The Monster of Florence (Italian: Il Mostro di Firenze) is the name commonly used by the Italian media for a non-definitively identified serial killer active within the Metropolitan City of Florence between 1968 and 1985. The Monster murdered 16 victims, usually young couples secluded in search of intimacy, in wooded areas during new moons.^[1] Several connected persons have been convicted for involvement in the murders, yet the exact sequence of events, the identity of the main actor and the motives remain unclear.

Law enforcement conducted several investigations into the cases over several years. In 2000, courts convicted two individuals for four of the double homicides. They had been charged with being part of an alleged group of murderers which became known in the popular press as the "Snack Buddies" (Compagni di merende), following the notorious and absurdly comical courtroom protestation of one of the suspects that the group were merely friends who on frequent occasion innocently consumed "snacks" together in local bars and restaurants. Multiple weapons were used in the murders, including a .22 caliber Beretta handgun and a knife, and in half of the cases, a large portion of the skin surrounding sex organs was excised from the bodies of the female victims.

It was not until the Foggi-De Nuccio murders in 1981 that the police realized the killings were connected. A newspaper article about the Gentilcore-Pettini murder from 1974 caused the police to perform a ballistics test and confirm the same gun had been used in both murders.^[5] Reporter Mario Spezi coined the moniker "Monster of Florence".

After the 1982 murders, police leaked false information that Mainardi had regained consciousness before dying in the hospital. Soon after, an anonymous tip called for the police to relook at the Lo Bianco-Locci murder from 1968; it was quickly determined that the same gun had been used.^[6] The confession and conviction of Locci's husband, Stefano Mele, was subsequently revisited, as Mele had been imprisoned during the later murders. Mele's statements in police interviews were inconsistent, shifting the blame among his Sardinian relatives and acquaintances.^[7]

Francesco Vinci was arrested first. He was a former lover of Locci's whose car had been found hidden on the day the false Mainardi information had been leaked. Francesco was kept in custody for over a year, even during the 1983 murders.^[8] Examining magistrate Mario Rotella instead widened the net, arresting Mele's brother and brother-in-law, Giovanni Mele and Piero Mucciarini. The 1984 murders occurred when the three suspects were in custody, so the police released them.^[9]

Rotella focused on Francesco's brother Salvatore Vinci, another lover and former lodger of Barbara Locci's. Vinci's first wife had died in a fire in Sardinia, ruled a suicide although rumored to be a murder. After the final Monster murder in 1985, Rotella arrested Vinci and charged him with the murder of his wife, intending to move from there to the other killings attributed to the Monster. The trial in Sardinia instead acquitted Vinci, who walked free. By this point, chief prosecutor Pier Luigi Vigna thought the Sardinian trail was spent, and wanted to look into the possibility of the gun having been picked up by an unknown party after its use in the 1968 murder. In 1989, Rotella was forced to officially clear all the Sardinian suspects and withdraw from the case.^[10]

With the use of computer analysis and anonymous tips, a new suspect, Pietro Pacciani, was found. Pacciani had been convicted both for rape and domestic abuse of his two daughters, and for the 1951 murder of a man who had relations with his ex-girlfriend, for which he served thirteen years in prison. Inspector Ruggero Perugini found incriminating evidence, such as similarities between the 1951 murder and the Monster killings, as well as a reproduction of Primavera by Botticelli and another painting thought to be by Pacciani. The only physical evidence against Pacciani was an unfired bullet of the same brand as the Monster's, found in Pacciani's garden at the end of a lengthy search, later discovered to be planted evidence by the police.^[11]

Pacciani was controversially convicted in his initial trial in 1994. At his appeal, the prosecutor took Pacciani's side, citing lack of evidence and poor police work. As a result, Pacciani was acquitted and released in 1996. Perugini's successor Michele Giuttari tried to introduce new witnesses at the final hour, but was denied.^[12] A new trial for Pacciani was ordered by the Supreme Court, but he died in 1998 before it could begin. Instead, two alleged accomplices were tried, Mario Vanni and Giancarlo Lotti.^[13]

