hmm. I think Catholic, he became convinced that there were dark forces at work in the Amanda Knox's case. He would look at her kind of outside on the lawn.

She was kind of canoodling with Raphael and he was like, she's got the devil in her. And I believe that this is one of his cases

Adam Cox: yeah. The guy, uh, will come onto him. He's, um, he is connected. He does, uh, lead on both cases. There is a satanist kind of element to it, but

Kyle Risi: Sure.

Adam Cox: When you could dig into the story, there's so many, conspiracies And things that go off on a tangent that it's quite hard to kind of understand what's true and what's not true.

Kyle Risi: Sure. I see.

Adam Cox: and so we will touch on that, but that's not necessarily the core of this story because I don't think there's been anything that's been verified that this is linked to a cult.

Kyle Risi: Sure. So loosely, we have like a few overlaps with what's gone on with, Amanda Knox because of the connection to the detective. But then I'm also getting a bit of like satanic panic vibes going on here. I'm wondering if that kind of calls a bit of [00:11:00] a, an outrage across Italy in the seventies.

Adam Cox: Well, there's a hysteria because actually, the monster of Florence has been commonly referred to as the Italian version of Jack the Ripper.

Kyle Risi: Oh, wow.

Adam Cox: So interestingly, the setting and some of the events from this story of the Monster of Florence, where inspiration behind the second book in the Hannibal series, silence of the Lambs Uhhuh, which is interesting as the film series also drew inspiration from Ed Gein, which we did just a few weeks ago.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: So we've already mentioned Jack the Ripper, ed Geen and Hannibal Lecter you kind of get a sense of what the story could be about.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, it sounds horrific. And um, I'm tucked in. I've got my little blanket, got my coffee .

Adam Cox: you've locked the door.

Kyle Risi: I've locked the door. I'm scared.

.

Adam Cox: do you know what it stands as? One of the longest, most complicated and most expensive criminal cases in the history of Italy. It's a chilling tale. a web of savage killings, legal failures and intense media obsession. And over the years, dozens of men were taken into custody as potential [00:12:00] suspects.

None of them were guilty, or at least perhaps guilty for the monster of Florence's crimes.

Kyle Risi: Wow.

Adam Cox: and then there were a thousand more, which were questioned lives were upended, reputation shattered. It's part of this, which makes this story so hard to untangle because it's deeply wrapped in police misconduct and deliberate misdirection.

Kyle Risi: Ooh. So is this an unsolved case?

Adam Cox: let's clear that up straight away. 'cause today this case is officially unsolved. However, there is one man, some believe is responsible for the monster's crimes. Wow. Okay. So today I'm gonna try and walk you through what happened, throughout the decades of this crime.

Let's do this.

So we already know about the first victims, Stefan Stefanini and Pasquale Gen. But it would be another seven years before the next kill.

So during this time, Stefani Pini and Pasquale were thought to be part of a random attack, not linked to a serial killer. , A local farmer finds these bodies and police, interestingly think they may have been multiple [00:13:00] attackers, but no one has ever found guilty of these crimes.

So it's now 1981, and it's the night of June the sixth. Now, somewhere deep in the hills, near via Della Rigo, a rural stretch about 20 miles south of Florence, a man walks alone through the dark, and according to police reports, they believe the attacker is on foot moving quietly through the terrain, searching for a couple, parked in the car, looking for privacy.

Eventually he finds two people. So this

Kyle Risi: is his mo. he's hunting for people doing the dirty.

Adam Cox: absolutely. So Carmela DCIO is 21 and Giovanni 4G is 30. They're both newly engaged and just trying to enjoy a private moment away from watchful eyes. They're in their car, getting it on whilst being watched by a shadow outside the car.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: Before Giovanni can assumingly act, a gun goes off and the bullet hits him straight in the head and he dies instantly. Wow. Next the attacker turns the weapon on [00:14:00] Carmela and shoots her to, then he walks around to the passenger side, pulls her lifeless naked body from the car and drags her down a small embankment

He lays her on her back and he places her gold necklace into her mouth. And then. He mutilates her, he uses a blade to surgically remove her vagina and takes it with him as some kind of sick trophy.

Kyle Risi: Wow. Okay. God. And so he's just put this, uh, gold pendant in her mouth, shut the mouth, and now he's leaving that at the scene.

Is that hers?

Adam Cox: I think it's hers. I dunno why. I couldn't find any reason for that. It's just this weird thing because I think when they find, the body, they see that, her purse has been ripped open. Like maybe she's

Kyle Risi: it could be that he was looking for Id as a bit of a memento, but yeah, in the end, he's, taken a vagina.

Adam Cox: And so initially it looks like another brutal one-off double murder, but to one man, something about it feels familiar. A guy called Mario Betsy, a 5-year-old [00:15:00] crime reporter for La Nai spots a chilling connection between this murder and the double killing.

From 1974, He publishes a front page story suggesting something Italy has never seen before. A serial killer. And just like that, Florence spirals into fear because while serial killers were something of history like Jack the Ripper,

Or in the us she had killers like Ted Bundy. Italy wasn't known for having these big kind of famous serial killers. It's the Mediterranean diet. Way more chilled out, relaxed,

Kyle Risi: have an espresso. Yeah. So yeah, it could be, this could be a foreign national.

Adam Cox: I'm not sure espresso counts in the Mediterranean diet.

I think it's more about fish and vegetables and oils

Kyle Risi: yeah. But it kind of like, it's just part of the lifestyle, right? Just everything's relaxed. Maybe we downplaying this too much. So we have Italy here, who's got Their first serial Killer, essentially.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Wow.

' cause for them, it was something they'd see in books or movies and foreign news, [00:16:00] not in the hills of Tuscany, but thanks to Mario's reporting, the public can no longer look Away. a monster is out there and no one knows who he is. The city actually starts to turn in on itself, like gossip is spreading.

There's suspicions growing. Neighbors accuse neighbors, friends stop trusting friends. Even families begin to doubt their own blood. But Mario, Betsy isn't just looking for headlines. He wants answers, and he heads straight to the medical examiner's office and starts asking questions. specifically about the way Carmela's body was mutilated.

Kyle Risi: Ooh. Why is that important? Is he trying to piece together maybe a pattern or an mo here at this point?

Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. Um, the medical examiner tells him the procedure didn't require surgical training and required a specific kind of knife. That's the removal of the vagina. There was just three clean cuts.

Uh, that's all it took. And the blade likely had a notch or a serrated tooth in the center. And the medical examiner believes it could have been a scuba knife, a scuba knife, a scuba knife, or

Kyle Risi: [00:17:00] like when you go in you need to cut lines and stuff. That little notch sometimes allows you to kind of grip, the fishing line and then pull through or a rope or something.

Adam Cox: Yeah, now it's a key item that will come on to later. Mm-hmm. So just, just park that. Remember that. We'll come back to it. We're gonna find some more mutilated bodies with notches in them. Well, that's one way of putting it. Yeah. So a man named Enzo ti first comes under suspicion now he's a 30-year-old husband and father, police hone in on him because he allegedly talks about the murders before the discovery of the bodies are made public.

Oh, really? And so that alone raises eyebrows. And, uh, when paired with his reputation for lurking near rural makeup spots, he basically puts a target on his back.

Kyle Risi: So he is doing like a bit of dogging, basically, I guess. So if you're innocent, you're doing dogging. If you're guilty, you're there to murder. So at this moment in time, he's either a dogger or a murderer.

Adam Cox: I mean, it's the first time I'd ever wanna be a dogger.

Kyle Risi: I just, it's the first time you'd ever want, let's unpack that.

Adam Cox: the first time you'd ever want to be a dogger. either be a murderer or being someone that goes dogging. I'd be doggy.

Kyle Risi: I'm not dogging,

Adam Cox: but there's [00:18:00] been a murder

Kyle Risi: I was dogging.

Adam Cox: uh, these, what they called lovers' lanes after raw are exactly where the killer tends to strike. Um, we've seen it before with the, the victim so far they were there in a, they wanted some privacy basically to make out. Yeah. And this is what Enzo may be, I dunno, maybe is a bit of a peeping tom. Mm dunno for sure.

But to police it looks like a match. And with the public panic rising, they move fast to arrest him. So you could have just been there that night, right? It could have been, yeah, he's held in jail for three months while investigators dig into the possibility that he might be the serial killer.

But there's a problem. There's no forensic evidence that ties him to the scene. And even worse, for the case, at least his wife gives him a solid alibi. She confirms he was at home with her the night Carmela and Giovanni were killed.

And so as weeks go by and the pressure mounts on the police, the cracks in the case grow harder to ignore. And as far as the authorities are concerned, the case is closed.

Kyle Risi: Right.

Adam Cox: But the people in Florence, they're shaken. they're [00:19:00] exhausted, but they feel like they can start to breathe again.

Like there's not some weird killer in the hills of Tuscany.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. I guess enough time has passed and there's not been another murder. There's no one worrying whether or not he's gonna strike again.

