100 Murder Cases

The Monster of Florence

From the late 1960s through 1985 or so, someone murdered at least 14 people in and around the Florence, Italy. The case is famous, in part due to its resemblance to the Zodiac murders in Northern California in 1968-69.

Il Mostro, as Italians called him, targeted couples parking on lovers' lanes. He killed with a .22 and a knife and added a gruesome signature: cutting off parts of the women he murdered as souvenirs. He may have also stalked some victims prior to the murders and taunted their families after.

Police didn't lack for suspects, the most noted being convicted murderer and "Peeping Tom" Pietro Pacciani. In fact, Pacciani stood trial for Il Mostro's crimes and was convicted—only to have the conviction overturned. Then Pacciani's friends Mario Vanni and Giancarlo Lotti were convicted of the murders and imprisoned—but few Italians are convinced they collaborated on the crimes.

Theories about the case such as some kind of satanic link (a common suggestion regarding unusually strange murders) abound, but there is a powerful feeling among many Italians still that they don't really know the answers to this mystery at all.