Read Online The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston, Mario Spezi - Free Book Online
Authors: Douglas Preston, Mario Spezi
Tags: HIS037080
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tightly that later the clasp of her watch was found tangled in his hair. The car backed out of the lane, shot across the main road, and went into the ditch on the opposite side. Paolo threw the car into forward and tried to drive out, but the rear wheels were firmly stuck in the ditch and spun uselessly.
The Monster, standing on the opposite side of the road, was now bathed in the full glare of the car’s headlights. He coolly took aim with his Beretta and shot out each headlight, one after the other, with two perfectly placed rounds. Two shells remained by the side of the road to mark the point where he had taken aim. He crossed the road, threw open the door, and fired two more rounds, one into each of the victims’ heads. He yanked the boy out of the car, slipped into the driver’s seat, and tried to rock the car out of the ditch. It was stuck fast. He gave up and, without committing his usual mutilation, fled up a hillside next to the road, tossing the car keys about three hundred feet from the car. Near the keys, investigators found an empty medicine bottle of Norzetam (piracetam), a dietary supplement sold over the counter, which was popularly believed to improve memory and brain function. It couldn’t be traced.
The Monster took an enormous risk committing the crime next to a main road on a busy Saturday night, and he had saved himself only by acting with superhuman coolness. Investigators later determined that at least six cars had passed in the hour in which the crime had occurred. A kilometer up the road, two people were jogging, taking advantage of the cool night air, and next to the turnoff to Poppiano Castle another couple had parked by the side of the road and were chatting with the interior light on.
The next passing car stopped, thinking there had been a road accident. When medics arrived, the girl was dead. The boy was still breathing. He died in the hospital without regaining consciousness.
The next morning, a prosecutor on the case, Silvia Della Monica, called Mario Spezi and a few other journalists into her office. “You’ve got to give me a hand here,” she said. “I’d like you all to write that the male victim was taken to the hospital alive and that he may have said something useful. It might be a waste of time, but if it frightens someone and causes him to make a false move, who knows?”
The journalists did as requested. Nothing came of it—or so it seemed at first.
That same day, after a long and contentious meeting, the magistrates in charge of the case decided to release the Identi-Kit portrait of the suspect drawn up after the previous double homicide in the Bartoline Fields. On June 30, the brutal face of the unknown suspect appeared on front pages across Italy along with a description of the red Alfa Romeo.
The reaction boggled investigators. Sacks of mail and countless phone calls flooded the offices of the police, carabinieri, prosecutors, and local newspapers. Many people saw in that crude and vicious face a rival in business or love, a neighbor, a local doctor or butcher. “The Monster is a professor of obstetrics, ex-chief of the Department of Gynecology of the Hospital of——,” went one typical accusation. Another was certain it was a neighbor whose “first wife left him, then a girlfriend, and then another girlfriend, and now he lives with his mother.” The police and carabinieri were paralyzed trying to follow up every lead.
Dozens of people found themselves the object of scrutiny and suspicion. The day the portrait was published, a menacing crowd formed in front of a butcher shop near the Porta Romana of Florence, many clutching newspapers with the portrait. When a new person joined the crowd, he would go into the butcher shop to see for himself, then join the crowd milling in front. The butcher shop had to close for a week.
On that same day, a pizza-maker in the Red Pony pizzeria also became the target of suspicion because he bore an uncanny resemblance to the
The Monster, standing on the opposite side of the road, was now bathed in the full glare of the car’s headlights. He coolly took aim with his Beretta and shot out each headlight, one after the other, with two perfectly placed rounds. Two shells remained by the side of the road to mark the point where he had taken aim. He crossed the road, threw open the door, and fired two more rounds, one into each of the victims’ heads. He yanked the boy out of the car, slipped into the driver’s seat, and tried to rock the car out of the ditch. It was stuck fast. He gave up and, without committing his usual mutilation, fled up a hillside next to the road, tossing the car keys about three hundred feet from the car. Near the keys, investigators found an empty medicine bottle of Norzetam (piracetam), a dietary supplement sold over the counter, which was popularly believed to improve memory and brain function. It couldn’t be traced.
The Monster took an enormous risk committing the crime next to a main road on a busy Saturday night, and he had saved himself only by acting with superhuman coolness. Investigators later determined that at least six cars had passed in the hour in which the crime had occurred. A kilometer up the road, two people were jogging, taking advantage of the cool night air, and next to the turnoff to Poppiano Castle another couple had parked by the side of the road and were chatting with the interior light on.
The next passing car stopped, thinking there had been a road accident. When medics arrived, the girl was dead. The boy was still breathing. He died in the hospital without regaining consciousness.
The next morning, a prosecutor on the case, Silvia Della Monica, called Mario Spezi and a few other journalists into her office. “You’ve got to give me a hand here,” she said. “I’d like you all to write that the male victim was taken to the hospital alive and that he may have said something useful. It might be a waste of time, but if it frightens someone and causes him to make a false move, who knows?”
The journalists did as requested. Nothing came of it—or so it seemed at first.
That same day, after a long and contentious meeting, the magistrates in charge of the case decided to release the Identi-Kit portrait of the suspect drawn up after the previous double homicide in the Bartoline Fields. On June 30, the brutal face of the unknown suspect appeared on front pages across Italy along with a description of the red Alfa Romeo.
The reaction boggled investigators. Sacks of mail and countless phone calls flooded the offices of the police, carabinieri, prosecutors, and local newspapers. Many people saw in that crude and vicious face a rival in business or love, a neighbor, a local doctor or butcher. “The Monster is a professor of obstetrics, ex-chief of the Department of Gynecology of the Hospital of——,” went one typical accusation. Another was certain it was a neighbor whose “first wife left him, then a girlfriend, and then another girlfriend, and now he lives with his mother.” The police and carabinieri were paralyzed trying to follow up every lead.
Dozens of people found themselves the object of scrutiny and suspicion. The day the portrait was published, a menacing crowd formed in front of a butcher shop near the Porta Romana of Florence, many clutching newspapers with the portrait. When a new person joined the crowd, he would go into the butcher shop to see for himself, then join the crowd milling in front. The butcher shop had to close for a week.
On that same day, a pizza-maker in the Red Pony pizzeria also became the target of suspicion because he bore an uncanny resemblance to the
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