Adam Cox: yeah, . But that doesn't last long because the police are forced to release Enzo just a few months later as whilst in prison.

The next victims meet their end, which prove his innocence. Ooh, interesting. So he was just dogging, or he might be having a walk at midnight?

Kyle Risi: I don't know. no one goes for a walk To a secluded makeout spot, unless you were with your girlfriend.

Adam Cox: Well, his wife gave him an alibi, so maybe he wasn't dogging that night.

Possibly. I. Why are we fixating on him? Dogging. So it's now October, 1981. Four months have passed since the murders of Carmela and Giovanni.

Now the killer is on the move again. drives out into the quiet fields, just west of Florence. It's a wide open stretch, scattered with wild flowers and flanked by the dark edges of the mountains there hidden in the shadows.

He waits,

He knows what he's looking for. A [00:20:00] couple seeking privacy again, and this time it's Stefano Bei and Susanna Cambi both in their mid twenties. Mm-hmm. And they are in their black Volkswagen golf, which comes to stop in the middle of this open space. And so from the killer's vantage point, he can kind of see in the shadows of the car as they kind of merge together.

And he starts to creep up onto the driver's, side. and he fires point blank again, killing both Stefano and Susanna with shots to the head.

Kyle Risi: Wow. So he's pretty precise, right? it sounds like it's only just a couple shots and then

he's immobilizing them and then of course he is, I'm assuming, going to mutilate these bodies.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I think already you can kind of tell that. His focus isn't on the male at the moment. He's just trying to get them killed straight away so then he can do whatever he needs to do on the female.

Sure. Which is horrific, obviously.

Kyle Risi: I mean, I do have a problem with these young people, especially in Italy, going off to these little make out points, like we've been so many times, the [00:21:00] cars are tiny. You see them all parked up. a lot of the time they're small, tiny renos or they're like smart cars.

There's no way you are getting off in one of these little cars.

Adam Cox: Well, they manage to make it work. I mean, if you've got nowhere else to go

Kyle Risi: Exactly. When you're Catholic, it's either smart car or,

Adam Cox: I dunno,

Kyle Risi: no car or no car.

Adam Cox: So Stefano and Susanna, they're now both dead. Uh, and then just like before the killer pulls Susanna's naked body from the car, God, he drags her into the nearby field and mutilates her.

He removes her vagina and ranges her corpse among the wild flowers. To the people of Florence, the murder is devastating 'cause it exposes something unthinkable. Police already have in custody for the previous killings, 30-year-old Enzo ti.

He's been behind bars for months now, and so now with this new couple that's been murdered in exactly the same way, his case crumbles and he's allowed to be released

Kyle Risi: but now the panic is set back in because now people are like, well, if someone was arrested, there was no more murders. Now there's another murder.

Yeah. Panic. [00:22:00] Panic again.

Adam Cox: Around this time, reporter Mario Betsy is back on the scene. He's the journalist on this case, and he reexamines his old notes and sees something that others have missed. Now he realizes that the make and caliber of the bullets used in all of the murder cases all match. So that's from the, the double murder in 1974 and the two murders this year.

Sure. And then he speaks to the medical examiner again and learns that the knife used to mutilate. Susanna is the same type that's used on Carmela months earlier. So again, another connection to the most recent killings. Sure. And so he publishes all of this in a series of articles and gives the killer a chilling new name for the first time.

He's known as the Monster of Florence.

Kyle Risi: Monster of

Adam Cox: Florence. Yeah. So this all comes from Mario, Betsy, the name I see.

Kyle Risi: Okay.

Adam Cox: Now we almost have, a pattern to those killings. As we discussed. The killer is targeting couples. When they're having these intimate moments and when they're likely to be at their most vulnerable and not in a position to fight [00:23:00] back.

The women, of course, are in a state of undress, making it easier for him to do what he's about to do. And we're pretty confident that the killer is a male. in 2007, there was a study focused specifically on murders that involved this kind of brutality

Kyle Risi: and in Italy, they only had one murder to go on.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Up until this point,

Kyle Risi: out of all the murders, all the serial killers in Italy, we have some decis effects to present.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Now, obviously this is in 2007, so it happens way after these crimes. but this study looked at multiple murder cases, and Noticed a pattern. which Was eerily consistent with the monster of Florence case.

Mm-hmm. Because from these other cases, the murders all took place outdoors. And in each instance the killer used objects from the environment like branches, sticks, vines to violate the victim post-mortem. But it's the profile of the offenders that's revealing. 'cause every single one was a heterosexual male, typically in his twenties with little formal education, a prior criminal record, and no [00:24:00] history of mental illness.

Kyle Risi: Okay. why is that relevant?

Adam Cox: I guess it's trying to build a profile of what type of killer would do these things. 'cause of all these other cases there's a pattern. And What was also interesting is none of the crime scenes showed any sign of sexual release. There's no semen. There's not none on the victims.

Kyle Risi: Do

You Think It's a morality thing because they are young couples. They're making out, they're not married. They live in a country that's very Catholic and that he is potentially.

Killing them because they're having sex at a wedlock.

Adam Cox: Um, interesting theory is not what they land on. , This study suggests that there's a form of sexual dysfunction, either erectile issues or not able to climax. And that might have fueled their rage because there's no, semen on these bodies.

Kyle Risi: I mean, to me that's a little bit of a stretch because men aren't just walking around, just coming on everything and, oh, like, oh, there was a man here and there's no semen.

Adam Cox: Do you know what I mean? Well, I think, I guess there are [00:25:00] murders in some instances where the woman has been raped or the body, whoever has been raped.

Afterwards. What they're saying in all these instances is that hasn't happened in these cases. Sure. And that the link between the killers of all these cases mm-hmm. Was that they had sexual dysfunction. And so therefore the monster of Florence matches these other profiles

Kyle Risi: , I see what you're saying.

I think right now I'm still affirmed. In my theory in that this is some kind of ritualistic thing, deeply rooted in morality, Catholic country, these people are young, having sex outta wedlock. The fact that he's done something almost weird and ceremonial, ritualistic to their bodies in terms of the way that he isn't mutilated them.

Mm-hmm. Makes me feel like there's some kind of connection to that as well that reinforces that. Um, such as putting the pendant in their mouth. in one instance he has put the vine inside the lady's vagina, and then in two of the cases he's taken their vagina.

I feel like there's something there.

Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. [00:26:00] Okay. That's, yeah, that's definitely an angle and we'll, we'll come back to that for sure. just one last thing on this study. What it also suggested, was that? These killers that were connected in these cases, they weren't insane and they were fully aware of what they were doing.

this isn't someone that's not of sound mind.

Kyle Risi: And the way that they justify that is that in each killing The things that they've done haven't seemed random and kind of like all over the place, they've all been following a similar pattern where he's done the same thing.

He's dragged the ladies out, he's done what he's done, he's left, something on them or in them. Mm-hmm. And yeah, so, okay. I possibly agree with that. It's methodical. it's definitely premeditated. Yeah. I mean obviously these all are premeditated anyway 'cause he's talked to three people, but , there's a system to what he has done.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I think that we can definitely agree on at this point, but obviously that's an advantage we have knowing about this now in hindsight, but the time of the investigation, this was not apparent. And so that's not necessarily something that [00:27:00] they were looking at, at least at this point in time or

Kyle Risi: I guess like people looking at this from the public, they're just horrified by the fact that there have been these six murders essentially. but I guess when it comes to the investigation side of things, this is all part of the profiling, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah. So back to reporter, Mario's expose and potentially linking the latest murders to previous crimes.

After this police finally order a full ballistic comparison to the gunshot wounds and shells that were found at the scene of the crime.

So all these shell casings, from all the crimes are sent for testing, and the results confirm what Mario suspected. All along the bullets were fired from the exact same weapon, a 22 caliber Beretta long rifle pistol.

Kyle Risi: Wow. Okay. How do they know what gun it was fired from? do they start looking at the marks made on the bullet as it kind of escapes from the chamber? Because there'll be some kind of signature pattern and they'll compare those.

Is that how they know?

Adam Cox: Yeah, you're absolutely right. first thing, Berettas were pretty common in Italy. [00:28:00] Um, they were often used for, target shooting and it used these Winchester H series bullets, so a lot of people could have had it and it was widely sold.

Mm-hmm. But the thing is, I think in this case, with all those, individual crime scenes, all those shells, as they left the gun, there's a firing pin that leaves a distinctive mark on the rim

Kyle Risi: I see.

Adam Cox: Of every shell casing it ejects. And this mark is found on all the shells that are retrieved at all three murder scenes.

Kyle Risi: I see. Cool. And do you know the, interesting thing that you said there about the Winchester? That's, I believe it's an American, uh, it's an American gun manufacturer. And we covered this very briefly on an episode that we did a couple Halloweens ago when we did the Winchester Mystery.

