Pod Insights Criminology The Monster of Florence Part1 About this episode From 1968 to 1985, a series of lovers' lane attacks happened in Italy, leaving several dead young couples. The killer in this case has commonly been referred to as Italy's Zodiac killer, but frighteningly, this killer had far more confirmed victims than Zodiac. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the Monster of Florence. Like with Zodiac, the killer was never caught, but there are some very strong suspects, and as you'll hear, there's a mystery within a mystery, as these crimes are somehow linked to a case in which the killer was caught and went to prison. You can help support the show through Patreon. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Twitch - Tik Tok Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
0:37 Speaker 01 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 384 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.
0:43 Speaker 02 And this is Mike Morford.
0:45 Speaker 01 Mr. Morford, how you doing today, buddy?
0:47 Speaker 02 I'm doing pretty good. How you doing?
0:49 Speaker 01 I'm doing great. Having a good week. I have eaten my fair share of candy since, and this happens almost every year, right? We never know how many kids we're gonna have. So my wife and I, when we go to the grocery, we end up buying way more than what we should because you know, you don't want to run out of candy, right? You don't want to be that person who has little kids coming to the door and you either can't answer the door or you have to answer it and say, oh, by the way, we're out of candy. So we always end up buying a bunch and you know, it never goes to waste, but we sit around eating it. That's the bad part.
1:32 Speaker 02 Well, that's the bonus and it's probably a good thing that you have it because you know, we don't give out candy because we live in a, in a road where there's no trick or treaters. So we don't have any here and I've got to scrounge some off the kids and they're not big on giving up their Reese's, which is the only thing I'll eat if I eat anything. So it's a little bit tough for me.
1:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, kids don't like to give up their candy at all. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Laura Western, Alex Hovis and Lisa Anderson. So that's some great new support. We really appreciate it.
2:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, thank you so much for that support. It really helps us out. For anyone else that would like to help support the show, head over to patreon.com/criminology to get started.
2:15 Speaker 01 And we just wanted to give everyone a reminder, Crime Con is going to be a real big event this year. We're talking Las Vegas big, and it's going to be here before you know it.
2:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, Crime Con's happening May 29th through the 31st, 2026, taking place at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. And this is the second time it's been held in Vegas. The first time was absolutely a blast. If you've been to Crime Con Vegas, you know how much fun it was. And if you've never been there, this is the one that you want to go to. You don't want to miss it. I mean, we're talking Las Vegas after all.
2:49 Speaker 01 And as always, Morph and I will be on Podcast Row, saying hi to everyone, taking photos, is just really having a lot of fun. And of course, we'll have our annual joint criminology TCAT meetup with listeners.
3:02 Speaker 02 If you're going, we'd love to help you save a few bucks in the process. So just use our promo code CRIMINOLOGY at checkout when you purchase your badges at crimecon.com. That's going to save you 10% off standard badges. We hope to see as many of you there as possible.
3:17 Speaker 01 So now that we have all of that out of the way, let's jump into this week's case. And we have a really big one for you. It's not only a notorious and infamous case, but it's one that takes place abroad. We're heading to Italy this week to talk about the monster of Florence. This case is getting a lot of attention, thanks to a new Netflix movie of the same title. From 1968 to 1985, the series of lovers' lane attacks happened in Italy, leaving several dead young couples. The killer in this case has commonly been referred to as Italy's Zodiac Killer. But frighteningly, this killer had far more confirmed
3:58 Speaker 01 victims than Zodiac. Like Zodiac, the killer was never caught, but there are some very strong suspects. And as you'll hear, there's a mystery within a mystery, as these crimes are somehow linked to a case in which the killer was caught and went to prison.
4:16 Speaker 02 We just want to give credit to a Reddit user, Rico Canoneese, who's very well versed in this case and did an excellent write-up on it, which we use for some of the source material. To tell this story properly, we're going to have to jump around in time a bit, but we'll try to keep the story on track. As Mike mentioned, this case was never solved and the investigation is still open today. There could be more victims we don't even know about or haven't connected to this group of cases yet. We'll start in the summer of 1981. Those investigators would come to realize this was actually the middle of the killing spree. It was certainly not the beginning and it was sadly far, far from the end.
