The Monster of Florence /// Part 2 /// 125 | Forensic Files

foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always heed the warning hide
the women and children bolt down the furniture here comes the captain all right all right all right all right it's
good to be seen that's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend
[Music] tonight we are drinking Peroni original by macro Brewery and beautiful Roma
Italy garage grade three and a half out of five bottle caps Peroni original is brewed to suit the Italian palette with
low but present floral and fruity notes complementing the bitter and sweetness followed by a clean aftertaste remember
it's a crisp beer and Peroni original was brought to us by our favorite garage friends first up we have in sunny
beautiful Parts Unknown USA Mr Trevor that's like a big letdown oh we got the wonderful amazing Trevor up next this is
from Grand Junction Colorado we have Melissa who says the captain can sail her bow anytime all right what does that
mean even next up we have Audrey from Montreal Canada also we have Adam sending drinks from afar from Far Far
Away in Melbourne Australia anime sure to tell me that it's Melbourne not Mel borne so I must have said it wrong last
time but just just give me a break people I'm just a blue collar dude from Ohio who spent way too many hours in the
garage regardless thank you Adam it's nice to get the education and it cheers from you so cheers back to you man and
Jenny from Henderson Kentucky cannot get enough of the garage well that makes one
of us Jenny and last but not least we have Deirdre down in Fayetteville North Carolina so thanks to everybody for the
cold beers for this week and if you want to buy us a round for next week's show go to True Crime garage.com and while
you're there check out the store Page we got a bunch of different t-shirts that are available but a limited number so
purchase quickly my friends and thanks to all of our Facebook friends and for everything social media we are at True
Crime garage and everybody be patient we do look at every email we look at every
direct message uh it just takes some time to get there's only two of us so it takes us some time to reply so be
patient my friend that is enough of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
crime this is true crime garage and this is the monster of Florence [Music] yesterday Captain we covered three
double homicides all attributed to the monster of Florence the first one taking place in 1974 the next in 1981 and then
they lock up a man named Enzo spaletti and then just a few months later we have a crime that takes place again while he
is locked up now this leads us to another crime another murder double homicide by the monster of Florence this
takes place just eight months later in June of 1982. again this is a Saturday night and again there is no moon so this
is June 19 1982 just about 25 kilometers from Florence now the thing here captain
is this is one of the crimes where I find the most questions about okay this this is there's a lot of confusion about
this particular crime first off I want to throw this out there uh according to Wikipedia The the female victim uh her
name is Antonella now this was reported on there that she was not mutilated in the way that the other female victims
were in the previous crimes uh this is possible but I believe this to be wrong and we will get into this in a bit okay
um next one thing when the investigators try to piece together when they try to reconstruct the crime scene and the
crime as they think that it went down well they ran into a lot of trouble and this is basically because of a car
accident and I'll take you through this here so around 11 15 PM that night there
are several people in the area that they notice of via vehicle and the vehicle is
down in a ditch and it's down in a ditch in the way that the rear wheels are in the ditch and the front wheels and the
headlights are pointing up you know towards the towards the road or the sky right okay so when these eyewitnesses
happen upon the vehicle they find inside that there is a male who is alive he's like kind of
he's struggling to stay alive and quickly becomes unconscious well his name is Paulo and he's quickly taken to
the hospital and he will die just days later at the hospital the female victim there's some additional confusion as far
as the findings of of these people because we have witnesses we have ambulance drivers some of them stating
that Apollo was in the front seat in the driver's seat like we've seen in many of
these crimes before right there's also people that say he was in fact in the back seat of the vehicle now the female
victim she was found in the back seat and again I think some of this stuff you know is just arguing points for no
reason because what they did find as far as evidence was we got the gun shells the gun casings and they're the same
they match the same as the previous three murders yeah same gun used in this crime the thing here is though they do
want to try to recreate this reconstruction of the crime scene so maybe they can get some information
about the perpetrator of this crime now the strange thing here though Captain the the killer you know because of the
same gun being used now believed to be the monster of Florence uh he he takes the car key with him so the the
ambulance and the First Responders to this vehicle they immediately have a lot of difficulty and I wonder if some of
that difficulty led to varying accounts of what they were seeing when they arrived on the scene because they're
trying to save these people you know Paulo is in the car and he's clinging to life they got minutes to try to save
this guy and the problem here is because the vehicle has been wrecked in the the
driver's side door is is like smashed in crunched in it's jammed you cannot get it open well what happened was the
killer must have uh reached into the vehicle or possibly been in the vehicle himself to remove the the car I'm sorry
the key from the ignition right and when he did that he locked the door the passenger side door either before or
after closing it but the the door was locked when they arrived so now we have First Responders there trying to get to
these victims to see if they can save them to see if there's any signs of life left and yet they're losing valuable
minutes because they're unable to open either door to the vehicle right and one of the first questions that the
investigators were going to ask themselves is did the did the monster attack these victims and then did he
move the vehicle yeah and the thought being there Captain is that unlike the other crime scenes this was not like a
well-secluded area this was this was a road that was frequented as we said there are two couples two separate
couples that find this vehicle and see it in the manner that it's found so it's it's in a situation it's in an area
where it's likely to be stumbled upon or during the course of a murder uh you know people could come upon this so the
question was did the monster move the vehicle why would he move the vehicle did he attack them first we know what
his ritual is we know that he always does this to the woman to the female victim before leaving the crime scene
did he need to move the vehicle thus moving the victims away to a more private area and try to do this or you
know in in the in losing control of the vehicle and ending up at the in the ditch instead or did the couple try to
flee him during the attack itself and because they are either injured or afraid or terrified that they end up in
the ditch and then the monster completes the job right yeah he he completes the killings but he doesn't actually like
like we said before it seems like this uh individual is trying to create a perfect murder and then also create the
aftermath of the murder scene and and so in this case I was would lean towards the idea that they were going to try to
get away you know meaning also um or basing my thoughts off of the fact that the driver was still alive yeah and
the strange thing here Captain like I said you know there's some question Wikipedia says that Antonella was not
mutilated like the previous female victims were I disagree with that um the only knowledge I can offer dare
you yeah who would you're not Wikipedia don't you go against Wikipedia the thing
