The cold case of Cristina Mazzotti reopens in Milan , the 18-year-old kidnapped and killed 47 years ago, the first woman to be kidnapped by the Anonima kidnappings in Northern Italy.
There is a new investigation - the third - by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office which sees four people from the old Milanese mala linked to the 'Ndrangheta under investigation for the murder of the girl, kidnapped for extortion purposes.
The turning point came from the latest investigations by the Flying Squad, which prompted prosecutors Alberto Nobili and Stefano Civardi to open a new file.
"Segregating her in a hole without sufficient ventilation and the possibility of walking, administering massive doses of tranquilizers and stimulants, caused the death" of the 18-year-old just as her father - between July 31 and August 1, 1975 - paid the ransom.
The four suspects are Demetrio Latella, Giuseppe Calabrò, Antonio Romeo and Antonio Talia , all made use of the right not to answer.
Cristina Mazzotti was kidnapped on the evening of July 1, 1975 outside her villa in Eupilio (Como). The girl's father, Helios, was asked for a ransom of 5 billion lire and after a month the man collected 1 billion and 50 million which he paid.
But on 1 September 1975 an anonymous phone call to the carabinieri told them to dig in a landfill in Galliate (Novara), where the body was found. Cristina, he pointed to the autopsy, had been killed by a cocktail of drugs .
A first trial ended in Novara with 13 sentences of which eight were life sentences against supporters but not for the perpetrators of the kidnapping which ended in murder. In 2007 a fingerprint, thanks to the new database, was attributed to Demetrio Latella. The investigating judge rejected his request for arrest for lack of precautionary needs, but Latella admitted that he was one of the kidnappers and called in two other people.
The file was archived in 2012 by prescription , but in the meantime - in 2015 - a sentence of the Supreme Court declared the crime of voluntary homicide imprescriptible. So the lawyer of the Mazzotti family re-proposed a complaint, starting the new investigations.
(Unioneonline / L)
