Monster of Florence Victims

Case background and investigation

The name Monster of Florence was given by the Italian press to the person or persons responsible for eight double murders committed in the countryside around Florence between 1968 and 1985. According to Il Post and Wikipedia's summary of the case, the sixteen victims were almost all couples who had parked or camped in secluded spots, and the attacks were linked by the use of the same .22 calibre pistol and the same type of Winchester ammunition. In several of the attacks the female victim was also mutilated with a knife.

The first attack took place on the night of August 21, 1968, in Signa, where Antonio Lo Bianco, 29, and Barbara Locci, 32, were shot in a car while Locci's young son Natalino slept in the back seat. Locci's husband, Stefano Mele, was convicted and sentenced to 14 years. The later attacks were: Pasquale Gentilcore and Stefania Pettini near Borgo San Lorenzo in September 1974; Giovanni Foggi and Carmela De Nuccio at Scandicci in June 1981; Stefano Baldi and Susanna Cambi at Calenzano in October 1981; Paolo Mainardi and Antonella Migliorini at Baccaiano in June 1982; German students Horst Meyer and Jens-Uwe Rüsch at Giogoli in September 1983; Claudio Stefanacci and Pia Rontini near Vicchio in July 1984; and French visitors Jean-Michel Kraveichvili and Nadine Mauriot near San Casciano in Val di Pesa in September 1985.

According to Wikipedia's account, the 1968 shooting was connected to the series in 1982, when cartridge cases from that case file were found to match the later crimes. Investigators then pursued several Sardinian acquaintances of Barbara Locci, a line of inquiry that ended in 1989 with all of those suspects formally cleared.

Attention then turned to Pietro Pacciani, a farm labourer. He was convicted at first instance in 1994 of seven of the double murders, but was acquitted on appeal in 1996. Italy's Court of Cassation ordered a new appeal trial, and Pacciani died in February 1998 before it could be held, so no final verdict was ever reached in his case. Two of his acquaintances, Mario Vanni and Giancarlo Lotti, were convicted, and their convictions became final in 2000; sources report that the final judgment covered four of the double murders, with Vanni receiving a life sentence and Lotti 26 years. A third defendant, Giovanni Faggi, was acquitted, and pharmacist Francesco Calamandrei, tried separately, was acquitted in 2008.

The convictions have been widely questioned, and many commentators regard the case as unresolved. The pistol has never been recovered. CBS News reported in August 2024 that a DNA profile recovered from a bullet connected to the 1985 attack did not match the victims or anyone convicted, and that a lawyer for victims' relatives had asked for the exhumation of Stefania Pettini. In July 2025, L'Unione Sarda reported that genetic testing had shown that Natalino Mele's biological father was Giovanni Vinci, a member of the Sardinian family examined in the 1980s, rather than Stefano Mele. No new charges have been reported.