here is I want to throw this out Gospel of course I don't know for certain I didn't investigate the case I don't have
any access to the Case Files well then how do you know so much about it so here's what I'm going off of so I read
two books in preparation for this case both were co-authored by by well-known authors both books stated that she was
mutilated in the same fashion that the other women were and according to the FBI's website the FBI did a profile
regarding the monster of Florence and they talk a lot about that specific mutilation on there the thing here is
according to their crimes when they go through the crimes they don't go through them specifically you know this happened
sentence for sentence but what they do state is that they don't say that the mutilation did not occur here where they
do point to that at other occasions so I'm assuming if they say that it if they don't go out of their way to say it
didn't occur then they're under the belief that it did occur all right so what else happened with this
investigation well the thing here is the other thing we got to ask ourselves Captain is uh regarding the mutilation
itself she was found in the back seat rather than outside of the vehicle like we've seen in other crimes I don't know
that this points to did the monster Drive the vehicle or did they try to flee I think I think any you know either
either scenario seems very likely to me the interesting thing though is that he took the time one for the mutilation to
occur two to to remove the key and then lock the car door before fleeing again we see a guy we see a perpetrator that
even though in an area that's quite a bit busier than other locations that he's killed in before he does not seem
to be in a hurry you know it's like you had said in the last episode he seems he
seems to be set out to accomplish whatever Mission he has created for himself and he's determined to leave a
crime scene in the form that he chooses right but you see this a lot with uh Bundy Casey
um Dahmer where they kind of get careless with with some of their actions you know so we're talking about the
possibly possibly the fourth uh attack and maybe he's just getting careless becoming a bit frenzied in the in the
Act of Killing um now a strange thing here Captain 12 Days Later 12 days after the crime an
anonymous letter arrived at police headquarters in Florence inside the envelope we have a yellowed newspaper
clipping this is from the same newspaper that has been reporting about the monster for years now uh this is an
article about a forgotten double homicide double murder from 1968 of a man and a woman who had been having sex
in a parked car and remember the first the first attack of the monster of Florence quote unquote right would have
been 74. yes so this would have been six years before that yeah and someone wrote
on the newspaper clipping take another look at this crime now I believe and I've heard a rumor that there was other
communication uh to the police regarding this particular crime I don't know the details of such
um but regardless somebody sent this newspaper article with this old crime from 68. well what's Your Gut Feeling do
you think this is coming from the monster himself or do you think this is coming from you know armchair Detective
tell you what can I let me go through this quick thing real fast and then we'll dive into that because this will
give you a little insight into what we're looking at so the investigators they go through their old evidence files
regarding that case and I guess that you know with some of these cases if for some reason they they would remove
evidence or dispose of evidence after some time so it's it's no genius it's noted that for some reason they believe
some kind of oversight that the shells the bullet shells collected in 1968 had not been disposed of and when they
looked at these and they reviewed them they discovered that they were in fact Winchester series H rounds and each one
of them bore on the rim the unique signature of the monster of Florence's gun okay so there is another Link in the
chain another murder now this is going to sound strange right but I've heard several hardened
investigators and you have to be a hardened investigator and at your very end to start thinking this way but when
you have a lot of murders and they start piling up and you know they're you know
they're connected but you cannot locate your guy you cannot figure out who is doing these murders they're some of
these investigators there creates an internal struggle within them which it just it just happens and they say that
at some point and this bothers them very much to say this that they feel like they're they're starting to wait to
receive word of the next murder because the next murder it it could land you the
clue that you needed within that case could be the little clue or a little piece of evidence that you need so that
you can catch this guy so now these investigators did they get lucky you know they have another murder here and
maybe they got lucky because you get another crime scene more clues more leads and no one else really has to die
because we have a right because the victims are already dead at that point right but we have a problem with this
case from 1968 we have somebody that's arrested for this yes and and they're in jail yes so that creates a big problem
well let's go through this crime real fast okay this took place August 21st 1968 in a small town just west of
Florence at about 2 A.M in the morning there's an unexpected knock at the front door of a small home the homeowners
refused to answer the door at such an hour without an explanation then they hear a small and meek voice say please
open the door and let me in I am sleepy they opened the door and much to their surprise and shock they see a little boy
about six years of age standing alone and Afraid the boy nearly shaking says I'm sleepy and my daddy is sick in bed
can you drive me home because my mommy and uncle are dead in the car sure enough
they find his mother they she's found dead shot to death in a car apparently while in the private romantic moment
with some man not the woman's husband not the not the boy's father or even an uncle like the
boy had stated but a lover the wife and mother of the had taken on at some point
yeah maybe the maybe the mother said to the kid hey this is your uncle yeah well
and Captain this you know this as you said this has solved somebody sitting in jail this seems like an open and shut
case you have a married woman went to the movies with her lover and afterwards they parked to have sex they were
ambushed in the middle of of the act and shot to death the woman's husband this is uh Stefano melee he is from Sardinia
he's picked up the following morning they did one of those uh paraffin tests in the results indicated that Stefano
had recently fired a gun okay so he's looking very guilty to this point he claimed he was innocent and he he
claimed that his wife had many lovers outside of their marriage and that one of those men that she was having an
affair with must have killed her apparently they had a pretty open and unique relationship okay
um so Stefano seemed to be all accounts he was probably bisexual it sounds like there were some threesomes
going on where where his wife would be the only female participant um the devil's threesome so we have Stefano and
people around Stefano that are saying you know this isn't a jealous husband going out and killing his wife and and
the person she's having an affair with because this is a guy that didn't mind this type of activity yeah so
regardless they pick him up they they have interrogated him eventually he does break down during the the interrogation
and he confesses to killing his wife and killing her lover in a fit of jealousy um but the problem like the captain
States is we have all these other crimes going on and melee is he's in he's in prison at the time of the 1981 killings
right and after that I don't know how this works it seems like sometimes when we cover these cases in other countries
that maybe our prison sentences might be a little lengthy or maybe things have changed throughout the years but he was
he killed his wife in in lover or confessed to doing so and he's he's only in prison until 1981.