Oh yes, that's right. And the woman who owned the house, her fortune, came from the Winchester rifle I think. And I, I dunno if it's a Beretta as well, but that's what they produce. They produce these, these guns.

Adam Cox: No way. Yeah. Another connection to another one of our episodes. It's not just a [00:29:00] plug.

so yeah, as we were saying, it's like a fingerprint essentially. Yeah. And the mechanical signature. And it proves two things. One, these murders are all connected. And two, the real killer is still out there. Yeah. Word spreads fast and Florence erupts and panic and fear grips the city. 'cause now it's clear there's a monster roaming the hills.

And no one knows When he is gonna strike. Next.

Thanks to Mario Betsy's reporting police receive a new tip. Ooh. There's a couple who happen to be near, the fields, on the same night that Stefano and Susanna were murdered.

They choose to stay anonymous, but their memory is sharp. They recall seeing a red alpha Romeo blocking part of the bottleneck, entrance to the countryside, and as they passed, they got a good look at the man behind the wheel.

Kyle Risi: Okay.

Adam Cox: I mean, this is Italy and this is Alfa Romeo. I mean,

Kyle Risi: They may as well have just seen a pigeon.

Adam Cox: Well, it's, it's at least something that should be investigated. Yes, exactly right. So this man behind the wheel, he had large eyes, a hooked [00:30:00] nose, deep creases across his forehead and a thin, tight mouth.

And apparently he looked anxious. Okay.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Sounds ominous.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Uh, the Florence Police Department has a sketch artist draw him, but the prosecutor's office makes a controversial decision. They choose not to release the image to the public because they feared it would ignite another wave of hysteria, which I think is a bit of a mistake.

Yeah. Because that could have helped other people identify or corroborate if this man was in the area.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, for sure. Like, oh, that's, I don't know Steve, who owns the butchers down the road. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And it probably wouldn't be Steve. It would probably be like Ronald, though.

Adam Cox: Yeah. but the thing is, I think I saw the image and was it bad?

It didn't look normally bad. It just looked like a cartoon.

Kyle Risi: Oh really? Have you seen this cartoon character anywhere?

Adam Cox: Yeah, I was like, I dunno if I could have, worked out that that did actually resemble the man.

Kyle Risi: Sure. And yeah, it is a bit of mistake. They do have a couple things going there.

they have a red vehicle, alpha Romeo and also they have a [00:31:00] hook nose guy. Right. That's enough to potentially jog someone's memory or connect two things together. Mm-hmm. You know, I have an uncle's got a hook nose tight lips and he drives a red Alpha Romeo.

Yeah. So it really narrows it down. So yeah, a bit of a mistake not releasing that out to the public.

Adam Cox: But regardless, that panic that the police were trying to prevent anyway, was already out of control.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: hundreds of letters were pouring into police headquarters every week. Everyone is convinced they know who the monster is without even

Kyle Risi: seeing anything.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Pretty much. It's, it's like, uh, he's the neighbor. It's the uncle. It's a friend. It's the baker or whoever.

Kyle Risi: a jar of vaginas in the basement.

Adam Cox: I mean, that would be a clue.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: Um, it's

Kyle Risi: Ed Gein.

Adam Cox: Yeah. But without solid evidence, the investigation stalls at least until the summer of 1982.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. '

Adam Cox: cause one evening, Paolo Minno and his fiance Antonella NY Park on a quiet dead end road in the rolling Italian hillsides. And under the stars, they make love in the back of their car. God, Adam don't say that they have sex,

Kyle Risi: they're just about [00:32:00] to get murdered. And I'm try Yeah, you're trying to paint a narrative kind of picture here.

Adam Cox: Well, it was a romantic night for them, . And it got ruined because when they finished

Kyle Risi: fuck's sake

Adam Cox: what,

Kyle Risi: Just 'cause it got ruined. They were murdered, I'm assuming.

Adam Cox: I mean, yeah. when they finish, having sex, they fumble for their clothes. And it's believed that Paolo must have spotted the killer and was alive long enough to react.

'cause he scrambles into the driver's seat, slams the car into reverse, and the monster of Florence raises the gun and shoots at the car. Wow.

The bullet slams into Paolo's shoulder.

Mm-hmm. And he loses control and the car rolls backwards into a ditch. When Paolo hits the accelerator, the wheels only spin deeper into the mud and they're trapped. And so the shadow outside moves closer and this man takes aim. And inside the car, Paolo and Antonella clinging to each other before they are shot dead.

Kyle Risi: Wow.

Adam Cox: Unfortunately, for the monster of Florence where this incident took place was close to a main [00:33:00] road, which meant it would've likely been very risky for him to have taken Antonella outta the car and do his usual sick routine. So it suspected that the killer didn't wanna risk things and he just vanishes into the night.

Kyle Risi: Wow. Okay. so now we have two people where the Montserrat Florence had attempted to murder them. They've gotten away. Obviously unscathed. They've been shot. They're not dead, are they?

Adam Cox: Antonella is dead. it doesn't take long for a passing driver to spot a car in the ditch, and he pulls over to help.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: Um, obviously when he approaches, he finds a horror scene. Uh, there's blood pooling, the headlights are shattered, but miraculously, Paolo is still alive.

Kyle Risi: Okay. So he's got valuable information.

Adam Cox: Yeah. he's rushed to hospital. But the thing is, he never regains consciousness. He dies just hours later without saying a single word.

Kyle Risi: Well, that was like a little carrot dangling.

Adam Cox: It's a devastating blow because obviously this is the guy that could have, identified the monster maybe. But prosecutors aren't ready to give up. And so the next day, one of the lead prosecutors on the case calls in Mario, Betsy, and a [00:34:00] group of other journalists He gives them a specific request. In fact, he that he wants a report to go out of Paolo who spoke to the police before he died and that he revealed something important. What did he reveal? Well, it's a lie, of course. Oh, I see. But it's a strategic one because the hope is the false report will rattle the killer.

Making him, , make a mistake, or perhaps he'll contact the press.

Kyle Risi: Oh, so a bit like the Zodiac Killer, right? Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Just Uhhuh.

Adam Cox: Well, yeah, because like you say, it's, it's, like the Zodiac killer, it's not an unusual move. In fact, it's based on well-documented criminal psychology because serial killers often have these egos.

Yes. And they crave attention for their crimes.

Kyle Risi: Ah, I see. it sounds like these all very methodical. He's arranged these things almost like a ritualistic kind of way. He could be trying to communicate something. When we get those things wrong, they're gonna be incensed.

Will they then reach out to us?

Adam Cox: Exactly. . What they're hoping is that he can't resist reaching out and trying to control the [00:35:00] narrative essentially. Yes. So on June the 21st, 1982, newspapers across Italy run the story that one of the monster's latest victims survived and gave police vital information.

Mm-hmm. They don't say what it is, they just put that rumor out there and it works. shut up. A few days later, Florence Police receive an unusual letter. It's an old faded newspaper clipping from the Lani dated 1968. Six years before our first murders.

Kyle Risi: Six years before,

Adam Cox: yeah.

Kyle Risi: Okay. So 14 years prior then?

Adam Cox: Yeah, roughly. So someone has circled an article and written at the top in jagged handwriting. Take another look at this crime. The article describes the murder of a couple, Barbara Achi and Antonio Lo Bianco Uhhuh, who were shot inside their car after having sex.

And the weapon. It was a 22 caliber baretta loaded with the same Winchester H series bullets, exactly like the monsters.

Kyle Risi: Interesting. [00:36:00] So do you think that this was from the killer themselves, or do you think it's from someone who may know some information going, hang on, this sounds very, 'cause it could be just another member of the public mm-hmm.

Who was just connected these two together and goes, have a look at this one. Not necessarily from the killer. Could have been, but it wasn't an anonymous letter.

Adam Cox: So they don't know who it came from. So it could have been just someone from the public who want it to stay anonymous. Yeah. Maybe it is someone that suspects who the killer is.

Yep. And it could be a family

Kyle Risi: member or,

Adam Cox: Yeah. Or it could have been the killer themself .

Kyle Risi: Sure. I think, yeah. It's either gonna be someone who knows the killer. Or the killer himself.

Adam Cox: Yeah. So the detectives pull the old file and they check the evidence box, and there they are. The original shell casings still sealed in plastic gathering dust.

And what they were able to do is work out that the letter is legitimate because they are able to identify that those shell casings from that 1968 crime Match exactly to that gun and, those bullets. So this meant that the Mons of [00:37:00] Florence didn't start killing in 1974.

He'd been doing this since 1968.

Kyle Risi: Wow.

Adam Cox: So the moment authorities confirm that the 1968 bullets matched the monster's gun, they reopened the case and at first they hope it's a mistake that maybe someone else was responsible.

But after reviewing the original investigation, they come to a troubling conclusion. They did get the right man, at least for the 1968 murders. So they had prosecuted someone for that.

