Criminology - The Monster of Florence Part1

Episode Date: November 9, 2025

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. 

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.

Good one and welcome to episode 384 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, how you doing today, buddy? I'm doing pretty good. How you doing? I'm doing great. Having a good week.

I have eaten my fair share of candy since, and this happens almost every year, right? right, we never know how many kids we're going to 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.

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 road where there's no trick or treaters. So we don't have any here. And I've got to scrown 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.

Yeah, kids don't like to give up their candy at all. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. we had Laura Western, Alex Hovis, and Lisa Anderson. So that's some great new support. We really appreciate it. 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 slash criminology to get started. And we just wanted to give everyone a reminder. CrimeCon 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. Yeah, CrimeCon happening May 29 through the, the 31st, 20226,

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 CrimeCon 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. And as always, Morp and I will be on podcast room, saying hi to everyone, taking photos,

it's just really having a lot of fun. And of course, we'll have our annual joint criminology T-cat meet up with listeners. 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.

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 not. 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 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. We just want to give credit to a Reddit user, RICO Canaanese, 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 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. 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 Scandici. 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. 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. Investigators descended on the scene and identified the victims as 30-year-old Giovanni Fojohn.

and his fiancé, 21-year-old Carmela D'Nucho. 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. The 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 it's serrated closer to the base. The gun used in the attack was determined to be a 22-caliber barretta, and Winchester ammunition had been the ammo of choice for the killer. The gun had a defective firearm pin that caused a unique mark to be left behind each time a bullet was fired. 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 person. 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. So I think as police officers, they often come across different situations, but probably more often than not, 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 but what jumped out of 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. 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.

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 Spoletti was discussing details of the murders before the bodies had even been. discovered. They immediately arrested Spiletti. 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 Spilletti 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 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. Inzo 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 Pelletti had already lied to them, authorities didn't buy this explanation. He was held in custody suspected of being the killer.

I think there are a couple of things here that you're going to find to be true. First of all, young people are going to fool around. That happens. and if they're not out on their own, they're still living with their parents. Okay, they've got to 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 going to have some people out there who are trying to watch, you know, for a lack of a better term, you're going to have some voyeurs out there trying to see if they can,

see something going on. And that makes sense that in that kind of situation, you'll have the looky-lose, 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.

it seems like a really weird situation. Well, in a lot of cases, right, we talk about peeping tombs or, you know, voyeurs. Most of the time,

Morph, 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. 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 he 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 Spoletti, 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 in the loose. On October 23, 1981, at about 11 a.m., two farmers walking along their farm fields along a park near Kalanzano

found the bodies of a man and woman. Police identified the victims as 26-year-old Stefano Baudi and his fiance, 24-year-old Susanna Camby. The situation was nearly identical. The killer had shot them both and also mutilated Susanna's general area in exactly the same way that Carmela'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 the equivalent of a U.S. size 11.

They also found a small red granite stone. 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. So another brutal attack, but also more than more than. 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 shoot, 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. 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? Yeah, to me, it's reminiscent of like Jack the Ripper type of stuff. It's, it's it's like a whole other level of terror. Well, my thought was it seems to be focused on the females. 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? 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.

In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Please had to break the news to Stefano and Susanna's families. Susanna's mother, 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 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.

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. 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 Spoletti, 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 where

Susanna 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. So no one wishes for an additional murder or additional murders in a series, but I'm telling you more if this guy, Enzo Spoletti might have, because

I feel like this is what probably saved him. Yeah, being in police custody sort of gives you an airtight alibi in this kind of case. 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, 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. 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 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. 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 in these attacks perfectly. On the night of September 14th, 1974, 19-year-old Pasquale Gintielko,

and his girlfriend, 18-year-old, Stefania Pitini were supposed to go out with friends to teen club, a disco near Borgo San Lorenzo. 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, Pesquale 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 Piskwali multiple times in the stomach. All of these stab wounds were post-mortar as he had already died from the gunshots. Police ruled out robbery because they found Pascuali'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 barretta.

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 19th, 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. And I think, you know, 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 is this guy killed? I mean, how many more are they going to connect that we don't know about yet? And they haven't caught him.

