The theory of a serial killer in Milan’s cold cases: Valentina Masneri and Tiziana Moscadelli opened the door to someone they knew. The never-before-seen photo of the crime scene and that handkerchief in her mouth
Seven months after the launchof the investigation into Milan’s “cold cases” from the 1960s and 1970s—based on the theory that a single killer was responsible for the deaths of eight women—the first previously unpublished official documents, recovered and reviewed by*Corriere*, reveal a connection that could prove useful to any future investigators. In fact, we had already identified two connections:a photograph showing two victims together (Adele Margherita Dossena and Elisa Casarotto), who were close friends despite significant differences in age, family background, lifestyle, geography, and occupation (one ran a boarding house for students and railway workers in Porta Venezia, the other was a prostitute in the suburbs and lived in the western outskirts), and furthermore,the autopsy reports that revealed similar attacksin terms of method, weapon, number, and type of stab wounds.
But now, a review of the inspection reports,crime scene analyses and photographs, and interrogation transcripts—in other words, an examination of the typewritten documents compiled by the investigators—reveals, at the very least, a clear pattern in the killer’s actions.Dossena herself, mother of the actress Agostina Belli and murdered in 1970 at the small hotel at 18 Via Copernico, in an urban context then marked by widespread and severe decay—as the area was Milan’s hub for prostitution and a haven for robbers and thieves—had grabbed the landline in adesperate attempt to raise the alarm but then used the phone to defend herself, having realized thatthe line had been disconnected. And so, in the written reports of the police investigations in the apartments ofValentina Masneri (murdered in 1975 at Via Settala 57)andTiziana Moscadelli (in 1976 at Via Tertulliano 58),a new commonality emerges: the landline telephone unplugged from the socket, that is, from its natural place. Whether the alleged serial killer isolated the victims from the world before attacking them—preempting attempts to raise the alarm by grabbing the receiver—or whether he did so afterward, after committing the crime, to leave the line “busy” and buy time for his escape, or to avoid raising concerns among those who might have called the women, remains unknown, although the investigators at the time leaned toward the first scenario.
After all, at the time—partlydue to the convergence of tragic events in that dark Milan (massacres, terrorism, criminal gangs, kidnappings, and murderous violence triggered by disputes within families, on the streets, and in the workplace), andas admitted by a former Criminalpol detective, Fabio Miller Dondi, due to the resulting minimal, if not residual, attention paid to seemingly routine crimes, no one had ever linked the murders of women: including Elisa Casarotto (in 1963), Adele Margherita Dossena, Valentina Masneri, andTiziana Moscadelli, with those of Olimpia Drusin (1964), Alba Trosti (1969), Salvina Rota (1971), andSimonetta Ferrero (the same year and the most high-profile murder, which took place at the Catholic University).
In the previous episode, which aired last Sunday, July 18,Tiziana Moscadelli’s brother spoke out for the first time in the past forty-five years. When the Corriere presented him with certain documents, the man claimed to be unaware of both a series ofhandwritten notes by his sister—recovered by law enforcement when they searched the apartment on Via Tertulliano (these notes will be the subject of further investigation this summer)—anda photograph of the crime scene. The one you see above. To begin with, a brief description, though this is not the only thing that interests us: the small size of the dwelling, a sharedtwo-room apartment(in a building known to law enforcement for its troubled history) withtwo men who, like Tiziana, engaged in prostitution, though never at home; the simplicity of the furnishings and materials of the furniture, table, and chairs; the lifeless body wearing clothes, including shoes,confirming that the young woman was not killed during sexual intercourse but, similarly to other murders (Dossena and Masneri above all), after the perpetrator entered as an acquaintance and spent time, likely drinking glasses of liquor or wine, with the victim.
In their final report, the two medical examinerswho performed the autopsy, regarding that “intentional homicide,” listed under“cause of death”, they noted injuries to the cranium and brain, the left carotid artery, the pleura, the right lung, the pericardium, the heart, and the liver,ruling out signs of sexual assault andalso ruling out the presence of semen. But returning to the photograph and the crime scene, the element we must focus on isa handkerchief in Tiziana’s mouth. A handkerchief soaked in blood. Perhaps the killer’s. Who did indeed make mistakes, though never as in the murder of Valentina Masneri, and revealing much about himself.