uh he was technically out when the other crimes were committed by the monster but
he was living in a halfway house um so so well but investigators are saying that it would be extremely
unlikely that he would have been able to commit any of those murders after 1968.
so we have though we have the the matching gun and like you said we have a problem
because old Stefano was accounted for during the later murders now if he confessed to these crimes in 68 where's
the gun you know investigators should be going Hey where's that gun that you used
yeah and apparently I I would like to know if this was questioned to him and if his answer stayed the same you know
was this question to him at the time that his wife was killed and if it was questioned to him again during the
investigation regarding the monster what happened to the gun Stefano well if you wanted to handle the gun well he
says I want the gun you can't handle the gun he says and I'm believing this is from the original investigation that he
says that he threw it you know in the woods or through it in the bushes somewhere after fleeing the crime scene
makes makes sense I guess uh regardless the gun was never found however the k casings are matching back to your
question do we think it was some kind of tip from an anonymous innocent person or do we think that this
is some kind of uh the killer taunting the police in in a way yeah um what's your gut feeling well here here's
my question I I actually don't think that it was the killer taunting the police I think it was the Killer maybe
covering some tracks and and I'm to get into this I'm gonna have to explain one thing remember when we said that the
driver the driver when the vehicle was found in the ditch the male driver he is found alive and then taken to the
hospital he never regains Consciousness that entire time he dies at the hospital
but one thing that the prosecutor and the investigator did this was this was quite interesting
they claim that that that Apollo that guy that he gave them information good information that would help them
identify the monster of Florence all right nobody would know this except for people
extremely close to the case well the ambulance driver at some point receives a strange phone call now he receives a
call from a man now is he also peeping Tom no no no this is not not that I'm aware of I know but remember the last
guy that was the ambulance it's it's a hobby of all so that's just what we do it's part of the Union oh that's how you
you know break up the stress of of the everyday ambulance that's how we do it anyway this caller contacted the driver
of the ambulance that took the man to the hospital and he says that the man says I didn't recognize the voice but he
says that the caller identified himself as an investigator and he wanted to find
out what the ambulance driver may have overheard from the victim as he was driving him to the hospital right he
also wanted to know what the ambulance driver might know in regards to the case in the investigation
um the ambulance driver says I'm not going to tell this to you or anybody else over the phone I don't know who you
are you know if you present yourself in person maybe we can have a legitimate conversation
the caller hangs up and shortly afterwards calls back and then he identifies himself as the monster of
Florence okay and during this call he tells me he's trying to be sneaky before yeah yeah and he calls back this time
and it's it's not a nice phone call the second time he threatens the driver and explains to the driver that he's not to
tell anybody about this phone call or you know the monsters yeah right those are my favorite threats
you know don't do this or else so with the with the clipping with the newspaper clipping and let's there's a
few things that are interesting here about this kind of zodiac it's very zodiac and on top of that you know it it
was addressed the envelope itself was addressed in a way like you would see like a like a ransom letter right where
somebody cuts out letters from newspaper or magazines that was a that was a thing
in the late 70s and early 80s I wish they would do that more often yeah and so they pieced together this and
addressed the envelope as such the whoever sent the envelope uh they took the time to make sure that there were no
fingerprints on this envelope they also did not use their tongue to seal the envelope
um so somebody took a lot of precautions there and the thing is it's received just 12 days after this this murder it
almost seems to me like and like I said for some reason the the police maybe because it's a solved crime they're
supposed to dispose of the evidence after a certain amount of time back that doesn't make any sense to me
um but but what I'm wondering here Captain is is it possible that the monster or the
monsters would have had the ability to plant those bullets in that evidence in that case File from
1968 and send this clipping to the police trying to cover their tracks thinking thinking that maybe the monster was
identified by this this man that remained alive uh in the hospital for a few days after the attack hmm
so this murder took place in 68. the original murder was 1968 yes right and there was no mutilation
of the the female correct so one could say well then you know he didn't have a fixation or he didn't have a clear-cut
picture of what he he was trying to create you know the murder scene like we've said I think this person was
trying to create a certain image in his head recreate that so maybe he didn't have that thing in
his head or did they place the shells in the evidence Locker later like you said
it was a mistake that they had him so but maybe it wasn't a mistake maybe they did get rid of all the evidence and then
all of a sudden they reappeared that would be pretty hard I think to do to get into them you'd have to get into the
evidence locker and and be able to infiltrate that that would be hard right it seems to me like it would take a a
certain person that would be at a certain level you know it working in a certain capacity uh that would have the
ability to do such or be involved with other persons that are able to to get access to that file or that evidence
Locker well and what are your thoughts on this because this is kind of a crazy thought that kind of keeps popping up in
my head but it's like you know we've seen this with Bundy I I don't know I know we've seen this with Bundy I mean
Bundy was known to be a peeping Tom so is it possible possible that we have this peeping Tom
and in 1968 this peeping Tom Witnesses a murder yeah and then that person finds the gun
that supposedly was in the bush it may not have had much trouble finding the gun if he watched the murders go down
and watch the the killer maybe it is Stefano that killed him and he watches him toss the gun somewhere and he
decides oh I'm gonna go over there and retrieve that murder weapon right that would be pretty crazy but you know
again a possibility it you're right Captain you know when you say something like that like you think about that and
you're like this is a possibility then you say it out loud and you're like that's crazy it's almost laughable it's
so crazy it's almost laughable at the same time it's it's it's crazy that you have a man
in prison for a murder using the same weapon that that there's somebody out committing murders using that same
weapon for years and years afterwards right or a different type of killing though and we don't have that we don't
have the mutilation we don't have the stabbing or the possibility that somebody sent them this newspaper
article to cover their tracks and then found a way to plant evidence at an old solved crime from 1968. that that yeah
again we have the confession so just hear me out I know it sounds crazy that a Peeping Tom would be there and found
