Douglas Preston - The Monster of Florence  

T he trial of Francesco Calamandrei, for being one of the instigators behind the Monster killings, began on September 27, 2007.

Mario Spezi attended the first day of the trial, and he sent me a report by e-mail a few days later. This is what he wrote:

The morning of September 27 dawned unexpectedly cold after a month of dry heat. The real news that morning was the absence of spectators at the trial of a man alleged to be a mastermind behind the Monster. In the courtroom, where more than ten years before Pacciani had first been convicted and then acquitted, nobody was seated in the space reserved for the public. Only the benches reserved for journalists were occupied. I had trouble understanding the indifference of Florentines toward a person who, according to the accusation, was almost the very incarnation of Evil. Skepticism, incredulity, or disbelief of the official version must have kept spectators away.

The accused entered the courtroom taking hesitant little steps. He looked meek, even resigned, his dark eyes lost in unknowable thoughts, carrying with him the air of a retired gentleman, wearing an elegant blue overcoat and gray fedora, his obese body swelled with unhappiness and psychopharmacological drugs. He was half-supported by his lawyer, Gabriele Zanobini, and his daughter Francesca. The pharmacist of San Casciano, Francesco Calamandrei, seated himself on the front bench, indifferent to the flashes of the news photographers and the television cameras that swung his way.

A journalist asked him how he felt. He answered: Like someone who has fallen into a film, knowing nothing of the plot or characters.

The prosecutors office of Florence had accused Calamandrei of masterminding five of the Monsters killings. They claim he paid Pacciani, Lotti, and Vanni to commit the crimes and take away the sex organs of the female victims so that he could use them for horrendous, but unspecified, esoteric rites. He stands accused of actually participating in the killings of the two French tourists at the Scopeti clearing in 1985. He is also charged with having ordered the killings in Vicchio in 1984, those of September 1983 in which the two Germans were killed, and those of June 1982 in Montespertoli. The prosecution is silent on the vexing question of who might have committed the other Monster killings.

The evidence against Calamandrei is risible. It consists of the delirious ravings of his schizophrenic wife, so desperately ill that her doctors have forbidden her to give testimony in the courtroom, and the same coarse and habitual liars known as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, who testified against Pacciani and his picnicking friends ten years before. Notably, all four of these algebraic witnesses are now dead. Only the serial witness Lorenzo Nesi remains alive, ready to remember whatever might be required.

Also arrayed against Calamandrei is a mountain of paper: twenty-eight thousand pages of the trial against Pacciani; nineteen thousand pages of the investigation of his picnicking friends; and nine thousand pages collected on Calamandrei himself: fifty-five thousand pages in all, more than the Bible, Das Kapital of Marx, Kants Critique of Pure Reason, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Don Quixote all put together.

In front of the accused, mounted high behind an imposing bar, was seated Judge De Luca in the place of the usual two magistrates and the nine members of the popular jury who comprise the Court of Assizes, the Tribunal reserved for judging the most serious crimes. In a surprise move, Calamandreis lawyer had asked for a so-called abbreviated trial, usually only requested by those who have admitted guilt in order to obtain a reduced sentence. Zanobini and Calamandrei asked for it for another reason entirely: In order that the trial be conducted as rapidly as possible, Zanobini said, seeing that we have nothing to fear from the result.

To the left of the pharmacist, on another bench in the front row, sat the public minister of Florence, Paolo Canessa, with another prosecutor. The two smiled and joked in low voices, perhaps to give an outward show of confidence, or perhaps to needle the defense.

Before the end of the day, Zanobini would wipe the smiles off their faces.

Zanobini launched into his case with fire, pointing out a technical but very embarrassing legal oversight by Canessa. He then attacked the Perugian branch of the Monster investigation, conducted by Public Minister Mignini, which had linked Calamandrei to the death of Narducci. Almost all the results of the Perugian investigation are like so much wastepaper, he said. Allow me to give you an example. He raised a sheaf of papers, which he said constituted a statement taken by Public Minister Mignini and kept under seal until now. How is it possible that a magistrate would take seriously and believe a document like the one I will read to you now?

As Zanobini began to read, the cameras swung from Calamandrei to... me. I couldnt believe it, Doug, but I was the star of the document! This document was the so-called spontaneous statement of a woman who had been in contact with Gabriella Carlizzi. She repeated many of Carlizzis theories to Judge Mignini, claiming she had heard them years ago from a long-deceased Sardinian aunt who knew all the people involved. Mignini had it all written down, recorded, sworn, and signed. Despite the clear absurdity and lack of proof of the womans allegations, Judge Mignini had then slapped a seal of secrecy on the document, given the gravity and sensitivity of the accusations.

As Zanobini read the document in the gray courtroom of the Tribunale, I heard, along with everyone else, that I wasnt really the son of my father. My real fatheror so this woman claimed in her statementwas a famous musician of sick and perverse habits who had committed the first two killings of 1968; I heard that my mother had conceived me on a Sardinian farm in Tuscany; I heard that upon discovering the truth about my real father, I had carried on his diabolical work as a family tradition, becoming the real Monster of Florence. This crazy aunt claimed we were all conspiring together: me, the Vinci brothers, Pacciani and his picnicking friends, Narducci, and Calamandrei. From our diabolical association, she told Mignini, each derives his own benefit: the voyeurs enjoyed their particular activities, the cultists used the anatomical parts taken from the victims for their rites, the fetishists conserved the pieces taken from the victims, and SPEZI, my aunt always told me, mutilated the victims with a tool known as a cobblers knife.... Certain fellow citizens of Villacidro told me, recently, that the writer Douglas Preston, Spezis friend, is connected to the American Secret Service.

She explained to Mignini, I hadnt spoken of this up until now because I am afraid of Mario SPEZI and his friends.... When Spezi was arrested by you I gathered up my courage and decided to speak about it with Carlizzi, because I trusted her and I knew she sought the truth....

It was absurd stuff and I had to smile as Zanobini read the statement. But I felt no mirth; I couldnt forget that I had ended up in prison partly because of Carlizzis black-hearted accusations.

The first day of Calamandreis trial ended with a clear win for the defense. Judge De Luca fixed the next three trial days for November 27, 28, and 29. Breaks of this length in trials are, unfortunately, the norm in Italy.

That was the end of the e-mail.

I called up Mario. So Im in the American Secret Service? Damn.

It was all reported in the press the next day.

What are you going to do about these absurd accusations?

Ive already brought suit against the woman for defamation.

Mario, I said, the world is full of crazy people. How is it that in Italy, the statements of such people are taken down by a public minister as serious evidence?