Crime of via Poma, 35 years old without a culprit: “But yellow can still be resolved”

Rome, 7 August 1990: in the silence of an office of theItalian Association for youth hotelsa twenty year old girl, Simonetta Cesaronilies on the dead ground. The body, half -naked, torn apart by 29 stab wounds, eyes, to the chest, in the pubis. It is the image that, together with that of the young man in a swimsuit that in the following days and then for years will be associated with the crime of via Poma, still torments the sister of the victim, Paola Cesaronithe one who found it lying on that south -sighted floor in the evening, after looking for her for hours.
«It is a distressing image, immortalized that night by the scientific one. Just the other day I found it in my hands and I could not hold back the tears. A terrible scene, Simonetta lying on the ground, who seems to be sleeping, but in truth she died. The instinct is to go there and wake it up, but her body has been devastated, “he says Gian Paolo Pelizzaroa journalist who in the 90s, studying the investigation papers, sensed the key to solving the case had to be in force in the offices where the young woman worked. And he discovered some things that today, after thirty -five years, are the basis of the new investigation into the crime reopened by the Rome Prosecutor’s Office, and which in recent months has found new lymph: last June the magistrate who is investigating to give a name to Simonetta’s murderer, never found, obtained one Extension of the investigationsand in the meantime the interrogations of characters never heard before and the genetic investigations on all the finds that have been made and recovered. “It is the last chance to return the truth to the family»Says Pelizzaro while the volume arrives in the bookstores The intrigue of via Poma. The murder of Simonetta Cesaroni and the lost dicciiloscripto (602 pages, Baldini + Castoldi ed.), Which he published together with the Journalist Giacomo Galantialso an expert in the case. A volume, full of unpublished documents, which not only reconstructs one of the most famous black and judicial chronicle murders in Italy, but tells the background never revealed before.

How was your interest for this case born?
«In 1994 I worked as a journalist for the newspaper The independent. I was entrusted with the task of following the procedure against a young man accused of the crime. It must be said that previously, that is, a few days after the discovery of the murder, the goalkeeper of the condominium had been accused, then acquitted because it is innocent. The case was then reopened and accused this boy, who was the grandson of a tenant of the palace. But he too had nothing to do with it. Following the story, I came across a series of oddities. To help me shed light on the anomalies that I was noticing was the criminologist Francesco Bruno, now dead, who had collaborated on the investigations at the request of the then police chief, Vincenzo Parisi. He revealed me that the place where the crime was made was “an office with institutional interests”. I asked him: “What does it mean?”. He replied: “Well, translated in poor words, there were interests from the secret services”. “

Explain to be better.
«The youth hostel office in via Poma had a mass of data and information very useful for theintelligencebecause he was dealing with young students who moved far and wide for Italy. This does not mean that Simonetta was killed by secret agents, but after the crime several characters have moved to make documents disappear and keep hidden situations that did not want to become public domain ».

In doing so, did they pollute the tests and the investigation was noted?
«There have been several levels of sidetracking. Certainly the killer and those who helped him polluted the crime scene. The girl’s colleagues competed to know they know her. And then there were characters who had other interests and who would enter stage for reasons not strictly linked to murder. After the interview with the criminologist Bruno I started to “read” the crime with another pair of glasses, to look for a little transparency compared to the story that was done at the time, to concentrate my attention on the office: the killer should not be sought too far. I started a job on the judicial documents, which ended between 1996 and 1997, when I filed a book in the prosecutor’s office that I was writing on the case and that contained unpublished and very useful information for investigations. The typewritten was placed under a secret investigation. It has remained there for years, until today ».

What was in that book and why what she had discovered was so disruptive and also current?
“The volume contained particularly delicate information on the murder, which on October 31, 1996 I referred to the then misty Settembrino magistrate. It was information related to the office and the people who worked there. In fact, in the meantime, I had managed to conquer the trust of an employee of the hostels, the manager of the employee paychecks as well as the last person to have spoken on the phone with Simonetta Cesaroni before he was killed. It was the girl, who worked as an accountant, who called her to ask for information about some data to be entered on a computer. The phone call took place just before 17:30, so until that hour Simonetta was alive ».

What did this employee tell her?
«The investigation into the crime of via Poma is full of errors. One of all: the coroner went to the scene without thermometer and, not having taken the temperature of the corpse, could not establish precisely the hour of death. But it is also full of anomalies: after the murder, all the employees competed to declare that they did not know and have never seen Simonetta. Possible? This colleague of his revealed what the police should have discovering immediately, namely to find out who worked in that office, how the work was organized, who worked in the afternoon, Tuesday and Thursday, that is, the two days when the girl went there. Not only that, he revealed that there was a register of attendance: sheets where employees signed their working hours, including extraordinary and afternoon recoveries. In particular, a colleague made these recoveries on Tuesday, when Simonetta was there. “

These are the sheets of the presences that, after its reporting, the magistrate had sought. Everyone was recovered, except those relating to a previous period and following the crime.
«If they were made to disappear, it means that someone had an interest in doing it. However, the responsible of the paychecks had photographed them and delivered to Simonetta’s father ».

In fact, only last year were found among the documents in possession of the poor Claudio Cesaroni, who fought until the last day of his life for the truth.
«On the sheet of August 7, the day in Simonetta was killed, there is the signature of this colleague of hers. Does it mean that that afternoon was in the office when the crime took place? What do I saw something? In fact, that day of recovery was paid. This was confirmed by the manager of the paychecks, the same one that revealed the existence of these documents. “

But on the sheets of presences there is also something more: there is a name never entered the investigation. A seasonal worker of the hostels, a man who was 27 years old at the time and whose signature turns out to be on the sheet of 10 July 1990. His presence was kept hidden, why?
“He was the son of another employee. He died on May 31, 2024. If he signed that document it means that that day it was there. He was not the only seasonal collaborator, there were others. In fact, in the new investigation, subjects who had never been touched by the investigations were questioned. Among these there are also characters from the institutions. That indiscretion on the involvement of the secret services made to me by the criminologist Francesco Bruno was true. “