the gun or somebody else found the gun and then the gun was you know traded in and and it was in the black market and
this guy got the gun somehow right it's possible but what I'm saying is the killings aren't the same uh
we have a guy that confessed to it you know so is it impossible that this guy uh
isn't it possible that this guy just got the gun somehow and then if he got this
gun somehow that maybe it wasn't the murderer it was just maybe some armchair detective that's had this Theory and yes
certain things lined up but it doesn't completely line up ultimately it just brings up more questions than answers
but we'll get right back to that after this quick beer break foreign [Music] [Music]
cheers mates cheers regarding the crime that took place in 1968 the double homicide Stefano melee was convicted for
killing his wife and her lover again they never found the gun right well remember our guy the reporter Mario
spezzi well he figures out a way to interview Stefano so when this information came about Stefano is out of
prison at this point you know we said he's living in a halfway house from time to time
the thing here is everybody wanted to from time to time well isn't that why it's called halfway house
after time there half the time I'm somewhere else well I guess at this time everybody wanted to interview Stefano
because the monster is one of the biggest news stories in the whole city well yeah the whole country yeah so
everybody wants to speak with the Stefano guy and get his information about what he knows about the crime he
was convicted of does he know anything about the monster that's out there running amok in the current day well we
have spezzy he has to figure out a way to interview this guy because nobody uh melee will not let anybody near him the
halfway house will not let anybody come to interview this guy they don't want anything to do with it he figures out a
way to to get to Stefano and he asked him specifically about the murders and about the gun and the answers he gets
from Stefano are as follows Stefano says they need to figure out where that pistol is otherwise there will be more
murders they will continue to kill they will continue so they yes the key word is they and so
now armed with this information spezzy plus the police now believe that Stefano melee was not alone the night in
1968 when his wife and lover were killed it had not been a spontaneous Crime of Passion but rather a what they call a
clan killing so Stefano and a group of people killed his wife and her lover under this Theory so his confession was
a false confession correct it was not a false confession but he left out some details though an investigators
theorized that one of the killers or somebody present that night had enjoyed the experience so much that he had gone
on to become the monster of Florence using the same gun that had committed the crimes in 1968. a new event a new
investigation is underway and what now the police were calling the Sardinian connection
they they focused in and zeroed in on three Sardinian Brothers now remember we said that Stefano was from Sardinia and
they probably looked at people close to him during this time so these are three Sardinian Brothers Francesco Salvatore
and Giovanni Vinci they believed it is believed that all three of them had at one point been lovers or very close to
the murdered woman from 1968 and one or more of them would have been present at the time of her killing
due to their investigation the police end up arresting Francesco but on September 9th this is 1983. we
have Francesco finchy still in jail the monster was most certainly on the loose a German couple had parked their
Volkswagen Camper for the night both were spied upon and then shot several times and killed but the monster had
apparently made a mistake that night because this situation was quite different than the other crimes because
both of the victims were men yeah and so after the monster would shoot these victims he'd go into their trailer and
he's going to be snooping around yeah all the shots were fired from outside of the camper if the monster were to follow
his normal Mo he would go into the camper to you know pull the female victim from the vehicle however in this
situation if he was following his typical Mo he would have went inside and discovered that this was not a
heterosexual couple this is a homosexual couple and this is in fact two men well
at some point he the monster takes a pornographic magazine that he finds inside the camper he tears Pages out of
it and scatters them on the ground outside of the camper okay um it's not believed that he mutilated
either of these victims in any way he just simply shot them discovered that he made a mistake we're assuming and then
left the crime there has been a lot of speculation though Captain if if this was intentional you know or did he just
mistake uh what he saw to be a female and male victim um the situation is this though remember
we have Francisco Vinci he's he's locked up he's believed to be involved in these
crimes the monster of Florence crimes now the authorities refused to release Francesco even though he was not around
for this crime that took place on September 9th 1983. they believed that one of his relatives had tried to throw
them off by committing a new murder using the same gun or at the very least that Francisco knew who the monster was
right so just be clear for everybody to be clear that we have evidence at the scene that these two homosexual victims
were shot with the same gun they were shot with the monster's gun and remember we have all three Vinci brothers were
being they were considered suspects at the time that they arrested the one brother so I think the thought here is
that one of the other brothers or both of the other brothers went went out and committed this crime therefore the
authorities believing that Francesco still could be the monster it just means that there's more than one monster right
and Francesco probably knows who the other monster would be or the monsters would be right sorry there's no clear
way of putting that uh investigator sure there is but uh but I did not achieve that
um investigators became suspicious of another member of what they are calling the Sardinian clan
um this is Antonio Vinci uh and they ended up arresting him on Firearms charges they grilled the two men
relentlessly but they were unable to break them and finally they were forced to release Antonio but Francesco
remained in custody about four months later the police baffled the public when they finally released Francesco but they
only did this after arresting two more men with connections to the Sardinian group right and announcing now to the
public for the first time that there are two Monsters the authorities believed that both of these men would have been
present at the 1968. remember they're calling this the clan killing they were arrested they were charged with being
the monster of Florence now all winners so they're charging them not with just the 68 crime but all of them correct
that they're looking at this as a whole you're being arrested for this but now we're going to try to put together some
kind of case so all winter long the police work on these two men they are desperately trying to extract
confessions and develop their case but they do they do not have any success with this Captain summer arrives and
even though the police have these two suspects in custody the monster will strike again this time the victims would
be 21 year old Claudio and his girlfriend Pia only 18 years old at the time they were both shot to death and
stabbed in Claudio's car again the monster left the empty shell casings matching the bullets from the other
