“Fifty years have passed since my mother was killed. His killer was never found. I never imagined being able, after a long time, to return to hope for a solution to the case. Yet, thanks to the new technologies used by the criminologist Franco Posa, not only have I found hope, but I am convinced that finally we could shed light on this crime and also on the killings of other women that took place in Milan in those years. To do so, however, the Prosecutor’s Office would have to reopen the investigation.
I want to appeal to the magistrates to reopen the case of my mother and these other women. Mine is the request of a daughter, not an actress ». To pronounce these words is Agostina Belli, one of the most successful stars of Italian comedy, the diva who in the seventies and eighties bewitched the imagination of Italians, starring in films such as Perfume of a woman, in 1974, which earned her the first of two Golden Globes (the second is a lifetime achievement award), White phones, for which two years later he won the gold plate at the David di Donatello and then Holocaust 2000 con Kirk Douglas, The genius con Yves Montand, Double crime with Marcello Mastroianni and Peter Ustinov, A mauve taxi with Fred Astaire and Charlotte Rampling, to name a few. “After my mother died,” he explains, “there was never a moment when I didn’t ask myself: who was it? Why? The time has come to know the truth ».
It happened in Milan, not far from the Central Station. On the first floor of a building in via Copernico, Adele Margherita Dossena, 54, separated and with two grown-up daughters, Agostina and Armida, managed a pension frequented mainly by students. On February 16, 1970 she was stabbed to death. After only a year, the case was dismissed. A few months ago, however, an internationally experienced criminologist, Franco Posa, an expert in cold case, discovered that Adele Margherita Dossena is not the only woman stabbed to death in Milan in those years: at least six other women died like her, all attacked from behind.
«With a pool of experts», Posa says, «we have geolocated the crimes thanks to an American software used in investigations into serial murders. It turns out that these seven crimes took place in a precise triangle of the city, where a single killer could locate, stalk and attack his victims. With the help of innovative investigation techniques we are verifying the possibility that it was a serial killer ». Analyzing the autopsies of five victims – Adele Margherita Dossena, Salvina Rota, Simonetta Ferrero, Valentina Masneri and Tiziana Moscadelli – Posa discovered that it could really have been a single man who killed them, moreover left-handed.
“In those years no one related these crimes to each other”, adds the lawyer Valter Biscotti, who assists Agostina Belli and the relatives of other women killed, “the investigators had, perhaps, other things to think about. In 1969 the bomb exploded in Piazza Fontana, in a few years the Commissioner Calabresi was killed. Terrorism was taking hold, there were also kidnappings. The investigations have probably been neglected ». He adds: «In these days we are having some artifacts analyzed that Agostina Belli himself found at the crime scene and kept. We do not exclude finding a DNA. Meanwhile, we are waiting for a Milanese magistrate to reopen the investigations in order to have access to the files of each crime and verify the elements in common. Perhaps it will not serve to bring the killer to justice: he is probably dead. But it is right to give dignity and truth to the victims and their families ».
Agostina Belli has been clamoring for this for fifty years. “I am a daughter who still wants to know the truth,” she says on the phone, “I will never tire of looking for it. The Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office will help my sister and me, and the families of those other poor women ».
What do you remember of that day?
“I was nearly twenty-two and living with my father. My parents were separated and Mom ran a cheap guesthouse. Among the tenants were many university students whom she treated as children, always ready to bring a chamomile if they were sick, to help them. It looked like a big family, they called it “mamma Lina”. Mom had a television, a rare thing at the time, and her living room was always full at night. Just that evening there was a film and some tenants had agreed to see it together, but they found the door of the apartment closed ».
Was it usually open?
“Always. Mom’s apartment looked like a hotel reception. There was a double entrance: the main door, a small hall and a glass door. She only closed the latter, unless she went out for long periods. The guests waited for a while, then began to call “Mrs. Lina”. A couple of tenants decided to enter. The apartment was all in a mess, as if there had been thieves. Drawers uprooted, chairs on the floor, displaced cabinets and tables. Mom was on the floor in the living room, dead. We only found out at 4 in the morning ».
Who warned you?
“A mother’s sister. He phoned and said: “Sorry if I call at this time, but Lina felt bad.” With my sister and dad we rushed under his house. And there we found all our relatives, sisters, brothers-in-law, grandchildren. I immediately thought of the worst, but I would never have imagined such a thing ».
Did you enter the apartment?
‘They made us wait in the hall: they had already put the seals. The pension was closed for the time necessary for the investigation. Dad and I always went to the carabinieri, to the police station. They told us: “We are investigating, it takes time”. Then, after only a year, they call us: “We’re sorry, we did our best, let’s close the investigation.” I never resigned myself, as soon as I could I hired a couple of detectives. For years, I invested everything I earned to find my mother’s killer. Meanwhile I was shooting films, success has arrived. But the fame, the awards, the Golden Globes didn’t interest me: I just wanted to earn money to find the truth ».
Did the detectives find out anything?
“Not only did they find nothing, but I was forced to stop investigating. At some point the threats began. At the time I was living with my partner in a villa in the countryside near Rome. He was always on the go. On the way home, I found messages on the answering machine. A disguised voice said: “Stop investigating, doing interviews, otherwise you will end up like your mother.” Then strange things happened ».
What facts?
“I had a wonderful dog, Lord, trained for self-defense. I loved it. I found him poisoned. They also stole my car: if something had happened in that isolated villa, I would not have been able to escape. I went to the police, for a couple of weeks they put a guard in front of my house. Then the same agents told me: “Stop talking about your mother.” They gave me a license, I bought a gun, I learned to shoot at the shooting range. I walked around with the gun attached to my waist. I was devastated ».
Didn’t the police at the time tell you which direction they were investigating?
“They certainly didn’t come to talk to us about it. I know those who knew Mom were questioned. Then, after fifty years, I buy the Corriere della Sera and I find a two-page article about a probable serial killer. There are photos of seven women killed. Among them is my mother. It rushed all over me again. The nightmares have started again ».
Do you believe this hypothesis of the serial killer?
“Criminologist Posa and his colleagues are using modern methods that come from America. Then today there are many tests that were not there before, such as DNA tests. For this the prosecutor must reopen the case. It is necessary to examine the files, the interrogations of the time, verify all the autopsies. At the time, they didn’t even confiscate the objects found in my mother’s apartment. “
What objects?
“When, after a year, they unsealed, I went in and found the crime scene intact. With dad we noticed some strange things. On the nightstand next to the bed there was a necklace and a clock: so whoever killed Mom was not a thief ».
But the apartment had been turned upside down.
“Maybe the killer was looking for something. Or it was a fiction to divert the investigation. There were two liqueur glasses on the kitchen table, one for my mom and one for the guest. There was also a box of Sperlari candies still packaged. Who killed mom knew her. He went to visit her, she offered him liquor, they drank together, they talked. What happened then? Why? The police should have sealed these items. For years I have no longer enjoyed the success of my films, everything has passed in second order. The killing of my mother gave me such a shock in the soul that nothing more gave me joy. But now the truth may come out. Thanks to these new techniques and the recent discoveries of the criminologist Posa, the magistrates have no more excuses: they have to give answers to families who have been waiting for too long and justice to those poor victims ”.
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