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

when it comes to Quality sleep Ashley has you covered with top mattress brands at winning prices and with special
financing options available you can snooze now and pay later plus your mattress purchase helps give the gift of
better sleep to children in need and US Special Operations forces visit your local Ashley store or shop online today
and make every snooze count financing is subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for d details Rosetta Stone
is the language learning program with a lasting impact I've been using the rap to learn French and it's not just about
memorizing words but actually having real conversations and it's not just French they offer 25 languages right now
Rosetta Stone has an awesome holiday deal 50% off their lifetime membership every language unlimited access forever
for anyone keen on diving deep into a new language check out rosettastone.com it's a
GameChanger [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 it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music]
friend tonight we are drinking Peroni original by macro Brewery and beautiful Roma Italy garage grade 3 and 1/2 out of
five bottle caps Peroni original is brewed to suit the Italian palette with low but present floral and fruity notes
complimenting 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 let down 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 boat 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 austral Australia Adam made sure to tell me that it's Mel burn not Melbourne 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
a 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 deerra down in fville 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 Crim 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
friends 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 [Music] Florence 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 spetti 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 8 months later in June of
1982 again this is a Saturday night and again there is no moon so this is June 19th 1982 just about 25 kilomet 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 is 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 to piece together when they tried 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 p.m. that night um there are several people in the area that they notice a 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 in the headlights are pointing up you know towards the towards the uh 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 Pa
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
the gun casings mhm and they're the same they match the same as the previous three murders yeah same gun used in this
crime uh the thing here is though they do want to try to recreate this reconstruction of the crime scene uh 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 the the driver 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 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 are 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 on 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 and you know in in in the and 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're
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 mhm and and so in this case
I I 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 there 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 of 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 uh 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 um 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 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 to 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 Bundy
gayy um dmer where they kind of get careless with with some of their actions you know so we're talking about the
possibly you possibly the fourth uh attack and maybe he's just getting careless becoming uh a bit frenzied in
the in the Act of Killing mhm 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
mhm 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 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 um well I'll tell you what can I let me go through this quick
thing real fast and then we'll dive into that because this is 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
noted 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 there you know know they're connected but you cannot locate your guy you cannot figure out
who is doing these murders they some of these investigators there there creates an internal struggle within them which
it 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 be the little clue or 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 right but 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 yeah 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 refuse 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 open the
door and much to their surprise and shock they see a little boy about 6 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 mhm not the woman's husband not the
not the boy's father or even an uncle like the boy had stated but uh a lover uh the wife and mother of that had taken
on at some point yeah but 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 is solved somebody's 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 mid the act and shot to death the woman's husband this isano Mele he is from Sardinia uh he's picked up the
following morning they did one of those uh paraffin test uh and the results indicated that Stefano had recently
fired a gun okay so he's looking very guilty at 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 uh that she was having an affair with must
have killed her um 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 was some threesoms
going on where um 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 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 lengthier
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 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 questioned to him at the time that 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 you can't handle the gun well he said 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 threw it in the bushes somewhere after fleeing the crime scene MH makes makes sense I guess uh regardless the
gun was never found however the casings are matching um 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 going to 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 while 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 an ambulance it's it's a hobby of all the ambulance this is just what we do it's
part of the Union oh it'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 he also wanted to know what the ambulance driver might know in regards to the case and
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 so he was 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 monster going to come after