crimes and again the monster mutilated the woman but adding a new [ __ ] he cut off and took with him her left breast
a special Strike Force team was formed they called themselves the anti-monster squad now see Captain that should be the
new t-shirt you have the True Crime garage anti-monster Squad I guess it'd be a picture of me and you with like
this whole Army of people behind us fighting monsters all over the world this this is to we have a problem here
because um in Italy all right you have two different types of police forces and you
could kind of think of this in a way of of like we have here in the United States you have your regular police
force your local police and then you have your FBI okay so in Italy you have the Citizen Police and you have the
carbonari well that's similar to um you know like a military police okay so the this is two separate police
forces that investigate crime and they they do this independently of one another what this anti-monster squad is
going to be comprised of is members of both organizations working together in their free time to try to put together a
case against this monster and end the killing now the government ends up offering a huge reward which turns out
roughly to be about 290 thousand dollars once you convert it to US dollars for information leading to the capture of
the monster this is the highest bounty in in Italy history warning posters are put up everywhere and on top of that
this this is wild a millions of warning postcards are distributed to tourists entering
Florence this is advising them not to go to the hills at night can you imagine going to another country to visit
especially a country as beautiful as Italy and when you arrive you're handed a postcard telling you not to go into
the hills at night because there is a monster on the loose that is gunning people down well hold on I need to
cancel my airplane tickets because that's the only reason why I'm going there to go park
and the Hills in the summer of 1985 the Monster resurfaced again in what would be the
most terrible killing of all the victims were too young tourists who had pitched
a tent and a field on the edge of a wooded area according to the Reconstruction of the crime the killer
approached the tent and with the tip of a knife made a 12-inch cut into the side
of the tent the campers hearing the noise unzipped the front flap to investigate what was going on outside of
the tent apparently the killer was there waiting for them and opened fire on both
of these people he ends up hitting the female victim in the face now the man is only hit in the arm or the wrist so he
is able to flee the tent area well the woman died instantly but the man read ran and fled toward the woods
the monster followed after him he eventually catches the man and slits the man's throat almost decapitating him the
young man's Blood Stained the tree branches well above his head uh maybe 10 12 feet in the air right still a little
bit of a different scenario than other killings the killer returned to his female victim to perform the usual
ritual mutilation and like the last crime he cut off her left left breast the bodies were not discovered until
Monday at 2 pm now the police could not determine if the campers were killed on Saturday or on Sunday and this is always
obviously important to any investigation of course but this is also could could either play or not play into one of the
biggest theories surrounding the monster you know we have the thought that we have victims that are attacked on
Saturday nights on moonless Saturday nights and we have these victims where we can't determine if they were killed
Saturday night or Sunday night so one of the big theories in this case has always
been that there's there's an occult you know there's these are some kinds of cult killings right that these could be
performed by devil worshipers or some kind of organization well if they broke that and they ended up killing on Sunday
maybe that goes against that theory yeah but I I think there's some weight to this whole you know ritualistic killing
because of the mutilation to the female um you know kind of staging a scene every time I I think that that's not a
bad angle for investigators to look into well on the day of the discovery of the
bodies um and this took place just before the bodies were discovered the prosecutor in
the case received an envelope through the mail this is another communication that we see here Captain envelope the
envelope had been addressed to using letters cut out for magazines and newspapers inside the envelope we have
the prosecutor found the victims left nipple there were no fingerprints on the envelope itself and again the sender did
not use his tongue to seal the envelope the prosecutor soon quit the monster case and not only that she quit her
career in law enforcement altogether as she was so terrified by this communication
now well maybe she took that as a threat so well and with with two suspects in jail uh then the two tourists are killed
we have we have a judge here that remains convinced that one of the Sardinian clan members was the monster
and that either one of them or both of the suspects being held were one of the monster or new again who the monster was
so the judge is refusing to let these people out again it's still possible that there's multiple people but the the
other thing I would add though too is that you have a crime taking place in 68 and if if the monster was multiple
people right the next crime is not taking place till 74. so you would think that once the arrest was made once this
person was going to be sentenced to this charge that one of the other uh people involved would be making a crime happen
pretty quickly have have another murder happen pretty quickly that way it gets the public going hey it's not the guy so
it's kind of weird that there's a gap from 68 to 74 and then from 74 to 81. right right and you're right though you
might have tapped into something because after we see one of the guys picked up that Enzo spaletti there seems to be an
increase in the frequency of the crimes of the monster um now the judge the judge that was
focusing on the Vinci brothers and remember we mentioned one of those brothers names that this is Salvatore
the judge is now believing that Salvatore was present for the Stefano melee with Stefano melee at the murder
of his wife and lover back in 68. in fact Salvatore was suspected of having killed his own wife before leaving
Sardinia his wife had been found asphyxiated by gas in their home back in 1961. the death had officially been
determined a suicide but here's the strange part someone had taken the time to go into the home someone had rescued
the couple's one-year-old son this is Antonio Vinci from the house while leaving the boy's mother to Die the
judge could not bring Salvatore to trial for being the monster of Florence but yet he's convinced that Salvatore was
the monster so now there's not enough evidence to book him on this however he thought what they should do let's try to
prosecute Salvatore for the old death of his wife back in 1961 instead and then maybe Salvatore would confess to the
crimes of the monster well this ends up backfiring because the trial ends up being a disaster by this
time you know we're we're almost 30 years removed from the death of his wife in 61. the trial is a disaster the
witnesses didn't seem to know much about the death of his wife or at least remember any details of anything that
happened that day right and the evidence in that case well it was extremely weak
to say it politely everything pretty much in pretty much hinged on the testimony of his son Antonio Vinci which
is a which was one years old at the time he would have been one years old at the
time at the death of his mother and Antonio refused to testify against his father so nothing stuck and the Dr the