Kyle Risi: Okay, but where is the guy now? Is he free?

Adam Cox: So the police arrested a guy called Stefano Melly. And he confessed to shooting his wife, Barbara Loche and her lover, Antonio

Bianco, after catching them together in a parked car. And he claimed it was a crime of passion and jealousy.

Kyle Risi: Interesting. So he was prosecuted, arrested. He served time. Mm-hmm. The connection there is that we know it was fired from the same gun. It was the same bullet.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And so they think, is it Stefano?

But the thing is he's been in [00:38:00] prison for a lot of this time.

Kyle Risi: And he's still in prison?

Adam Cox: Yeah. Well actually, we'll find out later, but he is in a halfway house, so I think he's being rehabilitated.

Kyle Risi: Okay. So it's still looks like this could be him. Right. Unless someone's using the gun that he used. Ooh. And a copycat killer.

Interesting that you say that. Oh, interesting.

Adam Cox: So the gunshot residue found, supported his story that he was the killer at the time and he was quickly arrested and convicted. But now journalist Mario Betsy isn't so sure. Yes, Stef o Melly may have committed those two murders in 1968, but he was incarcerated when the other murders took place.

Mm-hmm. But what if someone else took that same gun and carried on killing?

Kyle Risi: Could it be like an offspring thing? A bit like, um, Voldemort's like daughter as an example who's like Yeah. Do you think it could be like an offspring of him,

Adam Cox: someone connected, someone that knows Stefano?

Could it be a family member? Could it be someone that lived with him?

Kyle Risi: Yeah. We've watched enough of the [00:39:00] Scream franchise to know that it's always someone connected to the previous killer, usually like a brother or like their dad or like a cousin

Adam Cox: or someone from two films ago that you forgot existed.

Yeah, exactly. Do you think that's what's happening here? Well, in 1982, Kyle mm-hmm. Mario sits out to track down Stef o Mely and like I said, he's living in a halfway house at this moment in time, but Mario doesn't wanna blow his cover. The idea that the monster may have been active since 1968 would send Florence into another wave of panic.

They're very hysterical from when I was reading this. Who is Every Who? Flo. Everyone in Florence.

Kyle Risi: We were supposed to going to Florence

Adam Cox: this year now worried. Yeah. What if? And all just a bunch of like hysterical people. We don't want to go to the hills of Florence. So Mariott devises a plan. He brings along a documentary filmmaker, uh, and tells the priest in charge of the facility this halfway house, that number one

Kyle Risi: mistake there

Adam Cox: speaking to a priest, uh, that they're working on a feature about rehabilitation.

And the churches' work with former inmates. Uhhuh the priest buys it and welcomes [00:40:00] them in, and he arranges a few interviews with other residents. Mario plays along, asking polite questions, interviews some other people. Uh, and then he spots Stefano Melly. And that's who he's been waiting for, obviously. I see.

But right away, something feels off. Stefano, he's pacing the room. His face is blank. His answers are rambling. It's disconnected. He seems quite fragile, possibly suffering from an untreated mental illness. Still, Mario pushes forward hoping to steer the conversation towards the 1968 murders.

Okay, but stefano's replies grow stranger, and it's just a stream of incoherent thoughts and half finished sentences. Oh, do you

Kyle Risi: think he's got like schizophrenia or something?

Adam Cox: It seems that way. And I guess because he is in a halfway house, he's obviously not ready to live alone yet.

And equally, he did kill people, so it's odd that they would wanna rehabilitate him.

Kyle Risi: but the thing is though, like that's how the justice system works, right? It was a long time ago as well. I dunno.

Adam Cox: Well it's only like , 14 years ago. True. Two murders. I dunno, that doesn't feel like enough to me.

It could

Kyle Risi: be the [00:41:00] situation where he argued that it was a crime of passion. I mean, sometimes in France you get off scot-free if you say it was a crime of passion. I dunno if that's true. He said, not

dammit.

Adam Cox: Um, but I think it probably is the fact that he's maybe got a mental illness, which is why he is where he is. so just as Mario's about to give up, Stefano says something unexpected, . He says they need to find that pistol, or there'll be more murders, they will continue to kill.

Kyle Risi: Ooh. That's what he has said. Wow.

Adam Cox: So not he, not I, so they, they,

Kyle Risi: but it could also be the voices in his head, Adam.

Adam Cox: yeah, that's a good point. They live in a very Catholic country. He's probably sitting there going, the devil's telling me to do these things.

So I think, yeah, Mario suspects now that more people. are involved. And if you remember that 1974 murder mm-hmm. The police first thought that there might have been more people involved.

Sure. Okay.

Kyle Risi: So it's not out of the realms of possibility based on the current thinking.

Adam Cox: Exactly. What if it is [00:42:00] more than one killer that's sharing a weapon?

Kyle Risi: They're all impotent.

Adam Cox: They're all Well, yeah.

After interviewing Stefano Melly, Mario publishes his findings, and. Within days, investigators begin digging into who might have helped Stefano murder his wife and her lover. And their focus quickly narrows down to two brothers, from Sardinia, Salvador Vinci, age 48, and Francesco Vinci, age 41.

Now their connection is that Salvador had rented a room in Stefano Me's home for years, and those two brothers, they were having a sexual relationship with Stefano's wife Barbara who Stefano killed for having an affair with another man.

Kyle Risi: Jesus. That was, uh, that's not where I thought it was gonna go.

I thought you was like having a sexual relationship with each other, and then as you carried on, I was like, was Stefano uh, okay.

Adam Cox: Right. So basically Barbara's been having off with at least three men. Yeah. Behind Stefano's back.

Kyle Risi: I see. Okay. And they were from Sardinia.

Adam Cox: But these affairs, they weren't new information.

They had come up during Stefano's original trial, but now in light of [00:43:00] Stefano's cryptic statement, they take on a more sinister tone.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: Police theorize that all three men may have been enraged when Barbara started sleeping with someone else. And that all gave them a motive. And if one of the Vinci brothers had helped Stefano commit that murder, it's entirely possible they kept the gun.

So that would mean one of the brothers could be the one who kept killing they Could be the monster. but to prove it, the investigators needed to link one of the brothers to that 22 caliber Beretta.

Kyle Risi: But the link right now is tenuous. 'cause the link is that they rented a room so they could have gained access to the gun that way.

So I guess any DNA

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: And we know that won't happen until 1994 and Jurassic Park introduces to the world how DNA works That's right. With

Adam Cox: Amber. Mm. Up up until that point wasn't a thing. Okay. Didn't exist. So what they gonna do? Well, Sani Melley claimed he tossed the pistol into a ditch after the murder.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: Uh, but no one ever found it. . And now, years later, that same gun is back in play. [00:44:00] So police begin tracking down those Vinci brothers, cross-referencing where they were on the dates and locations of all the monster killings.

Kyle Risi: Sure. Can I just ask a quick question?

Why would he have not then just admitted that he had help? Why would he be protecting these two Vinci brothers?

Adam Cox: maybe it's just like a thing. you don't wrap someone else out, but

Kyle Risi: he's in jail.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Well, to be fair, maybe they aren't connected, but this is, the theory that someone else is connected and these two people are closest to Sano around that time.

Kyle Risi: Okay. Um, I don't buy it, but I'll accept it for now. See where this goes.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Okay. so as the police are trying to track the brothers whereabouts at the time of the killings, they learned that Francesco Vinci has a long criminal record of reputation for violence and notoriously a short fuse and more damning.

He was near the scenes of at least multiple murders. I see. Okay. if you live in Florence, you're pretty much gonna be quite close to all the murders, I guess. like within a few miles. That's kind of close if you're like 20 or 30 miles away.

Okay. And they've, they basis based on the [00:45:00] alibis about where

Kyle Risi: they were?

Adam Cox: Yeah. So in 1974, around the time Stefia Pettini and Pasquale Genta, lacore were murdered. Francesco was seen close by. He and his nephew, Antonio had reportedly gotten into a heated argument with some other men.

and then fast forward a couple of years, to the deaths of Antonella and Paolo, Francesco is seen again nearby their crimescene , but he again says, oh, I was just visiting Antonio .

Kyle Risi: I see. Okay. Still, I guess you live in the area, you're gonna be quite close to these different murders.

True.

Adam Cox: Antonio does corroborate that his uncle was around at that time. But what the police do uncover next is perhaps the most suspicious clue yet that Francesco is connected. Go on. So remember when the police falsely leaked that one of the victims, Paolo had survived the murder? I do remember that, and authorities discovered Francesco's car hidden under some branches in the Tuscan Hills.

Now, the police thought that maybe Francesco had been spooked by the news and that the police could be [00:46:00] onto him. So in July of 1982, Francesco Vinci is brought in for questioning. when asked, he'd gone out of his way to hide his car. He says that there was a jealous husband of some woman he was having an affair with.

Kyle Risi: It's just that it's a recurring theme with him. Why keep having sex with like married women? It's all about

Adam Cox: passion and affairs. It feels like a proper mafia story.