4:54 Speaker 01 In the early morning hours of June 6th, 1981, a gruesome murder scene was discovered on a secluded road not far from a nightclub called Anastasia Club in Scandicci. This is a town not far from Florence. An off-duty policeman passed by a car that was parked off the road. He slowed down and looked, didn't see any movement. As he approached the car, he could see the shattered glass of the driver's side window. And then as he got closer, he could see a man in the car who appeared to be asleep, sitting in the driver's seat. But then as he got closer still, he knew that the man wasn't asleep. He was dead. He could see a gunshot wound to his head.
5:39 Speaker 01 As he looked around, he saw a second body, a young woman lying on the ground outside of the car. He immediately called in for help.
5:48 Speaker 02 Investigators descended on the scene and identified the victims as 30-year-old Giovanni Fogi and his fiance, 21-year-old Carmela Di Nuccio. Both victims had been shot multiple times, but the medical examiner at the scene was horrified to see that Carmela had also been stabbed. And closer examination revealed that her killer had used a knife to carve out the area of her pubic region. Authorities were able to determine that the knife used had notches in it. Weapon is most commonly referred to in reports as a scuba knife, which is a kind of knife with a very sharp and smooth tip and is serrated closer to the base. The gun used in the attack was determined to be a 22 caliber Beretta and Winchester ammunition had been the ammo of choice for the killer.
6:33 Speaker 02 The gun had a defective firing pin that caused the unique mark to be left behind each time a bullet was fired.
6:39 Speaker 01 So an off duty policeman, right, comes upon the scene. We talk about it in many, many cases, right? Someone finding a dead body. Now, obviously, an off duty policeman is much more equipped in pretty much every way to deal with this type of situation, but I don't care who you are. This is going to be a tough scene to process. I mean, not only are we talking about gunshots, but more if you talked about the fact that this young woman was mutilated. I mean, this is a very savage act that we're talking about.
7:25 Speaker 02 So I think as police officers, they often come across different situations, but probably more often than not, it's, it involves accidents, injuries like that, not murder scenes. It's probably not something they stumble across in their off duty time very often. And the brutality was immediately clear here. Cold blooded murders. One man dead in the car shot. And then you have this woman that's been murdered, dragged out of the car and something heinous was done to her, which had to be shocking to see that.
8:04 Speaker 01 But what jumped out at me was that they did have some pretty useful information, right? The type of knife, not that there's not a lot of knives like this everywhere with part of the blade being serrated, but it does narrow it down somewhat. Then you talk about the gun. They determined the type of gun, the ammo. And I think more importantly, this defective firing pin that really left behind a unique mark on each bullet.
8:38 Speaker 02 Yeah, that ballistics information, that unique strike on the bullets seems like a fingerprint. So if they can find that gun. It would go a long way to solving this crime and the other crimes we're going to talk about because this gun becomes very important.
8:55 Speaker 01 Police knew that they were dealing with a very sadistic and dangerous killer and they needed to stop him before he struck again. As it turned out, luck was on their side. They got a tip that a local paramedic named Enzo Spalletti was discussing details of the murders before the bodies had even been discovered. They immediately arrested Spalletti. Obviously, he knew something. At first, he lied and said that he hadn't been in the area, even though multiple people had reported seeing his car. Then Spalletti changed his story and he claimed that he was innocent. He had just been out that night hiding and watching couples in their cars, waiting for them to start having sex. This
9:39 Speaker 01 was actually a pretty common thing in the area at that time. Most people in Italy didn't move out of their parents' homes until they got married. So there was really no privacy. If you wanted to fool around before that point, this meant that many couples regularly ended up finding a secluded area to park their car and have some alone time. Enzo was just one of many voyeurs. In fact, there were groups of these voyeurs that would meet up just to spy on couples in cars. So this story wasn't all that far-fetched. But since Spalletti had already lied to them, authorities didn't buy this explanation. He was held
10:22 Speaker 01 in custody, suspected of being the killer. And I think there are a couple of things here that you're gonna find to be true. First of all, young people are gonna fool around. That happens. And if they're not out on their own, they're still living with their parents. Okay, they gotta find a place, right? Sometimes it's a lover's lane. And then the second thing is, if you have a lover's lane area that is well-known about, more than likely, you're gonna have some people out there who are trying to watch, you know, for lack of a better term, you're gonna have some voyeurs.
11:06 Speaker 01 Out there trying to see if they can see something going on.
11:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, that makes sense that in that kind of situation, you'll have the the looky loos, the people that like to spy on couples. But in the research of this case, it was amazing to see how prevalent that was and how these groups of people would get together. Almost like a, you know, you might gather with some friends and go to a bar to watch a football game. Instead, these this group of people would go and spy on these couples. And it seems like a really weird situation.
11:42 Speaker 01 Well, in a lot of cases, right, we talk about peeping toms or, you know, voyeurs. Most of the time, more if I would say that is a solitary act, right, that people commit. I think it is very rare to get a group of people, you know, to kind of plan it and and then carry it out. We don't hear about that all that often.
12:12 Speaker 02 And it also seems like it would open up the suspect pool because if you had like one local guy that was constantly doing it and had been spotted doing it and had a reputation, he might be a logical suspect where you say, okay, you got to check out this guy. He's he's a guy that's been caught being a peeping tom on several occasions. Here you've got whole groups of people doing it. So if there's a suspect mixed in there, they're probably going to be harder to find. While investigators tried to build a case against Spalletti, something happened that would make them reevaluate the situation. There was another double murder of a young couple, leaving no doubt the killer was still on the loose. On October 23, 1981, at about 11 a.m.,
12:57 Speaker 02 two farmers walking along their farm fields along a park near Calenzano found the bodies of a man and woman. Police identified the victims as 26 year old Stefano Baldi and his fiance, 24 year old Susanna Camby. The situation was nearly identical. The killer had shot them both and also mutilated Susanna's genital area in exactly the same way that Carmella's had been. The gun used in the crime was revealed to be the same one that had been used in the previous attack. This time, investigators found a couple clues. One of them was a size 44 boot print in the mud, which is equivalent of a US size 11. They also found a small red granite stone.
13:38 Speaker 02 Some reports describe it as a pyramid, while others say it was of a hexagonal shape. It was theorized that the killer had dropped it on purpose, perhaps as some kind of calling card. And over the years, people would say it was some kind of tool used in the occult. While other people pushed back on that, saying it was a very common doorstop device used in farmhouses all over the area.
14:00 Speaker 01 So another brutal attack, but also more evidence. Definitely evidence that ties the two attacks together. You have the ballistics as we've talked about. Now we have a boot print. And I think you're narrowing down a pool of suspects. Now we're talking about most likely a male here, based on the size of the shoe, which I'm sure authorities thought this was most likely a male anyway. But I want to go back to the mutilation of both of these female victims.
14:41 Speaker 01 I mean, Morph, what is the first thing that kind of jumps out to you about the type of person that would, you know, carry out these kind of just really sadistic acts?
14:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, to me, it's reminiscent of like Jack the Ripper type of stuff. It's, it's like a whole nother level of terror.
15:03 Speaker 01 Well, my thought was it seems to be focused on the females. In, in the two couples that we've talked about, yes, he shot the males, but he didn't mutilate their bodies. That has to mean something. This has to be a guy who has a hatred of women or is fixated on something. Or is he trying to send a message?
15:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, it definitely seems like there's some kind of focus on these women and doing that kind of thing to them. Maybe there's something in his background that caused him to want to do this. And maybe that's a clue. And if police could possibly link into that, maybe that would help them solve this crime.
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17:17 Speaker 01 Rena, took the news especially hard. She had been worried sick after Susanna hadn't come home hours earlier. She then relayed some troubling details to police that may have had some connection to the murders. She told police that earlier that morning, at about 9:00 a.m., before Susanna had even been found dead, a phone call had come into the home. Susanna's Aunt Maria answered it, and a man said, "I'd like to speak to Susanna Camby's mother." When Maria told the caller that she was Susanna's aunt, the man said he really needed to talk with her mother. Before Maria could say anything else... The phone call disconnected.
18:01 Speaker 01 The caller didn't hang up. Rather, the line went dead. And it was later found to be a short circuit of some type in the phone line. The man never called again. Maria said the man's voice was clear and polite with no regional accent.
18:16 Speaker 02 The mystery call wasn't the only disturbing thing. Susanna's mother told police. She also reported that in the days before she was killed, Susanna felt she was being stalked by a man in a car that she didn't know. The phone call and this possible stalking of Susanna was of interest to police. And they felt the events could be connected to her murder. Unfortunately, it didn't lead to a suspect. One thing that Susanna's murder did do was clear Enzo Spalletti, who had been in custody for almost three months. He couldn't have killed Susanna and Stefano, made the call to Susanna's mom, or stalked Susanna leading up to the murder. So, police had to release him. They did catch a possible break. A witness came forward who had seen a mysterious man very close to the area
19:01 Speaker 02 where Suzanne and Stefano were murdered. They were able to give a detailed description of the man, which resulted in a sketch being created. You could find a sketch online. It's the most well-known sketch in this case. It seems to reflect a man who's around 40 years old, balding or with a receding hairline. Police distributed the sketch, hoping someone would recognize the man and ID him. But no one did.
19:24 Speaker 01 So, no one wishes for an additional murder or additional murders in a, in a series. But I'm telling you more if this guy Enzo Spalletti might have, because I feel like this is what probably saved him.
19:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, being in police custody sort of gives you an airtight alibi in this kind of case.
19:46 Speaker 01 But I do want to go back and talk about this call. I think you can look at it a couple of different ways. Obviously, it can look ominous. Knowing what later happens to Susanna.
20:02 Speaker 01 But is it? I don't know. I mean, what this person said is pretty innocuous. Right? I'd like to speak to Susanna Camby's mother. But when she later is found dead, then obviously it takes on a different tone.
20:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, especially coupled with the fact that she told her mom that a strange man she didn't know was stalking her, following her in a car. I think it's hard to dismiss that when she's found dead just a couple of days later. All that stuff sort of comes back as, okay, we've got to look at this and consider this as being connected to her death.
20:40 Speaker 01 It was now clear to investigators that they were dealing with a serial killer. Though they had never dealt with anything like that before, it just had to be the same person. It was that obvious. Detectives decided to dig into old case files to see if they could connect any other unsolved murders to their current investigation. And they came across a case that matched the MO and these attacks perfectly. On the night of September 14th, 1974, 19 year old Pasquale Gentilek and his girlfriend, 18 year old Stefania Patini, were supposed to go out with friends to teen club, a disco near Borgo San Lorenzo.
21:21 Speaker 01 They decided to make a stop on the way on a dark road to be intimate with each other. But they were interrupted during the act. Both were shot multiple times while they sat in the car. Pasquale five times and Stefania three times. The killer then dragged Stefania out of the vehicle and ripped her clothes off. He stabbed her in a frenzy 96 times in total. Many of the wounds to her pubic and chest area. The killer then inserted a grapevine branch into her vagina. As the killer left the scene, he stabbed Pasquale multiple times in the stomach.
22:02 Speaker 01 All of these stab wounds were postmortem as he had already died from the gunshots. Police ruled out robbery because they found Pasquale's wallet in the glove box. And Stefania's purse was in plain view. Ballistics would show that the gun used in the crime was a 22 caliber Beretta.
22:23 Speaker 02 As investigators in the 1981 murders read through the reports in Pasquale's and Stefania's case, they knew in their gut that this double murder had been committed by the same man they were currently hunting. A comparison of ballistics confirmed their suspicions. The same gun had been used in the 1974 and 1981 murders. The killer had been active for more than half a decade. This did nothing to ease the fear the public had. There had been someone who committed a gruesome double murder, stabbing someone nearly 100 times, just walking around free, and now they were killing again. Police and the community anxiously awaited on edge for the next attack, but they hoped it wouldn't come. Unfortunately, it did.
23:05 Speaker 01 And I think, you know, the, the first murders that we talked about, that would be enough to rile up any community. I mean, that is really going to set people on edge, right? There's a killer out there. Then comes another double murder. That is going to increase the panic, right? On the part of the public. Now, when you find out that this person had been doing this for years, I think it goes off the charts, right? I mean, my question would be, how many people has this guy killed? I mean, how many more are they going to connect
23:49 Speaker 01 that we don't know about yet? And they haven't caught him. I mean, you talk about fear. I feel like this is, is one of those things where it would really set the public on edge.
24:02 Speaker 02 And it seems like this 1974 attack was probably shocking and brutal to police when they discovered it and investigated it, but it seemed like a standalone incident. Probably. Maybe they thought it was a case of jealousy or something like that, a lover's a crime of passion, something like that. But then it happens again in 1981, not once, but twice. So there's this huge gap in between and then multiple murders in 1981. So you wonder if that means the killer was dormant during that time, just biding his time, waiting to do
24:41 Speaker 02 it again. And when 1981 came, he did it multiple times. So maybe that was a sign that he was going to start picking up the pace and doing this on a more regular basis.
24:53 Speaker 01 But no doubt, right? The similarities are obvious. The male victims are all shot and the female victims are shot, but then their bodies are mutilated. In this case, Stefania was stabbed 96 times. But it, to me, it's specific to where she was stabbed, right? In the chest area, the pubic area. I would think to investigators, you know, that would be of the most interest. What is this telling us about the perpetrator?
25:30 Speaker 02 And it seems like in the 1974 crimes, there's stabbing to her body, severe stabbing, almost 100 stab wounds, a lot of it focused on her pelvic region, but there wasn't an actual mutilation. But by 1981, it seems like the killer graduated to doing that mutilation in multiple cases. So I wonder if that was a fantasy that he had had and decided to start doing that in 1981. So he had gone from 1974 stabbing the female victim in her genital area. And in 1981, he had moved on to actually excising the genital region, taking it out with
26:14 Speaker 02 a knife. So definitely a disturbing progression by the killer here.
26:19 Speaker 01 Yeah. And I think if you're law enforcement, you're just trying to figure out what it means. Is this a, is this a person who? Hates women, has a bad past with women. And that's why he's so focused on the female victims. I mean, I'm stuck on that. I think it's, it has to be a big part of the investigation. Late on the night of June 19th, 1982, a car was found backed into a ditch off the side of the road in Montez Petroni. At first, the driver thought they had stumbled upon the scene of an accident.
26:59 Speaker 01 They looked inside the car and found a young man barely breathing in the passenger seat. In the rear seat, they found a young woman who appeared to be dead. Luckily, the area had a lot of traffic moving along it that night. So help was summoned and an ambulance and the police arrived rather quickly. The two occupants in the car were identified as 20-year-old Antonelli Miglari, who was already dead, and her boyfriend, 22-year-old Paolo Minardi, who was still alive, but barely. To the shock of EMTs on the scene, Antonella and Paolo weren't the victims of an accident.
27:42 Speaker 01 They had both been shot multiple times. Paolo was unconscious, losing a lot of blood. So he was rushed to the hospital and Antonella was left in the backseat.
27:54 Speaker 02 Investigators knew what they were dealing with. They knew this was the work of the killer who had earned the moniker, the Monster of Florence. But things hadn't played out as the monster had planned this time. Antonella hadn't been removed from the car or mutilated. Police theorized that the monster had approached the couple after they had just finished being intimate, and that he had been spotted by them. As Antonella struggled to get dressed in the backseat, Paolo threw the car in reverse and tried to back up and get away when the monster opened fire on them. Paolo had been struck three times and Antonella died instantly after being struck twice. The car rolled in reverse until it struck the ditch alongside the main road. Due to the location of the car so close to the road and the unusually heavy traffic that night,
28:39 Speaker 02 it was thought that the monster abandoned his plan to drag Antonella out of the car to mutilate her.
28:45 Speaker 01 Police found some important witnesses who had passed by that night. They saw Paolo's car in a normal parking position on the other side of the road, not far off the main road. Those who knew Antonella noted that she was well aware of the monster of Florence, and that being on that less secluded road and not pulling too far off of it, were decisions made to try to stay safe. Maybe she and Paolo felt that if they were very close to the main road, they wouldn't fall victim to the monster. Another witness was able to give an exact time of the shooting as 11:40 PM, because they clearly heard the volley of shots and looked at the clock.