judge here struck out and was unable to prosecute Salvatore but the story is not
over and this case is not completely gone cold because they have a new investigator yeah new lead investigator
is applied to the case uh he decides to go back to the drawing board because right now this thing is very muddled and
he decides that he's going to review what little forensic evidence has been collected throughout all of these Crimes
of the monster yeah you'd think there would be some sort of DNA well the things that they have in in evidence
Captain is they have a knee print a knee print was found on the on the door of one of the vehicles they found a bloody
rag at one of the crime scenes and they also found a partial fingerprint now you
also have to keep in mind uh you don't know if that partial fingerprint belongs to the killer or just somebody that
happened to be in or around the vehicle correct now this investigator will outrightly state that he learned very
quickly that none of this none of this evidence was analyzed properly nor was it stored properly so at some point
surprise surprise at some point you you lose value and you're unable to get anything of value from this evidence
so he decides that he's going to go to the computers right he's going here yeah he's going to go and study some
computers believing uh using a method that more new age investigators uh would might Point him toward the man that they
call the monster of thousands of men in the area he was looking at several items
uh regarding convictions for sex crimes crimes of violence uh people with their prison sentences when were they in
prison when they were not uh this led the investigator to a suspect a Tuscan farmer named Petro pacciani now he's
described as a short very strong man who was particularly drunk all of the time and he had a violent history
except for you're not short yeah but uh so I am when I when I'm drinking too much I get really short well one thing
that's very different from you is that this guy has a extremely violent history to say the least you don't know me
because in 1951 when he discovered when pacciani discovered that a traveling salesman was having sex with his fiance
and I believe this took place in either her home or their home but somehow he discovered this he attacked the couple
he bashed in the man's skull and then he raped the woman next to the Man's dead body afterward he was arrested uh he was
imprisoned he was sentenced it was an easy conviction uh for this crime Jesus after he was released from prison he
married uh he was later convicted of sexually assaulting his daughters uh his prison
every story every week we cover a story and they all have girlfriends or wives you mean you mean these people that have
horrible past and doors horrible horrible individuals it's uh I haven't been on a date in months man you you're
using the wrong dating website I guess um I love scumbags.com you can find I'll go to that one there you go but uh he
his prison sentences coincide with the Gap in the killings okay so this new investigator I mean he's like wow this
dude he's he's committed crimes against a couple he has sex crimes he has violent crimes and his prison sentences
coincide with the gaps in the killings so when the monster was dormant this dude was in prison when the monster was
active and killing people pacciani this dude was out and free okay so did they investigate this guy's property or yes
they they conducted a 12-day search of paciones problems that's a long search it's a lot of days on the job they found
an unfired 22 caliber bullet in his garden now experts say that it might let's put that include found it in his
garden that's not suspicious well they said that the experts said that they might this bullet might have been
inserted into the famous Beretta that they've been looking for and ejected without being fired the ballistics
report was inconclusive not long after the carbonary received a piece of a 22 Beretta wrapped in a torn rag this was
it was accompanied with an anonymous note saying that had been found in a place where pacciani often went all
right right so you know it seems like a lot of fishy evidence well what they did
Captain was when they received this Beretta wrapped in the torn rag then they went back to pachiani's property
and they searched the property again they removed you know any Rags any towels that they could find on the
property they found some rags and that they found in his garage and they compared it to the rag that sent the
Beretta right well it matched up you know so we think it was coming from wife coming from his wife or from someone
that that knew him you know that was close to pachiani that had access to his property he's eventually arrested in
January of 1993 and he is charged with being the monster of Florence all right case closed we'll see you guys next week
all right be good be kind don't don't be peeping on people touching each other see you next week
[Music] so what happened well at the trial now keep in mind we're talking about we we
described him as a short very strong Mammoth this is a bully you know this is this is a bully this is a brute
and at the at the trial pacciani rocked back and forth and he cried very loudly during the proceedings uh he would often
yell out strange things during the trial as he cried you know things like I'm I'm
in I'm an innocent little lamb and I'm you know they're they're treating me like Jesus Christ on the cross what uh
yeah he just random craziness that he would he would yell out but the almost the entire trial this guy is rocking in
his chair and crying very loudly the prosecutors presented no murder weapon during this trial they also presented no
reliable eyewitnesses to the crimes and even pachiani's wife and daughters okay picture this we know what he's done to
these daughters okay he he these women hate allegedly right right well no he was convicted of of
assault on his daughters these women hated him and I mean he probably hated him in every sense of the
word they said at trial that he could not have been the monster because this guy was always home he was home and he
was drunk all of the time and he was at home yelling and hitting them um right you know so it's strange to
hear so he was a monster just not just he was a monster within the four walls of his home correct right these women
had a good chance to get rid of this guy forever and they didn't do that somehow despite the lack of evidence
um outside of the bullet that was found that is still questionable that it was in the infamous Beretta that we've been
talking about it's questionable how it got there on his property uh I think sometimes when the case uh
goes on for so long and people I think sometimes even with new investigators that get into a case and they're so
desperate to solve it that they you know their ethics uh kind of Go away You're right and everything in their mind is
pointing to this guy I know he did it right well this lines up this lines up that's yeah but everything has to line
up pacciani was in fact convicted and he was sentenced to life in prison now there is a mandatory appeal process and
this was very strange the prosecutor assigned to handle the appeal case actually decided to refuse to prosecute
pacciani so on February 13 1996 because they're not going to prosecute him again pacciani was
acquitted for being the monster of Florence so we're back to square one we're back to square one we we see
murder after murder double homicide after double homicide and then we keep locking up people the murders don't stop
no matter what and and when we do find somebody that we think we have some evidence right the conviction is
overturned yeah or if we have them arrested another murder takes place so that's a very interesting case on the