Kyle Risi: it does. I mean it's, if it's not the French, it's the Italians.

Adam Cox: So the investigators, uh, they don't buy that. That was the reason. he covered his car up that he was having an affair. So August time Francesco is officially arrested on suspicion of being the monster of Florence.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: And for the authorities, it's a chance to finally say that they've caught the killer.

But for the people of Florence, something doesn't sit right because, they were a bit skeptical that Francesco is the man behind the murders. In fact, in their minds, the killer is this smart, elusive, someone that's quite calculating.

Oh, he's a bit of a

Kyle Risi: brute.

Adam Cox: Exactly what we said, earlier that he was a bit of a hothead and a violent man He's loud, he's [00:47:00] aggressive, he's hotheaded, and he doesn't fit the kind of profile that people think this killer is, essentially.

Kyle Risi: yeah, sure. He's more of like a petty kind of mafia criminal, kind of like bolser kind of lad.

Whereas the Monts of Florence has, for a lack of better word, a sophistication in the way that he moves and operates. twisted and sick, but still there's a sophistication there.

Adam Cox: And it doesn't take long for the public to be proven right, because just over a year later, while Francesco is still behind bars, the monster strikes again.

Kyle Risi: Interesting

Adam Cox: this time it's two German tourists, both 24 years old. Um, they park their Volkswagen van along via,

I dunno if I've said that one right. No, you didn't. It's a quiet road. It's, you know, you, you can picture the scene. It's like the others essentially.

Kyle Risi: I can just picture German tourists on their Yeah. You've spoiled it by saying that they're German tourists. Why? I just see [00:48:00] two lounges with a towel on them and they've nipped off real quick and no one else can use them.

It's their own chairs.

Adam Cox: Who's gonna take them? I dunno. But you've spoiled it. Okay. Well they, they're backpacking across Italy, exploring the countryside, sleeping in their van. and chances are they probably haven't even heard about the monster. so they think they're safe, but as we know, the killer targets heterosexual couples usually focusing his most violent ritualistic behavior on the woman.

But tonight, the monster breaks his pattern, as the two young men. Willem f Fredrich, ort May and Jan Ro Okay. Become his victims. They're just doing German boy stuff. German boy stuff. so we dunno why the monster broke this pattern, but we can

Kyle Risi: because, because Do you think he's that selective?

Like if everyone's panicking that there's a serial killer and everyone's staying indoors and all these good Catholic kids are not going off to rummage around each other's knickers, he's gonna take what he can [00:49:00] get. He just so happens to be two German lads on some lounges. that's not what

Adam Cox: people think.

Kyle Risi: Okay. Continue Adam.

Adam Cox: Okay. So we dunno for sure, but yarn had long blonde hair. I mean, we do know that we Oh, did you

Kyle Risi: think he mistook him for a woman?

Adam Cox: That's essentially it. He's got this slim build and so from behind, you know, looking into a van, could maybe look like a woman from the distance.

Kyle Risi: I mean, how many gays are just rummaging around in the Italian wilderness?

I don't think there's many. I dunno if they, I think your first thought is gonna be like, right, where's my checklist? Are they heterosexual Czech? Are they, Do you know what I mean? Are they Italian? Check?

Adam Cox: But he might have shot from outside the vehicle initially. And then when he got closer, realized actually they were two gay men and that's when he abandoned it.

Well, the thing is there were several more rounds of, um, gunshots in the side of the bus and that a torn up gay porn magazine had been scattered around the crime scene, which kind of indicate that the killer was angry or [00:50:00] frustrated with his mistake because he left them alone. There was no kind of ritualistic bit to this murder.

Kyle Risi: Ooh.

Adam Cox: So that's why people think that he did accidentally mistake yawn for a woman.

Kyle Risi: Do you think that the fact that he ripped up the porno magazine in a rage is because he's a gay ally and he was mad at himself? I don't think so. No. Okay. I'm just trying to work out is he gay?

'cause that's why he, he's just really mad at himself because he's killed one of his own.

Adam Cox: I think it's a good thing that you weren't on this case.

Kyle Risi: I don't know. I'm just trying to piece this together.

Yeah. I'm sure there's a bunch of, our freaks out there that are thinking the same thing.

Adam Cox: that's a whole new conspiracy theory that you've put into like the open.

Kyle Risi: I'll set up the Reddit channel now, shall I?

Adam Cox: So Francesco in prison is now quietly hopeful that the latest double homicide, these two men in the van, that proves his innocence.

Mm-hmm. But the Florence police aren't so quick to let him go. Instead, they doubled down. They argued that the killer didn't break his pattern. It's a different [00:51:00] mo going after two men essentially.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Which backs up that it was a mistake then.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Do you remember Antonio? He was Francesco's nephew. Who Francesco was with, around the time some of these murders had happened? Yes. So during the investigation, Antonio was looked into, but mainly for illegal possession of firearms. But it seems like the police are perhaps trying to pin this crime on Antonio as well,

he immediately is arrested for illegal possession, and both Vinci men are behind bars. At one point, authorities hope to pressure them into confessing, but Antonio is smart and in court he defends himself. He argues the guns weren't actually found on his property and even suggests that the weapons were planted by police.

Oh, to coerce a confession.

Kyle Risi: So is this another potential situation? How true is that though? Because we see this time and time again where the police will have this idea, they're under pressure to get a conviction. And so they will try and force a narrative by planting evidence and things like that.

How credible is that?

Adam Cox: It's hard to tell [00:52:00] how credible, but the court does agree with his statement. Really? Yeah. And Antonio does walk free. Wow. So it's enough to convince them.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: Francesco, however, isn't so lucky. And whilst it might be clear that there's doubts that he's the monster, more people have been killed whilst he's been in prison.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: Police refuse to let him go. They keep him locked up on unrelated charges and afraid that releasing him will make them look even worse in the eyes of the public. But then on July the 29th, 1984, 20-year-old Claudio Steffanci and his 19-year-old girlfriend, Pierre Rotini Park in the Woodland Hills near vi, it's a small town northeast of Florence.

Mm-hmm. And very similar, they're there to have an intimate moment and the monster moves in. He shoots them both and he drags Pierre's body away from the car. Then in the dirt, he cuts out Pierre's vagina. A ritual. He's followed before. But this time he goes further. He removes her left [00:53:00] breast.

Things have escalated and a new pattern emerges.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Do you think with each murder, he wants to do something else to kind of push those boundaries.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Uh, I think you're right there. I think when FBI, people looked into this, they brought the Americans in, well they did a separate investigation, which the police seemed to ignore or at least they kind of looked into it.

Kyle Risi: yeah, like you've got a foreign kind of faction coming in, trying to, but their nose in essentially. Did they ask for that?

Adam Cox: I dunno if they asked for it, but they definitely ignored it. It seems. And that's what Mariota journalists sort of found out later about this report is like, why did they not look into this further?

It seemed like it was just like, that's nice, but anyway, we'll carry on.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's like, that's nice. Mind your own business. we saw the same thing with the Madeline McCann investigation. Right. Where the Portuguese police were just like, yeah, thanks British authorities, just, uh, mind your own business.

Yeah. Leave it to us. We've got this. Yeah.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And the thing is in this study, that the FBI did, what they were [00:54:00] suggesting is that once a killer stumbles into like a new source of arousal, that they hadn't done before, it kind of spurs them on. 'cause they kind of need to get like a new thrill essentially.

So he needs something else. I see. I'm with you.

So it's at this point, the police can't defend their theory that Francesco is the killer. 'cause four more victims are now dead. and so finally in spring 1985, Francesco is released and to celebrate, he invites Mario, Betsy, the reporter who'd always defended his innocence to a dinner party.

And at the end of the night, Mariot pulls out a recorder and asks Francesco what kind of man he thinks the real monster might be.

And Francesco answers without hesitation. The monster is very intelligent. Someone who can move through the hills at night, even with his eyes closed. Someone who knows how to use a knife better than most.

And the way that Francesco, says this, it's like he's recalling or knows who the person is.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, sure. I see. ,

Adam Cox: From Mario's perspective, he's thinking that Francesco knows who the killer [00:55:00] is.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, for sure. so this is implying that it's someone who's obviously local to the area, which is obvious. Mm-hmm. Someone who is very good at wielding a knife. Mm-hmm. So could be military background of fisher, it could be some kind of butcher, some, I mean, that's quite common in those times , especially in rural Italy where you might be accustomed to butchering your own animals, chickens, pigs, and things like that. But then also someone really intelligent. So I dunno how strong that is as a profile.

Adam Cox: So it's now September the eighth, 1985 and the killer is about to strike again and his victims are Jean-Michel, Ravit Chi, a 25-year-old French athlete, and his girlfriend, 36-year-old Nadine Morillo. Okay. I think I said that Italian. Yeah.