Vanni had been a witness at Pacciani's trial, where he famously claimed the two of them merely to be "Picnic Companions" (Compagni di Merende), a term that entered Italian vernaculum. Lotti had been one of Giuttari's surprise witnesses, claiming to have seen Pacciani and Vanni commit the 1985 murder. After many more sessions of questioning, he had begun to incriminate himself in the murders as well. Both were convicted and condemned to life imprisonment, though their sentences have been widely criticized and many consider the murders to be unsolved.^[13]

In 2001, Giuttari, now chief inspector for the police unit GIDES (Gruppo Investigativo Delitti Seriali, Investigative Group for Serial Crimes), announced that the crimes were connected to a satanic cult allegedly active in the Florence area. In his testimony, Lotti had spoken of a doctor who had hired Pacciani to commit the murders and collect the genitalia of the women for use in rituals. Giuttari justified this partly on the discovery of a pyramidal stone near a villa where Pacciani had been employed. The stone, Giuttari suggested, was indicative of cult activity. Critics, such as Spezi, found this idea laughable, given that such stones are commonly used as doorstops in the surrounding area.^[14] The villa was searched, but nothing was found.^[15]

Giuttari, the chief prosecutor of Perugia Giuliano Mignini and Gabriella Carlizzi, editor-in-chief of the magazine L'Altra Repubblica, speculated that a pharmacist, Francesco Calamandrei, and a deceased physician from Perugia, Francesco Narducci, had been involved in the secret society ordering Pacciani and the others. Calamandrei was put on trial while Narducci's body was exhumed. In the end, Calamandrei was completely exonerated and nothing incriminating was found regarding Narducci.^[16]

During the process, journalist Mario Spezi was arrested by Mignini. Spezi had been investigating his own favored suspect, a son of Salvatore Vinci. Mignini claimed he did so to obstruct the investigation into Calamandrei and Narducci's sect, to which he claimed Spezi belonged. After international outcry, Spezi was set free, his arrest declared illegal. Giuttari and Mignini were indicted for abuse of office. GIDES was dissolved, and no active investigation of the Monster of Florence remains.^[17]

In 2017, Francesco Amicone, a freelance journalist, conducted an investigation on his own that led him to find a connection between the Monster of Florence and the Zodiac Killer cases.^[18] Amicone's inquiry has been published in Italian magazine Tempi, newspapers Il Giornale and Libero, and his blog ostellovolante.com since 2018.^[19][20][21]

Amicone's suspect was Joseph aka Giuseppe Bevilacqua (Totowa, NJ, 20 December 1935 - Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, 23 December 2022) a former ABMC superintendent at the Florence American Cemetery in Italy, who testified to the Pacciani Trial. In 2017, Amicone found out that Bevilacqua had a 20-year military career when he retired from the Army to move to Florence in July 1974.^[18][21]

Between May 26 and August 10, Bevilacqua and Amicone had seven meetings of circa two-three hours, as it was found by the Florence ROS Carabinieri in 2018.^[18][22] During a phone call on September 12, 2017, Bevilacqua implied his responsibility in both the Monster of Florence and the Zodiac Killer case, agreeing to Amicone's request to turn himself in. However, Bevilacqua later changed his mind. The conversation was not recorded.^[1][18]

During the meetings in 2017, Bevilacqua told Amicone he was an undercover CID investigator operating in California at the time of Zodiac's activities in 1969 and 1970, and participated in the CID inquiry on the so called "Khaki Mafia", which involved SMA William O. Wooldridge, other Army sergeants,^[23] and firms from Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area as well as in Reno, Nevada.^[18][24]

Following a complaint against Bevilacqua by Amicone dated March 1, 2018, the journalist's first news articles on the "Monster-Zodiac connection" were published by tempi.it and Il Giornale in May 2018. Bevilacqua denied the admission of guilt and filed a lawsuit.^[25] Despite this, Amicone did not stop accusing him.^[1][24][18]

While an Army criminal investigator in Italy in the early 1970s, Amicone says that Bevilacqua might have had access to a case file of a double murder near Florence in 1968 where bullets and shell casings had been improperly stored.^[24], and that Bevilacqua replaced the pieces of evidence with spent cartridges shot by the gun he would use in the Monster's homicides in order to link his future crimes to those murders for which he had an alibi.^[24] Italian authorities collected Bevilacqua's DNA in late 2020.^[18][21]

