Murder on lovers lane

In November 1994, Pietro Pacciani, after being fingered by an anonymous tip, went on trial.

He was accused of being Italy's most notorious serial killer.  It had been almost nine years since the murders had mysteriously stopped.  Now all of Italy was focused on one question:

Was Pacciani the Monster of Florence?

Preston: He was a drunken peasant, who, as a young man in 1951, had caught his fiancé being seduced by a traveling salesman.  He had killed the traveling salesman, stomped his head in and then raped his fiancé next to his body.

Prosecutors claimed the murderous Pacciani had said something that seemed to link him to the monster killings decades later.

Doug Preston: When he saw his fiancé uncover her left breast, that's when he'd gone crazy.
Stone Phillips: The left breast.
Doug Preston: Very important clue.

Important, because in his last two killings, the monster had cut off the left breast of his female victims.  And why did the monster killings suddenly stop in the mid-1980's?  Pacciani's history offered a sordid explanation for that, too.

Preston: He had been in prison for raping his daughters.

Police found another set of clues when they searched Pacciani's house. First, an erotic print of a woman, her breast exposed, with what looks like a flower between her lips. Second, a fine art print.

Preston: They found a reproduction of that famous painting by Botticelli, "The Primavera." 

Uffizi Galllery Botticelli's "Primavera"

The original hangs in Florence's Uffizi Gallery.  On the right you see a nymph being stalked by Hermes, the Greek god who escorts the dead to the underworld.  And then, when you look closer, as author Doug Preston notes, you see “flowers and vines are spilling out of her mouth.  She's kind of vomiting flowers and vines.”

Remember the 1981 murder -- where the mutilated young woman was found in a field of wildflowers, her necklace draped across her lips?  For the prosecutor, that image plus the nude and the Botticelli added up to evidence against Pacciani. 

Prosecutors argued he staged the '81 crime scene to feed some strange obsession.

Stone Phillips: How does a Renaissance painting figure into a murder mystery?
Doug Preston: Well, this is Italy.  Where history lives on in the present.  And you know the idea that a renaissance painting is a clue to a modern crime is very sexy and appealing.

Pacciani's trial was attended by families of the monster's young victims and became a media sensation.

Preston: They had Pacciani's daughters testifying about how he had raped them.  The testimony from the murder that he committed in 1951 was horrifying … All this just made Pacciani look like a monster.   
Stone: And when it was over?
Preston: He was convicted.  As you might expect.

But Italian journalist Mario Spezi never believed Pacciani was the monster.  For one thing, the gun and the knife that connected all the murders had never been found and they were never linked to Pacciani.

What's more, Spezi had been to every crime scene, and he knew the killer had to be smart, fast, and skillful -- nothing like the dim, drunk, overweight Pacciani.

Spezi also saw a glaring contradiction.  Pacciani was a sex criminal. He was a convicted rapist.  For the monster, however, mutilation seemed to take the place of sex.

Stone Phillips: Was there any evidence that the killer had sexually assaulted the victim?
Mario Spezi: Never, never.  He never had sexual--
Stone Phillips: Activity with the-- with the--
Mario Spezi: --activity with the victims. Never.

Spezi had also seen that FBI profile of the monster and thought it just didn't match Pacciani at all.

The profile said the killer was probably sexually dysfunctional, which Pacciani was not.

The profile said the killer probably lived alone or with an older relative, yet Pacciani had a wife and children.

It also said the killer was probably in his 20s at the time of the first murder.  Pacciani had been almost 50.

Mario Spezi: You know, from a theory of the Botticelli paintings and the way of working FBI, I prefer FBI.

Web extra video Why did 'Monster' go to lovers lanes? Two authors tour a crime scene north of Florence Dateline NBC

In 1996, Pacciani's conviction was overturned and he was released.  But then the monster case, already as intricate as the Duomo, got even more complicated.  A new witness came forward to say that he was involved in the killings.

Preston: He said, "We were working for somebody else … who needed body parts."  Well, immediately the question arose, what was the purpose of the body parts? And the question was quickly answered, "For satanic rituals.  For black masses.  For offerings to the devil." 

Incredible as it seems, even though the witness admitted he had never met the Satanists – and even though there were signs he was mentally unstable -- police jumped on the new theory that a satanic sect was behind the monster killings. 

Michele Giuttari: In this story of the Monster of Florence, there are elements that point to the theme of satanism.

Michele Giuttari, a tough talking, cigar-chomping veteran of the Florence police department, says the evidence includes stone circles found not far from one crime scene.

Giuttari: Inside one of these circles were found two roses and a wooden cross stuck upside down in the ground. This is clearly a satanic symbol. 

Giuttari also believes an oddly-shaped stone found at another crime scene might have been left by satanists.

Stone Phillips: What do you think of this theory?
Mario Spezi: It's completely crazy.  It's completely crazy.

Spezi developed his own theory based on something he says he was told by a high ranking member of the Carabinieri, the Italian federal police.

Spezi: They tell me to a journalist who's writing about the monster, they told me this new story. It was very interesting.

The Carabinieri had withdrawn from the case years before, reportedly outraged at the way it was being managed by local investigators.

Doug Preston:  But obsession is obsession.  They continued a secret investigation into the Sardinian connection to see if they could figure out who the Monster of Florence was.

The unofficial investigation had led to a suspect.  He was the son of one of the Sardinians involved in the '68 murder so he could have gotten hold of the gun, which was the key to the whole mystery.

Spezi: This is the real, real problem, of the case of the Monster of Florence.
Stone Phillips: Who has the gun and how they got it.
Mario Spezi: Yeah.

Spezi interviewed people who knew the suspect.  They told him the man was a crack shot and an expert with a knife.  He had lived in another part of Italy during the late ‘70s when there was that mysterious gap in the monster killings.

Spezi began to compare the new suspect against the FBI profile of the monster and found key similarities.

The FBI said the monster probably picked murder locations he knew well.  Spezi found the suspect had lived near all the murder sites.

The FBI said the monster was probably sexually dysfunctional.  Spezi found out that at the height of the killing spree, the suspect had a marriage annulled for inability to conceive children, which Spezi believes was code for impotence.

Remember the first monster killing in 1974 with those tentative stab wounds?  The new suspect would have been just 15 years old at the time.  Perhaps he was still uncertain what his murderous ritual would be.

While inspector Giuttari chased satanists, Spezi spent years looking closer and closer at the Carabinieri's suspect.  By the time he met Preston in 2000, he had a convincing case.

Doug Preston: The more we looked at it, the more we eliminated other possible suspects, the more it seemed likely that he was the person.  That he was the Monster of Florence.

They began to refer to him by the pseudonym “Carlo” and agreed he would be the focus of their book.  They decided they had to talk to him.

Doug Preston: We went to his house at 9:30 at night. Rang his doorbell.   We got buzzed up.  No problem.

After two decades on the trail, was Spezi -- along with Preston -- about to confront the Monster of Florence?

MORE FROM PEOPLE

People Section Front

Mom of boy set afire: ‘His courage is incredible’ Sad development: The last Kodachrome film lab Chef Paula Deen hit in face by charity ham   Jill Biden thanks military families   Suleman: ‘Octomom’ name is hilarious   Mumbai survivor Baby Moshe turns 3 Hero pilot Sully enjoys ‘rock star sex’   Husband, wife recall fiery plane crash   Shaniya's dad: ‘She touched a lot of people’   Is a British royal wedding in the works? People Section Front   Add People headlines to your news reader: