subculture that many florentines found disturbing. these hills were not only being stalked by a killer, they were also swarming with peeping toms. police quickly zeroed in on one of these voyeurs. they focused on a fellow who was an ambulance driver during the day and who had been creeping around those hills at night and they arrested him. he lied to them at first. of course, he lied. he didn t want to admit what he was doing, and then even when he did admit he was a voyeur he lied about his movements that night and was contradicted by other people. so they thought, we ve got our man, here he is. they arrested him. but then in october of 1981, with the suspect in jail, the monster struck. once again, the victims were young lovers in their 20s, shot to death on a lovers lane in the countryside, murders five and six. the same beretta .22 was the murder weapon. the young woman suffered the same postmortem mutilation, performed with a notched knife. this murder set up a pattern that wo
four young lovers dead. one of the women sexually mutilated. mario spezi, then a young newspaper reporter, wrote story after story about the case. he had heard of other famous serial killers dubbed monsters, and he began to use that term as well. we called him the monster of florence. police desperately hunted the monster. in the process, they exposed some aspects of italian life you don t read about in the tourist brochures. american author doug preston. most people live with their parents until they re married. so making love in parked cars is a national pastime. the beautiful hills surrounding florence on friday and saturday night were full of cars parked where kids were making out, making love. all the lovemaking was an open secret among florentines, but what police found next was not. investigating the terrible murders along lovers lanes like this one in the beautiful tuscan countryside, police uncovered a
he fled, once again leaving no clues to his identity. murders seven and eight. as the killings continued, the terror and paranoia ratcheted up. florentines changed their daily routines. they never traveled alone, and they eyed each other suspiciously because the monster could be any one of them. at one point, a witness thought he had seen the killer. police released a sketch. the result was chaos. there was a man who owned a pizzeria outside of florence who looked just like him and was so harassed by his neighbors, that he cut his throat. he committed suicide. there was a butcher who looked just like this fellow. a mob formed in front of his butcher shop and the police had to come disperse the mob. there was a taxi driver who looked like this fellow. the people would scream and jump out of the taxi. what the sketch did not provide was any solid leads. then one day police got an anonymous letter containing a