same day that pacciani's acquitted the police they tried to save their case or maybe at least cover their backs because
they brought forward new Witnesses and they dramatically announced that they they had a confession regarding the case
of the monster the judge however refused to allow the new witnesses to testify but as we know often with these stories
somehow this information gets out so what was Learned was that the first surprise witness had actually confessed
to being pachiani's accomplice he said that he and pacciani had been hired by a wealthy doctor to handle a few jobs
these were to collect female body parts for black masses to be used as offerings
to the devil but on top of these strange stories that doesn't make any sense because you don't have to kill you know
Lover Lane people you don't have to kill the the man and the and the female to get the female parts well this man you
know on top of these strange stories that the man is telling he often contradicted himself uh when telling
these stories he did implicate another man um so now according to this guy we have
a ring of three of two of these men were convicted of murder one was sentenced to
life in prison that being pacciani and the other two uh 26 years uh in prison now the higher Court sent the case back
to be retro retried regarding pacciani however he died in February of 1998 before the new trial could begin
this began an investigation into the search for the doctor and for the quote-unquote masterminds Behind These
killings but get this the suspects or you know Witnesses or whatever you want to call them
at the acquittal for pacciani said that they didn't know the doctor's name uh he
claimed he told all these wild stories about collecting body parts for this doctor but he claimed that only pacciani
knew the name of the doctor knew the identity yeah the person that hired them but this guy's story just seemed so
fishy yeah and they presented this story to pacioni and he denied the entire story all the way until the day that he
died right and he was supposed to be retried but sense of it because of his death they can't retry him yeah and over
time thread by thread the web of evidence uh against him it fell apart it wasn't great to begin with but the rag
and the gun pieces uh that were sent to them that was found to have been manufactured and planted evidence it was
never really established who they believe planted that evidence or who had sent it that to them but like you said
it appears to be somebody that would have known him had access to his property the expert who had been asked
to clarify or to certify that the bullet found in pasciani's guard might have been inserted into the monster's gun he
said at a later date that he was bullied into arriving at that conclusion that he was he was pressured by the
investigators to to help them out with their investigation right and who who do you think planted the other evidence the
same investigators yeah most likely and then we also have Mario spedsy the uh the journalist he he videotaped a police
officer who was present at the search of pacciani's property and on this videotape the officer is saying that it
was his impression that the Chief Inspector in the crime or in the investigation had planted the bullet in
the garden yeah surprise surprise in know it's a typical situation where an investigator gets a theory and they put
their blinders on and they try to make everything fit even like I said throw your ethics out the window
well around the same time we have the FBI they release a thorough a thorough idea a profile of the Killer and during
this report they say that the monster chose the places for his crime that he did not choose the victims and that he
would kill only in familiar locations the murders had been committed over a large area encompassing The Hills South
East and North of Florence the police tried for years unsuccessfully to recognize a pattern but Mario spetsy
mapped the life and movements of the carbonaries suspect to the locations of the killings and he found what he
thought to be overlaps now Mario spetsy's view of this case is not complicated the simplest and most
obvious explanation was most likely the correct one this is what he believed he believed that the monster of Florence
was a lone psychopath and that the key to finding him was the gun used in the 1968 Clan killing spetsy says every cop
knows a gun used in a homicide especially a clan killing is never disposed of casually it is his belief
that it would be either destroyed or kept in a safe place one of the killers after the double homicide in 1968 had
taken the gun home right again though you have to buy that that first killing was what they said it was I mean I
understand that we have a confession you know from from the husband but uh I don't know I I have a hard time buying
it well Spazzy agreed with the judge that was involved believing that the monster must either be Salvatore Vinci
or somebody close to salvatory uh someone which would make sense yeah someone with access to the gun and the
box of bullets it was that simple and the crime scene evidence suggested that the monster was tall remember we talked
about pacciani being a short man there was evidence and they gathered that from the angle in which the bullets were
fired into the vehicles as well as the knee print that was placed on the car door that they had found so they
believed the monster was tall they believed him to be a right-handed man in excellent physical condition this ruling
out pacciani obviously who was short fat old and usually drunk the killer was an expert shot in their
opinion and skilled with a knife right okay so do you think it was a killer or Killers well I'm gonna tell you what I'm
gonna present what Mario spetsy believes and I'm gonna present what the carbonari
believed at the time remember he was comparing their number one suspect to information he had about the movements
of this suspect and where the killings took place well who was this person who was their number one suspect well it was
Antonio Vinci remember who he is he's Salvatore's son he's the one that if Salvatore killed his wife he pulled the
one-year-old son out of the the home that was being uh you know gassed at the time he's the one that refused to
testify against his father he would have had access to the gun if Da Vinci's had
access to that gun so spetsy tracks down this guy and he he wants to interview him regarding the
monster of Florence but he's a bit terrified because you now you're very close to the possible Inner Circle of
this whole thing right so he actually introduces himself to Antonio as somebody else however Antonio is a smart
dude and he recognizes spetsy he does agree to be interviewed by spetsy uh when asked a risky move spetsy wanted to
record the interview audio record the interview he says no you know he Antonio says no I you can't record me why well
I'm I don't like my own voice that's something you and I have to deal with a couple times a week that's lovely so I'm
going to I'll give you the shortened version of of this interview but during the course of this interview one thing
that spetsy asked Antonio about was about all of the fights that he had had with his with his own father and he
states that you know one of these fights uh you were charged with breaking into the home of your father in the spring of
1974 you were charged with breaking and entering in his home and theft while Antonio corrects him and says that's not
correct I was only charged with a violation because all they could prove was that I had broken into his home and
that I I didn't steal anything now he asked him when did you leave Florence well he left Florence in the
beginning of 1975 when did you return uh he returned in 1982 and then separated in 1985.