But anyway, they've been traveling through Italy, small backpackers, and they're camping along the way. They're just two tourists in love looking for adventure, and they pitch their tent in a quiet field about eight miles south of Florence. It's quite secluded.

Very nice little [00:56:00] camping spot. And the monster. he doesn't wait. He slices open the fabric of their tent just enough to see inside startled Jean-Michel and Nadine unzipped the front flap trying to get a look at whoever's out there And that's when the monster open fires, and he shoots both of them with his 22 Beretta.

Nadine sadly dies instantly, but Jean-Michel bleeding dazed, manages to jump up and bolts into the night. He's an athlete, remember? But he doesn't make it far, roughly about 30 feet from the tent. The monster catches him up. He tackles him and he drives a blade into Jean Michel's chest again and again before slashing his throat.

Wow. Okay.

Kyle Risi: Ugh.

Adam Cox: Then as if nothing happened, he returns to ine, he drags her from the tent, performs the same two mutilations that he'd carried out the year before.

Kyle Risi: moves her breast and vagina

Adam Cox: yeah, her left breast more specifically.

And when he is finished, he places Nadine's body back inside the tent and zips it shut. And so police, they won't find, the bodies for two days and when they do, they discover what had [00:57:00] happened. But interestingly, there was no footprints, no fingerprints, no blood trail, no hair, nothing. But shell casings.

The SRT come and gone like a phantom.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. And if it's interesting that he's decided to leave the shell casings there, that's almost feels like he knows that they'd found the shell casings before. Mm-hmm. And yet this time round, he's still not getting the hint to pick them up. So maybe that is his thing to leave them behind.

Adam Cox: think it's, he knows that's the connection. Right. And he wants people to know that it was him. But he doesn't want people tracing his footsteps or Exactly. Getting close to him.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. So he doesn't wanna be caught, but he wants him to know it was him.

Adam Cox: Exactly. And so people are thinking, are they ever gonna catch this guy?

But everything changes on the morning of September the 12th, 1985, , the prosecutor, Sylvia de Lamonica walks into her office and she finds an envelope sitting dead center on her desk as if it's been placed deliberately

Kyle Risi: It's a bit like what happened with the case of Emmanuella Orlandi because the lawyer came into her office and there was a letter [00:58:00] on the desk, and it was like, oh, go to the weird statue of the angels. See where they're pointing? That's where you'll find. Your clue what is up with Italians?

I know. Just pick up the phone and just say, can I please speak to so and so and here this is what you need to do. Why does it have to be so cryptic?

Adam Cox: this is less of a clue. It's more of a calling card.

Kyle Risi: Okay.

Adam Cox: Go. The address is made from magazine cutout letters.

Kyle Risi: Oh

Adam Cox: God. And it's postmarked just the day before uhhuh with gloved hands.

Sylvia carefully opens the package and inside she finds layers of tissue paper and something thick and wet,She pulls it back and she screams and her colleagues rush in and they see it too. Lying on her desk is a jagged, rotting piece of human flesh. It's part of Nadine Mario's left breast.

A message, a trophy, a warning,

Kyle Risi: Uhhuh.

Adam Cox: And yeah, the killer sends it to the lead prosecutor and there's

Kyle Risi: gotta be the killer. Right. There's no way you can fake that.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So [00:59:00] he is toying with them.

Adam Cox: Yeah, absolutely. And he sends it to Sylvia, who's the only female that's working on this case. And she thinks it's a scare tactic to make her drop it or,

Come off the case. And she's scared. She does drop out because she feels like she could be next. Wow.

Kyle Risi: So why do you think he said to her specifically? Because she wasn't even the main person on this case, I'm assuming?

Adam Cox: Um, I think she might have been at the time, but then things do change after she leaves.

And it's actually the guy who was involved in Amanda Knox that then comes on the scene.

Kyle Risi: Okay.

Adam Cox: as we know, the police have arrested multiple men for being the monster, yet there's been subsequent killings that have then proven their innocence or part innocence at least.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. So we're kind of like at a stalemate, right?

Who's doing this?

Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. And like I said, it's one of the longest running and most expensive criminal cases in Italian history.

There's been so many suspects. Some say there was like 250, whereas others say that there's thousands. It's somewhere in between in terms of the people that they were looking into and investigating.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. I guess like they whittle down their list and they go, this is who we think could fit this [01:00:00] profile. But then how many do they actually follow up with? And those are those two figures that they're dealing with there.

Adam Cox: Yeah, but there were quite a few people arrested that we didn't even like cover.

many are falsely convicted. Uh, in one case a doctor's accused and he takes his own life.

Kyle Risi: Wow.

Adam Cox: So the FBI did their own report on who they thought the killer's profile would match. Uh, they said the killers, they often feel rejected by society, have trouble forming relationships. They often live close to where they kill.

but the thing is, that will match the monster to a t but this report, it was kind of ignored by the police. And so at the moment people just have no clue what is going on.

And remember this report also noted that the monster likely picked his locations carefully. He knew where people went to be intimate, and he used stealth and speed to strike the male victims. They were just obstacles.

And the real objective was to mutilate the woman, removing their vagina, their breast. and it's a kind of a, I guess, a twisted way of possessing his victims. That's why he often dragged their bodies away from their partners as [01:01:00] he wanted complete control over that ritual.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, and the thing is though, the men are an obstacle.

They are in his way then, based on what you've said. So why go and target lovers going to these love lanes? Why not just maybe frequent where prostitutes hang out?

Rather than having to deal with a male obstacle that could potentially harm you.

Do you know what I mean?

Adam Cox: Yeah. But then I guess prostitutes, as far as I'm aware, aren't just randomly on countryside lanes where

Kyle Risi: he lives.

Yeah. Strange. I don't know.

Adam Cox: So who is the monster of Florence?

So we're now gonna go through some more suspects. We already have gone through a few, which we know have been proven false that it wasn't them.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: So one of the names that keeps coming up is Pietro Patani. Now, his past is pretty disturbing.

Back in 1951, apparently his girlfriend was having it off with some traveling salesman.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: And so to get his own back, he bludgeoned the man to death. he stabbed him repeatedly whilst he then [01:02:00] raped his girlfriend right next to the man's body. Wow. Okay. So nasty man. Very horrible.

Kyle Risi: But it doesn't sound like he shares the same mo as the Monts Lawrence, though.

Adam Cox: Exactly. It's quite clear already that you've picked up on that. Right. But that doesn't stop the police from pursuing him.

so, he had been caught and convicted and served 13 years in prison already for that previous, murder.

He was then released, went back to being a farm laborer. Uh, but in the community, people knew him for being violent, short tempered and with a hatred for women. So I guess that's maybe Why they looked at him a bit more because he just seemed to not like women.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. There is a link, but it is weak, I think.

Adam Cox: So I think the police are probably desperate to try and find who the monster of Florence is, and that's why they maybe have arrested Patianni. When his trial began, , it became one of the first to be broadcast on Italian television.

viewers across the country were horrified as Tani's wife and daughters took the stand and they described years of abuse,

Both physical and sexual. Wow. One of his [01:03:00] daughters testified that he even forced them to eat dog food just to save money.

Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, that's practical.

Adam Cox: I mean, yeah.

Kyle Risi: Is

Adam Cox: it? I don't know. When I was a kid, I

Kyle Risi: used to eat dog food. I wasn't forced to, I would eat the dog food.

Adam Cox: I think everyone's tried like a bit of kibble.

Kyle Risi: Oh yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah. I didn't, wasn't opening up a can. No, God no. That stinks. It does. And um, yeah, I used to enjoy it. we used to store it in this big giant bin and um, yeah, I put my hand in the bin and pull out some kibble and there were big chunks of kibble.

Adam Cox: kinda liked it. That just tastes a bit salty and nothing really.

Kyle Risi: No, I don't think its tastes as salty. it tastes like biscuits.

Yeah. I think we've digressed here. I think we've learned too much about Kyle and his dog eating food habits. Should we get some

Adam Cox: snacks for next time? Let's put out a bit of kibble once we're listening and doing this podcast.

so anyway, Patani, despite the lack of hard evidence that he's the monster of Florence, he's convicted in 1994 for murdering seven of the eight [01:04:00] couples.

Kyle Risi: Wow.

Adam Cox: So he is like prime suspect and like I said, it's all over tv, but just two years later, that verdict was overturned on appeal.

Uh, and he was released because there was a lot of doubt in that case and that the evidence was circumstantial. Mm-hmm. Um, some believed police may have planted evidence. They claimed they found a 22 caliber bullet, in his vegetable patch.

Kyle Risi: Okay.

Adam Cox: Weird place to store it. I know, exactly. they also pointed out that there was this soap dish and a notepad that they found, which they thought belonged to the German tourists who were killed uhhuh, would be a really odd token to keep.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: it's not a breast. and a witness said they saw a car that looked like Ian's near one of the crime scenes, but defense said this was either planted evidence or circumstantial again. Mm-hmm. So essentially none of it stuck.

