A Lucky Turnaround for Alkantara Fest

e Crime tRU

a diabolical Riddle

by Gabriel Arata

In February of 1958, Domenico Modugno’s Nel Blu Dipinto di Blu was still the number one hit across Italy. On the evening of the 24th, a Monday, in Turin, anyone at home or in a bar, even at work, would have heard it played on a radio. Except for Mario Giliberti, and perhaps one other person. That same evening an unknown man called the police from a phone booth. «I killed a man near the river Po,» he says. But the police do not take him seriously. The next day a cryptic letter arrives at Stampa Sera, Turin’s newspaper. It leaves journalists puzzled. Meanwhile, Giliberti, a 28 year-old worker at Fiat, has missed work for several days and his colleagues have started to wonder where he might be or what may have happened to him. One of them heads to Mario’s apartment and what he finds will haunt him for the rest of his life. The police arrive at Mario’s small apartment shortly after having been called. The detectives find two espresso cups sitting on the kitchen table. At the base of the table they notice something that appears to be blood, and a trail that leads to the base of the bed where Mario, dressed in pyjamas, lay dead, his body and face carefully covered with blankets. When unveiled, the body showed eighteen stab wounds were inflicted mercilessly. A murder weapon is not to be found, and never will be. On the floor near the bed were scattered a bunch of photos, each depicting the victim next to someone who has been cut away. That someone will always remain a mystery. Missing are a few of Mario’s belongings such as photo-cameras, alarm clocks, and some jewellery. But carefully placed for the police to find is a message, “You will manage to find the murderer,” it reads, with some of the words seemingly deliberately misspelt, perhaps as a ruse to divert the attention of the detectives. Something else is puzzling for the police. That delicate and caring last gesture of covering Mario’s face. Today it is considered a clear sign of a very close relationship between the victim and the culprit. In 1958, however, it was somehow considered irrelevant. When the police arrived at the apartment, the journalists from Stampa Sera were still attempting to decipher the anonymous letter. They eventually cracked it by individuating the final syllable of each line, which revealed the address where the body was found - Via Fontanesi, 20. In addition to the riddle was a message that seemed like an attempt to communicate a motive. The letter reads, “Once the victim and I were friends and wore the same uniform, then he betrayed me as though I were a dog. He was happy today so my vendetta was successful. I hope you find his body before it decays. If you read the letter attentively, you will find the address where my perfect crime was committed.” The letter was signed Diabolich. The body was found on the 25th of February and Mario had been missing since the 15th, and when combined with the progression of decomposition, it was estimated his murder was committed on the 14th, Valentine’s Day, the day of lovers.

Both the police and the press groped in the dark. They had no concrete leads on a killer or a motive until they discovered a photo hidden in a pocket of Mario’s wallet. It was a photo of Mario with another man, who, unlike the other photographs found at the apartment, had not been cut away.

The man was soon identified as Aldo Cugini, a young scion belonging to a very wealthy family and apparently related to Pope Pius XII. Public opinion was generally in support of Cugini, people found it hard to believe that such a wellto-do person would have had anything to do with the victim, and which would have also implied a homosexual relationship. Yet Aldo’s handwriting was matched to that of the killer’s letters, and he was charged with the murder, though he always denied having engaged in any sordid relationship with Mario. Diabolich kept writing letters to the press. Some were likely forgeries, but some were proved to be authentic. Cugini was eventually released after a few months in response to growing evidence that Diabolich was still out there. Fear struck the city of Turin for years, until Diabolich wrote a final letter in

which he stated: “My crime is not a game to repeat”. Thus, it would seem that the crime was one of passion and jealousy the motive. We will never find out the truth about this crime, but, as the perfect plot for a fiction, in 1962 the name on the letters at least inspired the Giussani sisters, Angela and Luciana, to create Diabolik, one of the most popular comic characters ever created in Italy.