The body had been hidden in a closet, closed in two plastic bags, without clothes and with the ankles tied . The bags were sealed with adhesive tape , the first signs of decomposition were on the body. This is how the Carabinieri found Franco Bernardo Bergamin , an 80-year-old resident of Limena, on the outskirts of Padua. There had been no news of the man for about ten days. The motive for the murder is not yet clear but, according to the reconstruction, it could be linked to an argument with his partner, a 40-year-old of whom all traces have now been lost.
The alarm was raised by the pensioner's sister, worried about not having received any news from her brother. The firefighters and the Carabinieri entered the house in Limena, in a two-story building with four apartments in a public housing area. The rooms were apparently in order but the attention of the military was directed towards a sort of closet from which a strong smell was coming. When they opened the doors they discovered the body, which had wounds on the head. Numerous open bottles of perfume had been scattered around the room, probably to hide the smell of decomposition. The coroner Antonello Cirnelli arrived on site, while the Carabinieri began to collect the first clues and testimonies from the neighbors of the cases and family members.
From the information it would seem that the elderly man had been living with a 40-year-old for a couple of years, sometimes accompanied by a woman, who contributed to the expenses of the house, also paying rent. No trace of the man has been found and his searches have not had any results at the moment. His testimony will be crucial also because the neighbors have not seen him for about a week, precisely in the period to which the elderly man's death dates back.
Significant is the testimony of a resident of the building who told investigators that he had heard a loud noise of furniture being moved in Bergamin's apartment and that he had asked out loud what was happening, but had received no response. He added that he had no longer heard voices of dialogue coming from the house and that he had not met the 80-year-old for about ten days. Exactly the same period of silence complained of by the victim's sister who, worried, reached the relative's house and, receiving no answer to the doorbell, called for the intervention of the Carabinieri, coordinated by the prosecutor Marco Brusegan. The coroner, after an initial examination of the body, indicated that death occurred within a time frame compatible with the testimonies. The motive for the murder is not yet clear but it seems that there had recently been some arguments between the two.
(Unioneonline/vf)