The car, closed, parked in via Tirso, on the outskirts of the town. The mobile phone that has been silent for days, unreachable after having hooked up for the last time - last August 31 - a cell of the network: the one located somewhere else from the inhabited center, near the roadman's house on Statale 198, in correspondence of the crossroads for the town, where there is a fountain and a shaded rest area. From here to via Tirso there are three kilometers. How, with whom, in which car Mauro Pitzalis traveled them are the elements at the center of the mystery of his disappearance. The 31-year-old worker, an employee of a company based in Orroli that deals with building and installing gutters, disappeared into thin air on 31 August.
The parents filed a complaint in the Isili carabinieri barracks two days later, on 2 September, after the young man's father found his son's car parked in via Tirso. Since then there have been an appeal on social media, promoted by the mayor Antonello Atzeni and relaunched by friends, and researches starting from the roadman's house. Since Sunday evening, the coordination center set up in that area by firefighters, carabinieri and civil protection is no longer there: searches suspended, explained by the provincial command of the Nuoro Arma, waiting to identify a further concrete clue. Which at the moment is not there.
The investigations
"We participated with a dozen volunteers," confirms the president of the Sarcidano civil protection, Antonella Cuccu: "But coordination is entrusted to the carabinieri." That is to the Compagnia di Isili, which deals with the investigations and just yesterday saw the handover between the old commander, Captain Elias Ruiu, and the new one, Captain Benedetto Paolucci, who will find the case file on his desk this morning.
Technically - they explain from the Command of Nuoro - we investigate in all directions: we cannot exclude the voluntary removal, but the elements to fear the worst are substantial. Starting from the circumstance that the disappearance took place while the festivities for Santa Rosa entered the heart of the village, the most heartfelt ones (especially this year, after two unsung editions due to a pandemic, and therefore with three "levers" of fifty-year-olds - 1970, '71 and '72 - involved in the organization, including an uncle of Mauro who obviously had to say goodbye to the committee). It is known that an ancient and sinister island tradition prefers, for revenge, the choice of a festive occasion, so that the pain of the victim's relatives is renewed from year to year.
The feast for Santa Rosa did not stop but the community is shaken.
The family
Did anyone want to take revenge on Mauro Pitzalis for something? There is nothing against him, the investigators point out. It is useless to ask family members: at the ringing of the doorbell in the elementary school area, a young woman responds simultaneously, her aching face, half-opens the door on the ground floor and a man who looks out of a window on the first floor. "We're not interested in talking to reporters," he says. "We have nothing to say," she echoes. "Goodbye," in chorus. Same answer from an uncle called by a friend on the phone: "The family prefers not to make statements."
The confirmation comes from the mayor Antonello Atzeni: "They ask to be left alone." He himself, moreover, is inclined towards discretion: «We are all waiting for news - he merely declares - and the whole country hopes that they will be positive. Every day that passes the anguish grows ».
Marco Noce
Envoy