Kyle Risi: So they are really desperate. I'm shocked that they've gone through two trials now.

Mm-hmm. They put two people through trials.

Adam Cox: and of course the biggest issue was the fact that the monster showed signs of sexual dysfunction. Mm-hmm. And there was no evidence of rape or anything like that.

Whereas we know that Pati, he raped [01:05:00] his own daughter, he raped his girlfriend, it doesn't match up. Good point. It feels like the police just need to close this case and they're doing whatever they can to basically put someone behind bars. Yeah. Sounds like it. Don't get me wrong, Patani was a horrible person and he did belong behind bars.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: Um, but I think maybe was this a way to pin blame on him, even though they didn't have enough proof that he was the monster.

Kyle Risi: But the thing is though, the cops must be really confident that the monsters of Florence have, stopped killing at this point. 'cause otherwise they're just gonna look so dumb. And they've done this twice now, right? They've arrested and convicted two people. Yes. They've been overturned. But what if at some point.

The Monts oft Florence strikes again, what's that gonna look like for the police that's gonna destroy their credibility altogether? Why don't they just get the ducks in a row and only go for a conviction if they're confident?

Adam Cox: those deaths in 1985, they were the last deaths. So there were eight couples in total.

16 deaths. I see. so why it stopped, we don't quite know.

But [01:06:00] it has stopped at this point.

Kyle Risi: , So it could be the ones that they've

Adam Cox: convicted. It could be. So anyway, Patani, he is released. but interestingly, there is a second trial, not of Patani himself, but he was involved.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: So

That's when a man named Giancarlo Lotti came forward. He gave a confession and claimed that he had been present at some of the monster's killings. Really? He said that there were three men involved, which again, would link back to some of the previous reports about there being multiple attackers. Yeah. So Giancarlo Lotti said that Patani was the man who pulled the trigger.

Another man, , used the knife and Lotti himself. Well, he was just the lookout. He didn't get involved. Okay. But then Lotti changed his story. He confessed that he had pulled the trigger, on the German tourists. And so based on that confession, both Lotti and this other man were convicted and sent to prison.

Kyle Risi: Wow.

Adam Cox: But Patani had died of a heart attack in 1998, so wasn't alive to be retried at the same time so some [01:07:00] say that Tani's heart attack was a bit odd. It only occurred a few weeks before he was about to stand trial again. So there's no official autopsy, but was he bumped off?

Was it suicide or was it just a coincidence?

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Strange.

Adam Cox: So the only two of the three men that could take the blame. And many believe the reason Giancarlo Lotte confessed was actually because he was desperate to improve his living conditions. What in prison? Well, this is it. , At the time he was living in a halfway house and he struggled to get by.

And so prison offered something better like a bed, three meals a day, a roof over his head. Oh, interesting. So it seems like a stretch, and the thing is, Lottie's confessions were full of contradictions. He changed his story, every time he told it. some say that he was being manipulated or maybe he was being pressured himself to give a confession from the police.

Potentially. Yeah. Interesting.

Kyle Risi: What a weird thing to do. Like, can you imagine the police going, listen, if you confess, we'll make sure you get three meals a day. You get an [01:08:00] hour out in the yard, you don't have to do any farm work.

Adam Cox: Give you like some spotted dick for dessert spot dick. That's one of the worst desserts,

Kyle Risi: especially for an Italian.

Adam Cox: They'd be like, spotted what? Spotted dick. They would literally pick that up, throw it at the wall, tell you to get out and then go make some, I don't know. What do they make Amisu?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, they make a lot of it.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: Okay. I continue.

Adam Cox: But anyway, the court had accepted his testimony as credible and Giancarlo Lotte was arrested in 1995, and by 1996 he was convicted for four of the monsters of Florence murders. There's no physical evidence connecting him to the crimes. Just Lottie's word, which seems really strange to just take his word for it.

But I guess if they're like, well that's a confession, that's good enough for us. And so, the other guy , he always maintained his innocence, but he died behind bars in 2009.

whereas Giancarlo Lotti, he was given a reduced sentence, in exchange for his cooperation, but he eventually died in prison in [01:09:00] 2002. So to this day, many believed the convictions of Lotte were deeply flawed. Some say they were outright miscarriages of justice, but people think, or some people still believe that they're still the monsters of Florence.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: But actually it was a very weak confession.

Kyle Risi: and the fact is that he's stopped killing now means that either he's died of old age or whatever it could be. or he's probably given up, but I doubt that's true. I reckon , it's someone who's just probably died.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I've got an old too old to kill now, maybe. Mm-hmm. As well. It's time to retire. There is one other theory worth highlighting, and it comes from the attorney, one of the two men that were wrongly convicted.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: He was convinced the monster of Florence was either a police officer or someone posing as one.

Oh. Because at several of the murder scenes, investigators found the couple's car registration placed carefully on the floor just beneath the driver's seat. it looked as if the victims had pulled it out maybe to show their identification. So [01:10:00] maybe the killer had knocked on the glass.

I need to see some id.

Kyle Risi: Yes.

Adam Cox: And that's why

Kyle Risi: I see. And then turned on them. Interesting.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And an anonymous witness did claim to see a police car driving slowly near one of the eventual crime scenes just before the murders happened. This Attorney also believed that there might have been a satanic or cult related element to the killings, which is

Kyle Risi: how I remember this.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And that's because of the ritualistic or the mutilations that were carried out. And that brings us on to the guy Michelle Gut, , the

Kyle Risi: Amanda Knox guy.

Adam Cox: Yeah. So he led the investigation later on, , and his theory was that it wasn't random. It was part of this darker operation that suspected the killings were linked to a cult.

And those three men Giancarlo Lotte Pietro Patani. and the other guy, were The ones that were hired to harvest the body parts of these victims. Wow. Essentially. Wow. Okay.

Kyle Risi: But he is a bit of a crackpot. He's deeply religious. Very Catholic as well. Right. So he's probably leaning biasly in that direction because of His [01:11:00] beliefs.

His beliefs, yeah.

Adam Cox: But there is one further suspect that Mario, Betsy, the lead journalist, believes who the killer is.

Kyle Risi: And this one is probably the most credible of them. All right?

Adam Cox: It was Nancy.

She would've got away with it if it wasn't for those pesky kids,

Kyle Risi: the pesky meddling kids.

Adam Cox: So in fact, he believes he's met the killer and he's actually interviewed him. Really? So Mario Betsy eventually teamed up with an American author Douglas Preston, to co-write a book. Mm-hmm. Um, Mario's the journalist and Douglas would basically just translate it into English.

And they wrote the Monster of Florence book. It's a, an account which is considered one of the most definitive tellings of the case.

Kyle Risi: Okay.

Adam Cox: And here's what Mario believes, firstly, whoever the monster of Florence was, he wasn't stupid. This was a killer who managed to evade capture for years.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: but there's something else, something more crucial. Mario believed the killer had to be tied to one specific thing. The gun, of course, the 22 caliber Beretta.

So if we know who owns that gun [01:12:00] definitively or who've had access to it, because we know that it was that guy,

Stefano Melly, he killed his wife and her lover. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: and we know that he was the original owner of that gun. So it's about who had access to that gun following that.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Well we know, that the two brothers were connected to Stefano.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. But they were acquitted.

Adam Cox: Francesco was acquitted. Mm-hmm. Um, he wasn't connected with it. We didn't really touch on Salvador though. who was he again?

Kyle Risi: Was Salvador, the other brother?

Adam Cox: Yeah. If you remember, he was the landlord of Stefano Melly . Yeah. Now the thing is Salvador Vinci, he seemed like an okay guy. but if you dig into his past a bit deeper, you find out that he was accused of killing his wife even raping her.

Kyle Risi: Okay, but we also know that that doesn't fit the mo of the Sert Florence.

Adam Cox: That's right.

But Salvador And his wife had a son called Antonio, who we know is Francesco's nephew. Mm-hmm. He was the guy that got arrested. and he defended himself because he, he said that the firearms [01:13:00] were planted.

That's right.

Kyle Risi: are we saying it's

Adam Cox: the sun?

basically, yeah.

Kyle Risi: And therefore if it's the son, then Salvador and his brother were protecting their nephew

Adam Cox: Well, the thing is, him and his son didn't really get along. Antonio hated his father, possibly because of the fact that his father was accused of killing his mother. So maybe there was, I mean, that's a whole other story, but maybe that was the breakdown of their relationship.

Kyle Risi: And do you think that's the motive for him then killing these other people in order to pin it on his father?

Adam Cox: So what, Mario found out was that Salvador had a break-in and he reported it to the police, but he didn't necessarily say what had been stolen. He just said that there was a break-in and he blamed his own son as a suspect.

Kyle Risi: Okay?

Adam Cox: But Salvador was poor, his house was run down. He didn't own anything of real value. So why push so hard to report his son?

Kyle Risi: But what was stolen though , is he saying that the gun was stolen?

Adam Cox: Well, this is what Mario believes. He thinks that Salvador had held onto the gun after the [01:14:00] previous murders.

Mm-hmm. And that Antonio may have broken into his house, and then stolen that gun

Kyle Risi: so that he can commit the other murders. But what's his evidence for that?

Adam Cox: Well, after that break-in, it was only four months later that the second murders in 1974 occurred.

And so it's kind of convenient that those murders only happened just a few months after the gun potentially went missing.

Kyle Risi: Interesting. Okay.

Adam Cox: And right around that time, Salvador Vinci checked himself into a psychiatric ward. Mm-hmm. Which Mario speculates that once he found out that maybe his son was the monster of Florence, there was this feeling of guilt.

and that actually he was trying to disown his son or maybe he was trying to pin the, his son on something to kind of get him caught. I don't really know, but there's something that happened around this time that Mario believes was like the turning point for their relationship.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. And it all just seems quite circumstantial still.

Like these are all just what he thinks or believes from this book that is written. So I don't know, is [01:15:00] there anything more concrete that is linking Antonio to these murders other than there being a break in and the gun go missing?

Adam Cox: A few things. So for one, Salvador had vanished. We don't really know what happened to him.

He just disappeared. Whether there's anything more sinister behind that.

Kyle Risi: did Antonio then murder him potentially for killing his mother?

Adam Cox: Do you know what? I couldn't find any reports of what actually happened to Salvato. All they say is that he just vanished after the acquittal of the murder of his wife.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: So what Mario wanted to do in 2001 is they wanted to go visit Antonio in person. when they showed up unannounced, Antonio recognized Mario immediately and welcomed them in. He offered them drinks, he sat 'em at the table. and Mary is like, I'm writing an, an article for the New Yorker. But when the topic turned to the SRT of Florence, Antonio didn't flinch.

He admitted that his relationship with his father had been rocky and then he added something chilling. He said We had a fight. I pinned him planting my scuba knife [01:16:00] at his throat. Scuba knife. Yeah. Now that got Mario's attention because that's But also how common they are. Scuba knives. Well, maybe, but it was interesting that he said scuba knife, not a knife or whatever.

Mm-hmm. He specifically said the weapon that was used in mutilating the women

Kyle Risi: right

Adam Cox: Now, was Antonio revealing something or was he just taunting them? 'Cause he knows kind of what they're digging at.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: So Mario pressed harder and he brings up the theory that Antonio stole the Beretta.

and then Antonio basically smirks and he says, if I had taken it, I would've fired it into my father's forehead.

Kyle Risi: Wow.

Adam Cox: They also asked why the murders stopped between 1974 to 1981 .

Kyle Risi: So they asking Antonio this?

Adam Cox: Yeah. And that happened to be the same amount of time that Antonio had left Florence. Where'd he go? we'll come onto that, but coincidentally, when he returned the murders started again.

Kyle Risi: Interesting.

Adam Cox: And so when they ask him this, he doesn't really respond. He just kind of smiles. And so they asked him directly, are you the monster of Florence? And he [01:17:00] answers With a firm, no. And the interview ends, but as they stood up to leave, Antonio leaned in and said, listen carefully.

Oh God, I don't play games. What does that mean? Mario and his, co-author, they left the house certain of one thing that was the monster of Florence looking them in the eye

Kyle Risi: but he said he doesn't play games. And he said no.

Adam Cox: Yeah, he says that. But maybe like off the record, don't come fishing around here.

I see. You're not gonna like it.

Kyle Risi: Oh, I see. That's what that means then.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I mean, he is got a connection to the gun potentially. A scuba knife. He has the aggression, the timeline. It all fits. And what's more Antonio Vinci reportedly suffered from sexual dysfunction.

Kyle Risi: I was gonna say, is he impotent?

Adam Cox: Yeah. And okay. So where's that evidence from? Well, he had a hard time maintaining a relationship with women and seemed, deeply uncomfortable with intimacy. So maybe they spoke to other girlfriends . Mm-hmm. But, and he wasn't gay. No, he wasn't gay. But according to Mario, when Antonio left Florence, he got married, but the marriage was annu because [01:18:00] he couldn't consummate the marriage. I see. And that's a huge clue because it lined up, it's one of the big things that they were looking for. Right, exactly. It was the thing that was in the FBI's behavioral profile of the killer, why the women were never sexually attacked.

Why the killer carried out his process in such a ritualistic and sadistic way to exert his power. So Mario spent the summer of 2001 writing the article for the New Yorker to reveal all this, uh, and they believed the moment it was published, Italian authorities would have no choice but to reopen the case.

But the story never ran because this was the time of the September the 11th attacks, which changed everything. Wow. The world stopped. And in Italy, no one really cared about the monster anymore. After all, it was a cold case and the murders had stopped over 15 years ago.

Kyle Risi: Wow. So it was just fizzled out

Adam Cox: So yeah, as we close out the story of the monster of Florence, it's impossible not to draw a connection to the Amanda Knox case. Both cases were shaped by the same prosecutor, and in both we see the same pattern and [01:19:00] obsession with conspiracy or at least, obsessing over a certain outcome.

Kyle Risi: Yeah,

Adam Cox: a reliance on shaky witnesses and a justice system which was more concerned about saving face than perhaps finding the truth.

Kyle Risi: You see that all the time though, don't you?

Adam Cox: Absolutely. And in the Monster's case, the convictions were based, almost entirely on the testimony of Giancarlo Lotti, the guy that, confessed, but his, uh, he wanted a free lunch. Basically. He wanted a free lunch. And a lot of the time his stories conflicted with each other.

Yeah. Interesting. And the guys that were convicted, Giancarlo, , and, Patianni, did they really kill all 16 people?

Maybe they were involved with sun, you could say, but they weren't the killers that connected all the cases.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Do you know what? There's nothing really that I go, one of these suspects definitely did it. Mm-hmm. there is quite a lot of plausibility with a lot of them.

But yeah, I don't know.

Adam Cox: Yeah, we still don't really know who committed the murders. Antonio being the killer seems plausible, but there's never been enough evidence to really pin him on this. We never found out what [01:20:00] happened to his father Salvador.

He disappeared. And as for Francesco, his uncle who was wrongly imprisoned while he died in 1993 in a car fire and was found charred and tied up in this burnt out car, which is like a, like a mafia way to go, it seems, feels like it. But as recent as last year, his family, once Francesco's, remains exhumed and DNA testing done as they're not convinced that that dead body was even him.

Oh, really? Just to kind of throw another spanner in the works. Yeah. So did he fake his death? Is he still alive? Is he the killer? Was it Antonio? Was it all of them? Who knows. The saga continues. What we're left with is a chilling mystery. An incomplete puzzle. And one final question, what the actual F went on?

Kyle Risi: Yeah. What, what the thing is though, all these years later, right? We now have gone into the realms of having access to DNA, have they not collected any of this DNA from the body parts that were posted,and the evidence from the [01:21:00] crime scene? Could they not check for DNA and could they not stop running it against these people that were previously convicted?

Why have they not done any of that?

Adam Cox: well, we know that some of the crime scenes, they couldn't get anything. There was no DNA to collect. So I think it's quite difficult to do that.

So yeah, that is the story of the monster of Florence.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Interesting story. , I've always heard about the Montserrat of Florence.

Mm-hmm. Uh, story. But it's not something I've ever researched into. I didn't realize I had so much mutilation involved.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And just, yeah.

Some horrible deaths, some crazy characters that are involved, there's some shady people

Connected to this story and it's just. I'm not surprised in some ways that they haven't been able to find a killer.

It doesn't feel clear cut with a lot of these people involved.

Kyle Risi: What about the show that's coming out?

Adam Cox: Oh, yeah, of course. right now on Netflix or soon to be, there is a show Uh oh. Convenient. Convenient, Adam. Exactly. So I think it's a mini series. That, dramatizes the whole thing.

it might be an Italian, but I think it's gonna be dubbed for [01:22:00] you because you can't watch subtitles

Kyle Risi: and you'd be doing all your Duolingo. So you'll be watching it, without the subtitles.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I might struggle with that. When's that coming out? 22nd of October.

Kyle Risi: Uh huh What's it called?

Adam Cox: The monster of Florence. Let's run the outro. And that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things.

We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did.

Kyle Risi: If today's episode sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcasting app. As we always say, every week, it truly makes the world a difference and helps other people discover the show

Adam Cox: and for our dedicated freaks out there.

Don't forget, next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon. Completely free to access

Kyle Risi: And if you want even more, you can join our certified Freaks tier to unlock our entire archive and delve into exclusive content and get sneak peeks of what's coming next. We'd love you to be part of our growing community.

Adam Cox: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember, it's not the darkness that haunts [01:23:00] us. It's who's walking freely within it.

Kyle Risi: Ooh,

Adam Cox: scary. See ya. See ya.