Bloodstains and traces of blood: Professor Emiliano Giardana searches for evidence. The forensic geneticist also worked on the Yara Gambirasio case.
Fragments. Perhaps plastic, perhaps pieces of a piece of furniture that one of the victims grabbed in an attempt to fend off the attacker and that shattered against their body, possibly injuring them. Traces of blood on the fragments. And, it seems, not just blood. ProfessorEmiliano Giardina, a forensic geneticist—the man who identified “Unknown 1” in the murder of Yara Gambirasio, the expert who led the Carabinieri to the trail of Massimo Bossetti—will be the one to extract the DNA.
However, there remains a great deal of skepticism regarding the potential breakthrough in the cold cases (at least eight women murdered in the 1960s and 1970s, unsolved crimes, and an alleged serial killer at large) thatthe Corriere has been following since early January—that is, since criminologist Franco Posa suggested that a single perpetrator was responsible for the murders.
Bladed weapons
Specifically regarding one of the murders, the defense team, led by attorney Valter Biscotti, obtained those fragments from some of the victims’ family members, remaining at the full disposal of the Prosecutor’s Office—where the attorney has long since filed a motion to obtain the case files—for further investigation, pending any comparisons Professor Giardina may make regarding other evidence. As reconstructed so far by Posa and his young staff, in the majority of the crimes analyzed, the killer—always attacking with bladed weapons—began the assaults in front of the victims and ended them behind the women, delivering the final blows to their backs. Moreover, the initial face-to-face position between the women and the murderer is, for example, well-known in the murders of Adele Margherita Dossena, who ran a boarding house at 18 Via Copernico, and fashion designer Valentina Masneri, who lived at 57 Via Settala. The two of them opened the door to the man who would later slaughter them. Dossena set out glasses of liqueur on a small table along with a tray of Sperlari candies, thus setting the scene for a pleasant get-together; Valentina, who was scheduled to fly to Germany two hours later for a business meeting—despite having very little time to change, pack the suitcase needed for her stopover in Frankfurt—was wearing slippers and gloves, cleaning the dishes, and finally made her way to Linate; she opened the door, welcomed the future murderer, and lingered with him, chatting.
Porta Venezia
The aforementioned discretion, given the sensitivity of the current phase—which could indeed give rise to unprecedented scenarios by triggering further investigative inquiries—is part of a counter-investigation fraught with numerous difficulties, even if these can be mitigated by the power of today’s technological tools. The time span, to begin with, since the start of the chain of crimes dates back to 1963 with the death of Olimpia Drusin, a prostitute murdered inside her car on Via Giovanni Pontano, near the railroad embankment. An element that, in the reflections of the woman’s son, had immediately taken on an anomalous dimension:Olimpia, who waited for men on Via Lazzaretto—that is, in the same area as Dossena’s boarding house and Masneri’s spacious apartment, in the part of Milan between Porta Venezia and the Central Station—was not in the habit of retreating to that dead-end street. All the more reason she would never have made that choice, considering that a dear friend lived just twenty meters from where she parked her Appia. A bond as strong as that between two of the eight victims—Dossena herself and another prostitute, Elisa Casarotto, who was killed a year after Olimpia in a poplar grove in the Lacchiarella area, south of Milan. This connection formed an initial foundation in Posa’s framework, albeit one that emerged later, after the criminologist had mapped out a geographical triangle.
The map
Using sophisticated American software—which requires no less than a year of training to master—Posa identified the area between Via Filzi, Piazza Cordusio, and Via Pace as the serial killer’s place of residence or work. Setting aside the users of the software (the New York Police Department) and its functionality (it has appeared in court proceedings for years as clear evidence of recognized scientific principles), a subsequent trigger was needed. This could stem from the results of Professor Giardina’s tests. If, as a result of comparison with the genetic code of family members, the isolated DNA were to lead back to one of the victims, the significance of the fragment traces would inevitably diminish. But if not, scenarios would open up that are currently even difficult to foresee. The same consideration of logistics in the Dossena, Masneri, and Drusin cases cannot fail to include the murder of Salvina Rota. Based on two certain facts (geographical proximity, as the young woman lived at Via Tonale 4, and the killer’s knowledge of her) and a third probable fact: while it is true that she worked as a sales clerk in a supermarket in the mornings, it was not ruled out even at the time that, especially in the evenings, she sold her body. And in the evening, 22-year-old Salvina, who had come to Milan from Campania in search of opportunities, was killed. Killed not for robbery, as the killer took nothing. And so it happened in the two rooms of Dossena’s home-office within the boarding house, it happened in Masneri’s living room, it happened in Drusin and Casarotto’s cars: the prostitutes’ purses contained banknotes that remained where they were. Just like a gold keychain tucked into the dashboard of Olimpia’s Appia.