I mean, you talk about fear. I feel like this is one of those things where it would really set the public on edge. 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 biting his time, waiting to do 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. 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 to have. 96 times. But 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? 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 general area. and in 1981 he had moved on to actually excising the general region, taking it out with a knife. So definitely a disturbing progression by the killer here.

Yeah, and I think if you're law enforcement, you're just trying to figure out what it means. Is this a person who hates women, has a bad past with women? And that's why he's so focused on the female victim. I mean, I'm stuck on that. I think 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 Montes-Pretoli. At first, the driver thought they had stumbled upon the scene of an accident. 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 in the police arrived rather quickly. The two occupants in the car were identified as 20-year-old Antonelli Migloreni, who was already dead, and her boyfriend, 22-year-old Paulo Menardi, who was still alive, but barely. To the shock of EMTs on the scene, Antonella and Paolo weren't the victims of an accident. They had both been shot multiple times. Paulo was unconscious losing a lot of blood.

So he was rushed to the hospital and Antonella was left in the back seat. 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 back seat, Paolo threw the car in reverse and tried to back up and get away when the monster opened fire on them. Palo 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. It was thought that the monster abandoned his plan to drag Antonella out of the car to mutilate her.

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 p.m. Because they clearly heard the volley of shots and looked at the clock. Please hope 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. 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. Yeah, the fact that he was able to at least try to get away 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 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 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 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 was able to control himself and not do that. 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 outlooking, couldn't find someone who was secluded, you know, by this time, I'm sure people were avoiding lovers lanes. they 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. It was around the time of this bluff by police that an anonymous tip came in, suggesting that authorities looked 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,

unarrested 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. 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 saw of 1968 murders of Barbara Lochi and Antonio Le Bianco was a 22-caliber barretta, the very same 22-caliber barretta 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?

murder weapon in the saw of 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. 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 St. Angelo A LaCore. Francesco wouldn't have normally been awake, but that night, he was already up when he heard to 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. 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. When authorities found the car about one and a quarter miles from the DeFleuisse home, it became clear that Natalino hadn't been mistaken. His mother, 32-year-old Barbara Loci and 29-year-old Antonio Lobionco, 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 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 back seat. 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. 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 hoped 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 away. 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 Tenchi at the movie theater, Insigno. 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 a little 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. I mean, it's, it's pretty scandalous, I think, or would be seen that way by people in the community. 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 him. 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's sleep in the back seat, that Barbara and Antonio decided to pull over on a secluded road to be intimate with each other. They were attacked and their killers. either never saw the little boy sleeping in the back seat, where he did see him and spared his life.

After waking up from the shooting, Natalino left the car and went for help. But investigators didn't believe Natalina'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 DeFle's 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 de Felice's door. And my thought, Morf, is, you know, how could they not look at Stefan? 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 this stephano was aware of his wife's infidelity the fact that his son was safely removed from the situation and not harmed made stephano 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. All of this suggested that Stefano or his family, who considered Barbara an embarrassment due to the public affair, could be responsible. A paraffin glove test, which isn't used anymore, proved to investigators that Stefano had recently

fired a gun. Under questioning, Stefano Maley 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-calibre barretta 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 Mele was convicted for the murders of his wife and her lover in 1970 and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In 1971, the first confirmed Monster of Florence attack happened. But if Stefano Mele 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. And as we wrap up this first part more, it's almost like, you know, it's a mystery wrapped up inside another mystery. Obviously, we started talking about a series of double murders, lovers lane style murders. And I said it earlier, right, police had quite a bit of evidence.

namely this 22 caliber burrata 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 spanned many many years but then you have this guy stephano mele 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. 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. you know, had this crime not been solved here, there not been 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 outcome, the conviction that the victim's husband was responsible.

So that leads to 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 far-fetched. Well, I think, you know, a lot of people listening could look at this a couple of different ways.

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 more, did a serial killer just happen to find his gun and then start killing? I don't know. again, it's part of the reason why this case is so compelling to so many people. 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 U.S., it's most likely just because it didn't happen in the U.S. Many people might not have heard of this case who have heard of the Zodiac just because that was well covered here. 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 of 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. 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, 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. If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major platform. Just search criminology podcast and your favorites. You can also visit our website, Criminology Podcast.com, to find news, information, and old episodes.

And if you want to join a discussion about the show, head over to Facebook and search for Criminology Podcasts discussion and fans. 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 and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of everyone.