by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (May 15th 2014)
Similarities
Il Mostro di Firenze (the Monster of Florence) had murdered several people between 1968-85 – up to sixteen. The murders of Antonio lo Bianco and Barbara Locci – the first – were different. Later female victims were stabbed and some mutilated too. The scenes were staged too and Locciʼs son Natalino Mele had been in the car and witnessed the murder of his mother – he was just six years old. Natalino was also dropped off at a home near the scene of the murders.
This was unusual behaviour for a monstrous killer and it was never repeated in any of the other murders, which started six years after lo Bianco and Locci were murdered. There were differences which resulted in some believing that the 1968 murders were not committed by il Mostro, but that applied to the 1983 murders of Horst Wilhelm Meyer and Jens Uwe Rüsch as well. There were other differences between the murders of the German tourists and some of the other murders committed by il Mostro.
All sixteen murders involved the .22 calibre Beretta and most involved stabbing too – often gratuitous – and in some cases mutilation too. There were similarities in all of the murders other than just the gun and ammunition. The killer tended to strike on a Saturday and when the moon was hidden and all of the victims had attended discos the night before they were killed. It suggests that il Mostro prepared and planned his murders carefully, but despite a photo-fit of il Mostro he continued to evade justice.
Bizarre Developments
The investigation careered down a cul-de-sac at break-neck speed. Religious historian Massimo Introvigne contacted police to tell them that Florence had a long history of the occult and that the mutilation was reminiscent of their ritual. Investigators had already come to believe that the taking of genitalia was a trophy for some religious cult. However, there was absolutely no evidence to support this hypothesis.
Soon after the decision to associate the mutilation with the occult or a religious cult without a shred of evidence to support it, the person who had received the phone call, probably from il Mostro, received another call while he was on holiday. This was intriguing for police. How did the killer know that the Red Cross worker was on holiday?
Escalating Depravity
On July 29th 1984 il Mostro murdered Claudio Stefanacci and Pia Gilda Rotini in Stefanacciʼs car in the commune of Vicchi di Mugello near Florence. Both had been shot and stabbed and il Mostro severed Rotiniʼs genitalia and left breast. Her body had been positioned like the other female victims, bar Locci. She had been stabbed a hundred times. No fingerprints were discovered. Police were baffled. But il Mostroʼs reign of terror was not over yet.
On September 8th 1985 il Mostro struck again at the commune of San Casciano near Florence. Frenchman Jean-Michel Kraveichvilli and his girlfriend Nadine Mauriot were the last known victims of il Mostro. Kraveichvilli tried to escape after being shot, but he was caught and stabbed to death. Il Mostro repeated his mutilation of Rotini on Mauriot and later sent a macabre taunt to Assistant prosecutor Silvia Della Monica, the prosecutor who had tricked him into making the phone calls. The package contained a portion of Mauriotʼs severed breast.
While il Mostro ended his reign of terror, perhaps fearing that the newly discovered use of DNA profiling would catch up with him, the rumour mill continued speculating. Who was il Mostro? How had he gotten away with it for so long? But the vital question, how can the murders be solved remains conspicuous by its absence? Why? It is the most important question of all.