A mystery that has lasted for 36 years. This is what surrounds the death of Pier Paolo Minguzzi , a conscript carabiniere and university student , son of fruit and vegetable entrepreneurs from the Ravenna area, kidnapped and killed on the night between 20 and 21 April 1987 as he was returning home after taking his fiancée back to the province of Ferrara.
The boy's body had resurfaced in the waters of the Po about ten days after his disappearance: the kidnappers had hogtied him and ballasted him to a heavy metal grate . And, even though they knew he was already dead, they had continued to ask the family for a ransom of 300 million lire .
The investigation into the crime, initially opened against unknown persons, had been closed in September 1996 and reopened in January 2018, this time against two former carabinieri at the time on duty at the Alfonsine barracks, in the province of Ravenna, and against a plumber from the same village.
In the past, the three had been convicted, and had served their sentences, for a ransom of 300 million lire to another local businessman. And during a police post in July 1987, a young soldier originally from Caserta was killed by a bullet fired by one of the three.
But, as regards the Minguzzi case, the three were acquitted, despite the prosecutor's request for life imprisonment , because the hypothesis of their involvement, writes the president of the Court of Assizes of Ravenna Michele Leoni in the reasons for the acquittal , are "without any evidence".
For Leoni, however, the outlines of the crime seem certain: "It was a mafia-style murder", a "classic example of a white lupara".
The Court also pointed out all the "dark sides" of the case, at the same time indicating the new points of verification on which the investigations should focus, starting with the position of a seasonal waiter who, in the days following the kidnapping, had become involved in the affair with calls and letters to the then girlfriend of the deceased.
But, as mentioned, after almost 40 years the Minguzzi crime remains a whodunit to be solved.
(Unioneonline/lf)