um there's and this goes on and on but what we're establishing here is his movements when was he in the area and
when was he not both of those statements put him in the area during the times of
the killings and out of the area when the killings were not taking place the thought about the actual break into
Salvatore's home the thought there is Betsy believes that Salvatore had the gun that he had possession of the
Beretta and that Antonio broke into his father's home and stole the gun before the first double homicide in 1974. all
right so just to break this down to be pretty clear so basically his father kills his mother in 61 pulls him out of
the house in 61 then in 68 his father is involved in this clan type killing they
kill uh this this couple because they're cheating on them and then in 74 the sun
breaks into the father's house steals the murder weapon and then goes on a killing rampage now he would have been
about age 14 at this time yeah yeah he would have been 14 or 15 at the time I I don't know what month he was born in
um it seems awfully young the strange thing here though and this is where I believe
that spetsy arrived at this conclusion was because when when the father when Salvatore had noticed that his home was
broken into he called and reported it as a as his home was broken into and things
were stolen when the police arrived to take their report they asked him what was stolen he says there was nothing
stolen the house was just broken into they find out that it was the Sun that actually broke into the house the
thought is spets you know spetsy's thought is that Salvatore would not admit that the only item stolen was a
murder weapon that he was present for or participated in back in 1968 so what else came from this interview well
spetsy directly asked him about the 22 Beretta he said if your father owned the 22 Beretta you were the person in the
best position to take it correct and well Antonio says he he kind of stalls on his answer but his answer is this he
says you know I didn't take it and I have proof and he says you know what was the proof and he says if I had taken
that gun from my father I would have fired that gun into my father's forehead that's your proof well that's a pretty
uh strong statement there yeah especially it's Betsy pushes him further and saying that you know because you
didn't have the gun that I'm asking you about then that means you are not the monster of Florence
well Antonio says no I'm not the monster because I like my [ __ ] hole Wowzer that's a that's another strong statement
well it's after this statement that spetsy decides to leave the house to leave this guy's house immediately
um as he's walking out of the home uh he is uh embraced let's say by his host by
Antonio um and during this he he basically Whispers to him in a deep Gravelly tone
he says listen carefully spetsy I I never joke around I don't know what that means but I take that to be some kind of
threat here the situation is Captain does you know spetsy's thoughts uh he's looked at this crime probably longer
than anybody else being the investigative journalist that he is he's worked this case longer than most of the
investigators involved I think he has a reasonable explanation for the crimes and for who the monster of Florence is
you know it's a little no matter who you look at in this case it's a little bit of a leap though wouldn't you agree yeah
I definitely think there's a leap um I think the tough thing about this leap that he's making is that like we
said that then the suspect would have to be 14 years old yeah yeah that's the biggest hurdle for me certainly does
have ties to the crime ties to the original murder back in 1968. regardless this is a fascinating yet frustrating
crime all at the same time you know we we talked about this anytime we have an arrest there's a there's another murder
um nothing nothing holds weight here over the course of this investigation after all these years you have four men
that were arrested charged of and convicted of being the monster at different times you also have many
people that were arrested and eventually released and not charged with the crimes
a lot of the convictions that I just spoke of have been criticized and ridiculed by the media and it is of
almost everyone's belief that the killer or Killers have never been identified I
guess uh until then until new information comes out we'll just never know well and that leads us to our
recommended reading for this week Captain we are recommending the monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario
spetsy uh the thing here is I know I feel we did a great job covering this this is a huge case though this is one
of those situations we got into this and we were starting thinking this is three
episodes is this four episodes glad you pat yourself on the back we did a great job oh we did I'm here to tell you but
what I will tell you Captain is that there is more reason to look into this case on your own there were certain
avenues that we were unable to take unable to explore because them in themselves were monster cases of their
own so if you want to find out more about the quote-unquote doctor that had this satanic organization that he was he
was looking for body parts for these rituals that's covered in this book The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston
and Mario spetsy and you can pick that up by going to truecrimegarage.com click on the recommended page and you'll see
all of our books there and just make sure that you use our Amazon Banner when you make your purchase maybe we'll come
back to that and just do a special episode just on that doctor yeah if you want to hear more about the doctor if
you if you really want to impress upon us you want to hear more about the monster of Florence you can do that at
our blog at truecrimegarage.com Captain I want to thank you for another great week want to thank all of our great
sponsors all the wonderful listeners out there thanks for sharing on social media
thanks for telling a friend thanks for the five star reviews they mean a lot and we will see you back here next week
in the garage until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause]

The Monster of Florence /// Part 2 /// 125

Part 2 of 2

TrueCrimeGarage.com

Florence is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Rich with history, monuments and art, it is truly one of the great cities. This city has been haunted and its people hunted. For nearly twenty years something crept in the dark ambushing it's prey. Over a dozen people have been murdered while parked in cars in the hills of Florence. This killer has been described as absolute evil. This is the story of the Monster of Florence.

Beer of the week - Peroni by Macro BreweryGarage grade - 3 1/2 bottle caps out of 5

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Brief Summary

The episode details the Monster of Florence murders, focusing on the 1982 double homicide and the complex investigation surrounding it.

Key points

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Join hosts Nick and the Captain as they dive into true crime stories.
The Monster of Florence. Exploring a series of double homicides linked to a notorious killer in Italy.
Confusion at the Crime Scene. Investigators face challenges reconstructing a murder scene due to conflicting eyewitness accounts.
Investigator's Call. A mysterious caller identifies himself as the monster of Florence and threatens an ambulance driver.
The Sardinian Connection. Police investigate three Sardinian brothers linked to the 1968 murder and the ongoing killings.
The Anti-Monster Squad. A special task force is formed to catch the monster, offering a historic bounty for information.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The killer takes the car key with him.

Highlighting a crucial detail of the crime scene.

7:13WatchDec 4, 2022

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.