29:29 Speaker 01 Police hoped that Paolo would survive and might be able to give them some additional information, but sadly, he died in the hospital not long after arriving. After Paolo died, police took a gamble, hoping they could cause the monster to slip up or make a mistake revealing his identity. The authorities falsely claimed to the public that Paolo had regained consciousness in the hospital and had been able to speak with investigators before he ultimately passed away. Now, this was a bluff, but they took their chances. They wanted the killer to believe that they had a good description of him and see if anyone acted suspiciously or turned themselves in.
30:12 Speaker 01 And if we go back to this attack, to me more, if it seems a little more brazen, you know, they're on this main road. There's quite a bit of traffic. I feel like the killer is taking more of a chance of being spotted. And then there's the additional information that they must have gotten at least a view of this person. They must have thought something was wrong. Because Antonella was, you know, trying to get dressed. They were scrambling.
30:48 Speaker 02 Yeah, the fact that he was able to at least try to get away and, and put the car in reverse and try to take off shows they had some kind of notice that something was about to happen and they didn't, it obviously scared them, but unfortunately they weren't able to get away. But you mentioned that the monster seems to be taking more chances here. He's attacking closer to the road. So there maybe there's a compulsion that he couldn't stop himself, but where he did control himself was once their car, you know, landed in that ditch, he did avoid going up and pulling her out of the car, even though he probably wanted to, because he was probably wary of all
31:31 Speaker 02 the traffic that was passing. And it might be possible that he would have been in the process of dragging her out or mutilating her when someone passed upon the scene and their headlights might have shined right on him. So he, he was able to control himself and not do that.
31:48 Speaker 01 Well, you use the word compulsion and I think that is a very good word to use because I think a lot of these killers are driven by some kind of compulsion, right? They have to, or at least they feel that they have to do something. And I just wonder why in this instance, he chose to target someone on the main road. Was it because, you know, he was out looking, couldn't find someone who was secluded? You know, by this time, I'm sure people were avoiding lovers lanes. They
32:27 Speaker 01 were worried about this monster. Maybe he just wasn't able to find the scenario that he was looking for and felt as though he had to act.
32:39 Speaker 02 It was around the time of this bluff by police that anonymous tip came in suggesting that authorities look into the 1968 double murder of Barbara Lochi and Antonio La Bianco on a lover's lane. It wasn't clear to police how that case could have anything to do with the Monster of Florence case. After all, that case had been solved, an arrest had been made, and the killer had been incarcerated. In a lucky twist of fate, the shell casings collected from that crime scene were still attached to the case file. At that time, the protocol was to destroy evidence like that after a certain amount of time, especially because the case was considered solved. There was really no need to have any of the evidence still in their possession since all appeals in the case had been exhausted.
33:23 Speaker 02 But there they still were, easy to find and ready to be analyzed. And to the shock of investigators, ballistics proved that the gun used in the solve 1968 murders of Barbara Lochi and Antonio La Bianco was a 22 caliber Beretta, the very same 22 caliber Beretta that was now being used in the Monster of Florence murders. Even the same ammo was used, Winchester H series. The cases were now linked. The monster may have been killing for longer than anyone realized. But how? How was the murder weapon in the solve 1968 case now being used in the Monster of Florence murders? Police felt that if they could solve that mystery, it might lead to the identity of the Monster of Florence.
34:07 Speaker 01 At 2 o'clock in the morning of August 22nd, 1968, there was a knock at the door of Francesco de Felice in the town of Saint Angelo à la Cour. Francesco wouldn't have normally been awake, but that night, he was already up when he heard the knock because his son had woken up and called out, asking for a glass of water. Of course, he wasn't expecting any visitors at 2 a.m., but when he opened the door, he was surprised to find a young boy standing there. It was six-year-old Natalino Mele. He was alone, and he didn't have any shoes on. He told Francesco that he was very tired and would need a ride to his house because his father was at home, but he was sick.
34:52 Speaker 01 According to young Natalino, he had been with his mother and his uncle, but they were dead in the car. If Francesco wasn't all the way away by this point, he surely got jolted away by what the little boy at his front door had told him. Francesco jumped into action to help Natalino and immediately called police.
35:14 Speaker 02 When authorities found the car about about one and a quarter miles from the DeFleese home, it became clear that Natalino hadn't been mistaken. His mother, 32-year-old Barbara Lochi, and 29-year-old Antonio Lobianco, who Natalino called his uncle, were dead in the car. The car's right turn signal was still blinking, partially illuminating the darkness. Barbara was in the driver's seat, slumped over the steering wheel. Antonio was sitting in the passenger seat, which had been reclined. His pants were unzipped and unbuttoned. It was pretty clear that they had been interrupted in the act of being intimate, with the scene indicating that Barbara had been performing oral sex on Antonio when she was shot three
35:56 Speaker 02 times in the left side of her body and a fourth time in the back. Antonio was shot next. He also suffered three gunshots in the left side of his body. Two shell casings were found inside the car in the backseat. The final position of the bodies appeared somewhat staged. Whoever killed Barbara also pulled her off of Antonio's lap and back over into the driver's seat after she was dead.
36:20 Speaker 01 And no doubt, right? This was a strange crime right from the beginning. You had a little boy showing up barefooted at someone's home in the very early morning hours, and he kind of casually spills this story of how his mom and uncle were dead in a car and that his dad was homesick. Investigators need to figure out what had happened and who was responsible. They hope that Natalino's father, Stefano Mele, could shed some light on what had happened. Investigators found Stefano, Barbara's husband, odd from the very beginning. Despite the late hour, he was already wide awake.
37:01 Speaker 01 When they went to inform him that Barbara had been killed, Barbara and Antonio were last seen alive the night before, seeing a late showing of Akai Tenshi at the movie theater in Cigna.
37:16 Speaker 01 Natalino wasn't seen with them, so he was likely already asleep in the car. He slept through the murders, which may have saved his life if the killer didn't realize he was there. The affair between Barbara and Antonio wasn't really a secret. Many people close to them knew about it. In fact, they often would take Natalino out with them, which is what they had done on this fateful night. So we have another double murder. But we have some added elements to this one. This is not just, you know, a young couple fooling around in the car. It seems like, you know, there's an affair going on here. And Barbara, you know, is bringing along her son.
38:02 Speaker 01 I mean, it's, it's pretty scandalous, I think, or would be seen that way by people in the community.
38:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's pretty brazen. The affair seems like it's out there, not really kept secret. Even Natalino calls Antonio his uncle and they go out on a date, having this affair. And he just tags along with them. So it seemed like it was pretty out in the open. Based on what Natalino had told police and witnesses, they believe that after the movies with Natalino asleep in the backseat, that Barbara and Antonio decided to pull over on a secluded road to be intimate with each other. They were attacked and their killer either never saw the little boy sleeping in the backseat, or he did see him and spared his life. After waking up from the shooting, Natalino left the car and went for help.
38:54 Speaker 02 But investigators didn't believe Natalino's whole story. They didn't believe he could have walked all that way in the dark, especially on such a rocky road with no shoes on. His feet would likely have been cut or scraped up. When he stuck to his version of getting to the DeFleese home, one of the detectives told him that if he didn't start telling the truth, they were going to walk the road again that night. It was then that Natalino changed his story and said that a man had given him a piggyback ride. In some of the versions, he mentioned his father or an uncle. It changed a few times. Police felt that Stefano had murdered his wife and her lover out of jealousy and revenge, and then carried his son safely away from the scene, coaching him on what to say when he knocked on the DeFleese's door.
39:39 Speaker 01 And my thought morph is, you know, how could they not look at Stefano? Right? That would make a lot of sense to investigators. We know the spouse of a murder victim is often responsible. And in this case, it was clear that Stefano was aware of his wife's infidelity. The fact that his son was safely removed from the situation and not harmed, made Stefano a strong suspect. And the fact that the killer pulled Barbara's head from Antonio's lap after she was dead, suggests a personal relationship. Either someone who didn't want her to be found in that position to protect her dignity, or so that she couldn't shame them when the public found out.
40:25 Speaker 01 All of this suggested that Stefano or his family, who considered Barbara an embarrassment due to the public affair, could be responsible.