him yeah right that 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 it's 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 and magazines
that was a that was a thing in the late '70s and early 80s wish they would do that more often and so they piec
together this and address the envelope as such the whoever sent the envelope M 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 certain amount of time 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 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 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 them mhm 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 mhm that would be pretty hard I think to do to get into the 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 person that are able to to get access to that file or that evidence
Locker well and what are your thoughts on this cuz 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 MH so is it possible that we have this peeping
Tom and in 1968 is peeping Tom Witnesses a murder yeah and then that person finds
the gun that supposedly was in the bush and may not have had much trouble finding the gun if he watched the
murders go down and watched the the killer maybe it is Stefano that killed him and he watches him toss the gun
somewhere and he decides oh I'm going to go over there and retrieve that murder weapon right that would be pretty crazy
but you know again a 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 sounds 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 but a different type of killing though and we don't have the we don't have the
mutilation we don't have the stabbing or 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 but 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 M right it's possible but what I'm saying is the killings aren't the
same uh we have a guy that confess to it you know so isn't it possible 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 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 [Music] break this show is sponsored by better
help do you look forward to the holidays maybe you struggle with seasonal Blues this time of year can be a lot and it's
natural to feel some sadness or even anxiety about it but adding something new and positive to your life can
counteract some of those feelings therapy can be a bright spot something to look forward to to make you feel
grounded and to give you the tools to manage everything going on if you're thinking of starting therapy give better
help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to
your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist
at any time for no additional charge find your bright spot this season with better help visit betterhelp.com
garod to get 10% off your first month that's betterhelp hp.com garage dreaming of overseas Adventures
or connecting more deeply with family from afar Rosetta Stone Bridges the language Gap I've tried others but
Rosetta Stone's immersive lessons and voice feedback technology are game changers dive into 25 Languages by
learning intuitively just like when you you were a kid and here's the holiday Sparkle grab a lifetime membership now
and save 50% gift yourself the world head to rosettastone.com now and save 50% the Angie's List you know and trust
is now Angie and we're so much more than just a list we still connect you with top local pros and show you ratings and
reviews but now we also let you compare upfront prices on hundreds of projects and book a service instantly we can even
handle the rest of your project from start to finish so remember Angie's List is now Angie and we're here to get your
job done right get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app [Music] [Music]
today Cheers Cheers mates cheers regard 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 spezi 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
from time to time well isn't that why it's called halfway house half the time I'm 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 mhm well yeah that 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 that's out there running a muck in the current day well we have spey 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 ask 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 spey plus the police now
believe that Stefano melee was not alone the night in 1968 when his wife and lover were killed mhm it had not 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 wasn't a false confession correct it was not a false
confession but he but he left out some details though mhm and investigators theorized that one of the killers or
somebody present that night had enjoyed the experience Eren 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 in 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 Franchesco salvator and Giovani 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 mhm due to their investigation the
police end up arresting Franchesco but on September 9th this is 1983 we have Franchesco finy 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 were men yeah
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 um 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 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 mhm 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 Franchesco 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 mhm they
were shot with the monster gun and remember we we have all three viny 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
Franchesco still could be the monster it just means that there's more than one monster right and Franchesco probably
knows who the other monster would be or the monsters would be right sorry there's no clear way of putting that uh
investig I'm 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 uh they grilled the two men relentlessly but they were unable to break them and finally they were forced
to release Antonio but Franchesco remained in custody about 4 months later the police baffled the public when they
finally released Franchesco 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 believe
that both of these men would have been present at the 1968 remember they're calling this the clan killing uh they
were arrested they were charged with being the monster of Florence now all win so they're charging them not with
just the 68 crime but all of them correct 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 claudo and his girlfriend
piaia 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 M mutilated the woman but adding
a new [ __ ] he cut off and took with him her left breast a special Strike Force
team was formed Med 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 mhm 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 our 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 carbonair well that's similar to um you
know like a military police okay so th 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
$290,000 once you convert it to us do 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 tourist 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 need to cancel my airplane tickets cuz that's the only reason why
I'm going there to go park in the hills in the summer of 1985 the Monster resurfaced again and what would be the
most terrible killing of all the victims were two young tourists who had pitched
a tent in 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-in cut in to 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 still a little bit of a different scenario the 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: p.m. 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 kind of ult killings right uh that this could be
performed by devil worshippers 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 whole you know ritualistic
killing uh 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 it on the day of the
discovery of the bodies um and this took place just before the bodies were discovered um the prosecutor in the case
received an envelope through the mail this is another communication that we see here Captain envelope yeah envelope
had been addressed to using letters cut out from magazines and newspapers inside
the envelope we have uh the prosecutor found the victim's 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 knew 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 the if if the monster was multiple people right M the
next crime is not taken 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 7 4 to 81 right right and and
you're right though you might have tapped into something because after we see one of the guys picked up that Enzo
spalletti there seems to be an increase in the frequency of the crimes of the monster mhm um now the judge the judge
that was focusing on the Vinci brothers and remember we mentioned one of those brothers names this is salvator uh the
judge is now believing that salvator was present for the Stefano melee uh with Stefano melee at the murder of his wife
and lover back in ' 68 in fact salvatori was suspected of having killed his own wife before leaving Sardinia his wife
had been found exfix by gas in their home back in 1961 MH 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 salvator to trial for being the monster of Florence but yet he's convinced that salvator was the
monster so now there's not enough evidence to book him on this MH however he thought what they should do let's try
to prosecute salvator for the old death of his wife back in 1961 instead and then maybe salvator
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 um
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 um and Antonio refused to
testify against father so nothing stuck and the D the judge here struck out and was unable to prosecute salvator but the
story is not over and this case has not completely gone cold because they have a
new investigator yeah a 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 mhm well the things that they have in inevidence 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 yeah he's he's going to go and
study some computers believing 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 pachan
now he's described as a short very strong man who was particularly drunk all of the time uh and he had a violent
history sounds like the G except for you're not short yeah but uh he so I am when 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 pachani
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 yeah
uh after he was released from prison he married uh he was later convicted of sexually assaulting his daughters uh his
prison Jesus Christ man 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 do horrible horri horrible individuals it's um I haven't been on a
date in months man you you're using the wrong dating website I guess um uh iov scumbag.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 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 in killing people pachani 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 patani's property 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
in found 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 carbiner received a piece of a 22 Beretta wrapped
in a torn rag this was it was accompanied with an anonymous note saying that it had been found in a place
where pachani often went all right right so you know 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 patani'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 that it matched up so so we think it's coming from his wife coming from his wife or from someone
that that knew him you know that was close to pachani 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 Clos 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 so what happened well at the trial now keep in mind we're talking about we we described him as a short very strong
man but this is a bully you know this is this is a bully this is a brute and at the at the trial pachani 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 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
patani's wife and daughters okay picture this we know what he's done to these daughters okay he
he these women hated allegedly right right well no he was convicted of of assault on his daughters these women
hated him and I mean 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 moner he was a monster within the four walls of his home correct these women had a good chance to get rid of
this guy forever and they didn't do that um 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 well it's questionable how it got there on his property mhm uh I think sometimes when the case goes on
for so long and people I think sometimes even with new investigators they 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 this yeah but everything has to line up pachani
was in fact convicted and he was sentenced to life in prison now there is a mandatory appeal proc process and this
was very strange the prosecutor assigned to handle the appeal case actually decided to refuse to prosecute
pachani so on February 13th 1996 because they're not going to prosecute him again pachani 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 mhm it's a very interesting case on the same
day that pachan acquitted the police they tried to save their case or maybe at least cover their backs because they
brought forward new Witnesses and they dramatic i al 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 patani's accomplice he said that he and pachani 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 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 pachani and the other two uh 26 years uh in prison now the higher Court sent the
case back to be retri retried regarding pachani 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 acquit for pachani
said that they didn't know the doctor's name uh he claimed he he told all these wild stories about collecting body parts
for this doctor but he claimed that only pachani knew the name of the doctor knew
the identity of the person that hired them but this guy's story just seem so fishy yeah and they presented this story
to pachani and he denied the entire story all the way until the day that he died right and he was supposed to be
retried but since 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 um it was never really established who they
believe planted that evidence or who had sent that that to them um but like you said it it appears to be somebody that
would have known him had access to his property um the expert who had been asked to clarify or to certify that the
bullet found in patani's Gard might have been inserted into the monster's gun he
said at a later date that he was bullied into arriving at that conclusion right um 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 spedy the uh the
journalist he he videotaped a police officer who was present at the search of patani'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 you 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 uh they release a a thorough a thorough idea a
profile of the Killer and during this report uh 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 Southeast and north of Florence the police tried for years unsuccessfully to
recognize a pattern but Mario spy mapped the life and movements of the carbon Aries suspect to the locations of the
killings and he found what he thought to be overlaps now Mario spy'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 spy 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 I have a hard time buying
it well speni agreed with the judge that was involved believing that the monster
must either be salvatory Vinci or somebody close to salvator uh someone with 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 pachani 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 pachani 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 going to tell you what I'm going to present what Mario spy believes and I'm going to
present what the carbiner 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 who was their number
one suspect well it was Antonio Vinci remember who he is he's salvator's son he's the one that if salvator 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 the vines had access to that gun
so spy tracks down this guy and he he want to interview him regarding the monster of Florence but he's a bit
terrified because 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 spy he does agree
to be interviewed by spy uh when asked a risky move spy wanted to record the interview audio record the interview
interview he says no you know he Antonio says no I you can't record me why well I
I don't like my own voice that's something you and I have to deal with a couple times a week um that's lovely so
I'm going to I'll give you the shorten version of of this interview but during the course of this interview one thing
that spy 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 well 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 um 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
salvator's home the thought there is spy believes that sabator 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 MH so basically his father kills his mother in ' 61
pulls him out of the house in ' 61 then in 68 his father's involved in this clan
type killing they kill uh this this this couple because they're cheating on them
and then in 74 the son 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 spy arrived at this conclusion was because when when the father when salvator 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 ask him what was stolen he says there was nothing stolen the house was just
broken into they find out that it was the son that actually broke into the house the thought is sp you know spy's
thought is that salvator would not admit that the only item stolen was a murder weapon that he was present for
participated in back in 1968 so what else came from this interview well spy directly asked him about the 22 Beretta
he said if your father owned the 22 Beretta MH 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 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 and spy
Spy pushes him further in 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
wowza that's a that's another strong statement well it's after this statement that spy
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 in a deep
grally tone he says listen carefully spy I I never joke around um 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 spy'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 an 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
uh 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 well 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
spy uh the thing here is I know I feel we did a great job covering this this is a huge case though this was one of those
situations we got into this and we were starting thinking this 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 uh 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 uh unable to explore because them and 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 spy and you can pick that up by going to
True Crime garage.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 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 so you want to hear more about the monster of Florence you can do that at our blog at
true Crim garage.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 [Music] litter [Applause] the Angie's List you know and trust is now Angie and we're so much more than
just a list we still connect you with top local pros and show you ratings and reviews but now we also let you compare
upfront prices on hundreds of projects and book a service instantly we can even handle the rest of your project from
start to finish so remember Angie's List is now Angie and we're here to get your
job done right get started at angie.com that's ngi or download the app today

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 Brewery Garage grade - 3 1/2 bottle caps out of 5

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

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Monster of Florence murders, key suspects, and investigation challenges, highlighting the ongoing mystery of the killer's identity.

Key points

True Crime Garage Introduction. Join Nick and the Captain for a drink and a dive into true crime stories.
The Monster of Florence. Exploring the chilling crimes attributed to the Monster of Florence.
The Killer's Identity. Discussion arises about whether the killer was taunting police or covering tracks.
The Ambulance Driver's Call. The ambulance driver receives a threatening call from the monster, warning him to stay silent.
The Sardinian Connection. Investigators believe the murders are linked to a group of Sardinian brothers.
The Anti-Monster Squad. A special task force is formed to combat the ongoing murders by the monster.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He takes the car key with him!

8:12WatchNov 16, 2023

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.