In 2021, at Florence assistant attorney Luca Turco's request, the investigation into Bevilacqua resulting from Amicone's inquiry was dismissed, and the journalist charged for defamation due to a complaint from Bevilacqua.^[26]

In November 2023, Bevilacqua's DNA profile was sent by Amicone to the authorities that investigate the Zodiac case according to the journalist.^[27]

• The Monster of Florence, a 1983 non-fiction book by Mario Spezi.
• The Monster of Florence: A True Story, a 2008 true crime book by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi based on the case. ^[5]
• Il mostro di Firenze, a 1986 film based on the case, written and directed by Cesare Ferrario, and co-written by Fulvio Ricciardi.^[28]
• The Killer is Still Among Us, an Italian giallo loosely based on the case, was filmed soon after one of the murders and also released in 1986. It was written and directed by Camillo Teti, and co-written by Giuliano Carnimeo and Ernesto Gastaldi.^[29][30][31]
• Paolo Frajoli and Gianni Siragusa's 28° minuto (1991) is a drama starring Corinne Cléry and Christian Borromeo inspired by the case.
• The 1996 book The Monster Of Florence by Magdalen Nabb doubted Pacciani as Il Mostro and was based on actual and extensive case documents, including the criminal profile report commissioned from the Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia. Although the book is a work of fiction, Nabb states that the investigation in the novel was real and the presentation as fiction was a protective measure.
• The 1999 novel Hannibal, the 2001 film adaptation, and the television adaption have all used the Il Mostro case as the basis for a sub-plot of the scenes set in Florence. Thomas Harris visited Florence and attended Pacciani's trial while researching the book. In the novel, supporting antagonist Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi (based on Ruggero Perugini)^[32] was professionally disgraced when he arrested the wrong man for the Il Mostro murders. In scenes that were cut from the film before its release, a janitor at the Palazzo Vecchio, who witnesses Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) murdering Chief Inspector Rinaldo Pazzi (Giancarlo Giannini) before fleeing the city, is revealed to be Il Mostro. Although the subplot involving Il Mostro was removed entirely from the completed film, the deleted scenes are included as an extra feature on the DVD.^[33] In the third season of the television series, it is implied that Hannibal himself (Mads Mikkelsen) was Il Mostro.
• The 2006 book Dolci colline di sangue(Sweet hills of blood) by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi casts doubts on the culpability of Pacciani as Il Mostro. Writer/producer Christopher McQuarrie purchased the screen rights to the book.
• The 2008 book The Monster of Florence: A True Story by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi is the English translation of the 2006 Italian language book 'Dolci colline di sangue' with some revision and additions, casts doubts on the culpability of Pacciani as Il Mostro. Writer/producer Christopher McQuarrie purchased the screen rights to the book.
• In 2009, a six-part television film, Il mostro di Firenze, was produced and broadcast by Fox Crime.
• The 2011 e-book The True Stories of the Monster Of Florence by Jacopo Pezzan and Giacomo Brunoro (April 2011) gives a detailed account of all the murders and the different investigative theories.
• The 2012 book Delitto degli Scopeti – Giustizia mancata^[34] (The Scopeti Crime – Failed Justice), written by lawyer Vieri Adriani, Francesco Cappeletti, and Salvatore Maugeri, reanalyzes and reconstructs the final pair of murders, which took place in the town of Scopeti, of French tourists Kraviechvili and Mauriot. The book claims to expose missteps and procedural errors in the investigation.
• In "Il Mostro", the second episode of Season 2 of the television series Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, the Monster of Florence is identified as a surgeon (played by Paul Sorvino). Suspected of being the Monster after the murders, he left Florence and continued to kill elsewhere in Europe and Asia. Now terminally ill, he returns to Florence and manipulates his son (played by Luca Malacrino), the product of an incestuous rape between the Monster and his own sister, into becoming a copycat killer.

• Zodiac killer
• List of fugitives from justice who disappeared