40:35 Speaker 02 A paraffin glove test, which isn't used anymore, proved to investigators that Stefano had recently fired a gun. Under questioning, Stefano Maile confessed to the killings of his wife and her lover, but would also implicate other people. Just as his son Natalino had Stefano named multiple people and changed his story. The murder weapon was determined to be a 22 caliber Beretta with a defective firing pin, and it was never recovered. Stefano claimed he threw the gun into the bushes in a panic. Police tried to search for the gun in the area that Stefano claimed he had tossed it into, but they never found it. Stefano Maile was convicted for the murders of his wife and her lover in 1970, and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
41:19 Speaker 02 In 1971, the first confirmed Monster of Florence attack happened. But if Stefano Maile was in prison from 1971 to 1985, he couldn't be the Monster of Florence. So how was the gun he used to commit a double murder, being used to commit other similar murders while he was away in prison? And who was pulling the trigger? That's what we'll be discussing in part two of our Monster of Florence coverage. And we'll also explore the remaining cases attributed to the monster.
41:46 Speaker 01 And as we wrap up this first part morph, it's almost like, you know, it's a mystery wrapped up inside another mystery. Now, obviously, we started talking about a series of double murders. Lovers Lane style murders.
42:05 Speaker 01 And I said it earlier, right? Police had quite a bit of evidence, namely this 22 caliber Beretta with a very distinctive defective firing pin. The ballistics comparisons, I'm sure were not that hard to make. And it allowed them to easily connect murders that spans many, many years. But then you have this guy, Stefano Maila, who is convicted of killing his wife and her lover using the exact same gun. And I think that's where the mystery wrapped up in the, in the mystery comes in.
42:49 Speaker 02 It's very interesting that this 1968 solved, or what they thought was solved, murder is very similar to the later murders. Other than the fact that the female victim wasn't pulled out of the car and mutilated, but right down to the same gun being used, had this crime not been solved, or there not been a, a prosecution and a conviction, and this just went unsolved, it might be easily attributed to the same killer. But here we know, at least according to the, the outcome, the conviction, that the victim's husband was responsible.
43:31 Speaker 02 So that leads to the, the whole other question is, okay, how's the gun that he used now turning up in these other murders? Is he telling the truth? Did he really throw the gun in the bushes? And if so, did some serial killer just happen to come along and find it and start killing people later? That to me seems farfetched.
43:53 Speaker 01 Well, I think, you know, a lot of people listening could look at this a couple of different ways.
44:01 Speaker 01 First of all, did Stefano Mele really kill his wife and her lover? You have to answer that question because if he didn't, and let's say he was pressured into confessing, right? That's not out of the realm of possibility. Then you can make the argument that these murders were committed by the monster of Florence. If he really did commit the murders, like you said, Morf, did a serial killer just happen to find his gun? And then start killing? I don't know. It again, it's part of the reason why this case is so compelling to so many people.
44:46 Speaker 01 I think, you know, you have the kind of Zodiac vibe here, right? It's hard not to think Zodiac. But like you said early on, the monster of Florence has a much higher victim count than the Zodiac. On top of that, there's the sexual mutilation angle. So for as much coverage or attention that the Zodiac has received over the years, you have this monster of Florence who, I mean, for people in the US, it's most likely just because it didn't happen in the US.
45:25 Speaker 01 Many people might not have heard of this case who have heard of the Zodiac just because that was well covered here.
45:36 Speaker 02 And it seems on one hand, like this connecting of this solved, quote unquote, solved case from 1968, seems like it's going to help the investigators in the monster Florence case. But as we're going to find out part two, I think it only adds more confusion and more avenues they have to explore. And it had to be very frustrating.
45:59 Speaker 01 Well, I'll definitely say this, we have a lot more, right? To cover in part two, and that'll be coming at you next week. But that's it for our first part on the monster of Florence. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, you know, take a minute, go out, leave us a review, leave a rating. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about criminology really helps us out.
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46:46 Speaker 01 So that's it for another episode of criminology, but Morph and I will be back with you next Saturday night with a brand new episode, part two, and the final part on the monster of Florence. So until then, for Mike.
47:00 Speaker 02 And Morph.
47:01 Speaker 01 We'll talk to you next week.
47:02 Speaker 02 Take care of him.
Previous Morgan Metzer Next The Monster of Florence Part2 Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated