♪ ♪ 911 emergency. >> has the jury reached a verdict? >> we the jury find -- >> they were young and in love. parked on lovers lane. they never saw the stranger hiding in the dark. >> this isn't just an isolated psychopathic killing. a serial killer is stalking the hills. >> 14 times he struck. 14 young lovers murdered by a killer with a strange obsession. >> she was positioned like someone who is looking to the

sky. >> soon, the papers had a nickname for him. >> we call him the monster of florence. >> but police didn't have a clue. was it a madman? how does a renaissance painting figure into a murder mystery? >> a jealous lover. >> it turned out they had been involved in absolutely kinky and depraved group sex. >> a secret satanic cult. >> i was thinking towards the end of this thing, i'm never going to see my wife and children again. >> can anyone solve the mystery before the monster strikes again? "murder on lovers lane." thanks for joining us. i'm stone phillips in florence. millions of people visit this city each year to admire its cultural treasures, one of them this place, the world-famous bargello museum, home to great works by michelangelo and donatello. but up until the 18th century, this was a grim prison where executions were carried out on the very spot where i'm standing.

the truth is, the history of florence, as glorious as it is, is also soaked in blood from religious wars to the intrigues and assassinations of the powerful medici family to the modern-day story we're going to tell you. it's about a killer unlike any other, a killer who is in some ways still claiming victims today. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i'm a crime novelist, i write thrillers. and i've never encountered a story like this either in fiction or in nonfiction. psychopathic murder of tremendous intelligence, of great abilities, and as cold-blooded as a human being could possibly be. it's really a story of tremendous evil. >> italy has seen its share of murder over the centuries, but never like this. a case that's been going on for decades. a series of crimes so gruesome,

so incomprehensible, seasoned investigators came to believe the devil himself was behind them. and an investigation like no other in which the hunters became the hunted. >> i feel like i've fallen into one of my novels because now i'm under investigation. >> for best-selling author douglas preston, it all began innocently enough six years ago when he decided to write a novel set in italy and with his family fulfill a longtime dream. >> we rented a villa in the country outside of florence with olive trees and cypresses around us and overlooking a vineyard. isn't it going to be wonderful? >> they made their home in the hills of tuscany, a gorgeous place steeped in history. just down the road was the villa of legendary explorer amerigo vespucci, after whom america is named. and right next door within sight of preston's house was another much grimmer landmark. >> the scene of one of the most

horrific killings in italian history. >> a double murder, part of a string in which 14 young people were killed as they made love in cars on country lanes. an unholy amalgam of romance and violence. >> a lot of people would hear that there was a murder just up on that hill and be a little spooked by it. maybe move. find another house. >> well, i was a little spooked. obviously my landlord never said anything about it, but the thing is that it interested me. >> after all, he was a mystery writer. these murders had never been solved, and preston soon learned, the killer had a name. the monster of florence. had you ever heard of it? >> never heard of it. i was really intrigued. the monster of florence, what a yoking together of two disparate words. you think of florence, this beautiful renaissance city, the birth of civilization, and then the monster of florence. i found that very intriguing. i had to know more about it. >> his research led him to a man named mario spezi. a well-known newspaper reporter in florence.

>> he's the local expert. at the paper they called him the monstrologer. >> because he knew so much about it. >> every killing he covered it, that's right. >> the two men met and struck up an instant friendship. soon they were discussing writing a book together about the case. but there was something else, too. >> i saw the obsession in mario when i first met him. >> obsession. it's a word that will come up again and again, but spezi says it was pure chance that plunged him into the abyss. it was june 1981, a sunday, when he got word of a double murder in the hills outside florence. >> a small street in the countryside. it's very hard to find. >> it's about as lovely as you can imagine, olive groves and wildflowers with a panoramic view of the city below, a perfect place for young couples to park and make love, which is exactly what the victims had been doing. spezi says the crime scene is still vivid in his mind, 25 years later.

a scene worthy of hannibal lecter. but this was real. and here's a warning, the details are graphic and disturbing. >> what i remember here was the car. the boy was in the driver's seat, and he looked like someone who was sleeping. >> but the young man, 30 years old, was not sleeping in the driver's seat. he was dead with a bullet in his head. spezi didn't see the second victim, a woman, until a police officer pointed across a dirt road. so he didn't want to go. he told you where she was. >> he wanted not to see it again. >> and when he found her, spezi understood why. >> she was positioned like someone is looking to the sky, the eyes open wide. >> she was on her back. >> yeah. >> the woman, age 21, had also been shot to death, then dragged into a field of wildflowers. her gold necklace between her lips. it was almost as if she had been posed. and there was something else. something ghastly. the killer had removed her --

>> yes. >> -- sexual organs. >> all sexual region, yes. >> had been cut away. >> cut away, taken away. >> he took it with him? >> yes. >> the medical examiner's report was quite horrific. he said that the mutilation had been performed with three very swift, powerful, and expert cuts with a knife, probably a scuba knife. >> why a scuba knife? >> the scuba knife has peculiar ves don't have. >> the killer had left only one hard piece of evidence. shell casings from a .22 caliber pistol. police quickly tested them and identified the type of gun that fired them as a long-barreled beretta, a common gun in italy, but this particular gun was different. >> the firing pin of this gun left an unmistakable mark because it had a defect in it that no other gun could leave.

and so this became a very important clue. >> the next day's paper carried mario spezi's story on the murder, and another reporter thought it sounded familiar. he remembered a double murder in 1974, seven years earlier. also young lovers on a country road but north of florence, 30 miles away from the recent crime. the young woman had been shot, then stabbed tentatively with just the tip of the knife dozens of times. a vine was inserted in her vagina, and on the ground, .22 caliber shells. police, of course, read the story too. >> they immediately went back to the shells of that killing and found that, in fact, they were from the same gun. >> the same defective firing pin marked both sets of shells. >> it was very shocking because it suddenly told the city of florence, this isn't just an isolated psychopathic killing. a serial killer is stalking the hills. >> and the killer was just getting started.

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here in the rolling hills outside florence, the fabled tuscan countryside, lurked a vicious killer. two double murders, seven years apart. four young lovers dead. one of the women sexually mutilated. mario spezi, then a young newspaper reporter, wrote story after story about the case. he had heard of other famous serial killers dubbed monsters, and he began to use that term as well. >> we called him the monster of florence. >> police desperately hunted the monster. in the process, they exposed some aspects of italian life you don't read about in the tourist brochures. american author doug preston. >> most people live with their parents until they're married.

so making love in parked cars is a national pastime. the beautiful hills surrounding florence on friday and saturday night were full of cars parked where kids were making out, making love. >> all the lovemaking was an open secret among florentines, but what police found next was not. investigating the terrible murders along lovers lanes like this one in the beautiful tuscan countryside, police uncovered a subculture that many florentines found disturbing. these hills were not only being stalked by a killer, they were also swarming with peeping toms. police quickly zeroed in on one of these voyeurs. >> they focused on a fellow who was an ambulance driver during the day and who had been creeping around those hills at night and they arrested him. he lied to them at first. of course, he lied. he didn't want to admit what he was doing, and then even when he did admit he was a voyeur, he lied about his movements that night and was contradicted by other people. so they thought, we've got our man, here he is. they arrested him.

>> but then in october of 1981, with the suspect in jail, the monster struck. once again, the victims were young lovers in their 20s, shot to death on a lovers lane in the countryside, murders five and six. the same beretta .22 was the murder weapon. the young woman suffered the same postmortem mutilation, performed with a notched knife. this murder set up a pattern that would repeat itself. police arrested a suspect and the killer, almost as if taunting them, killed again. >> and the police were humiliated and had to release him. >> the monster struck again eight months later in june of 1982 about ten miles south of florence. a young couple had parked just off a busy road. this time, the young man apparently spotted the killer. he saw the murderer coming? >> yes, because he tried to start with the car.

and the murderer to stop him shoots the boy. >> the young man managed to back the car across the road, but his rear wheels got stuck in a ditch. the car wouldn't move. >> the monster shot the two headlights out, and then he fired a shot which struck the boy in the middle of the forehead. and then when he went across the street and got into the car, he shot the boy a second time. >> and he shot the girl. >> and he shot the girl when he got in the car. >> but with the car stuck beside a busy road, the monster apparently didn't feel he had enough time to perform his ritual mutilation of the woman. he fled, once again leaving no clues to his identity. murders seven and eight. as the killings continued, the terror and paranoia ratcheted up. florentines changed their daily routines. they never traveled alone, and they eyed each other suspiciously because the monster could be any one of them. at one point, a witness thought he had seen the killer. police released a sketch. the result was chaos.

>> there was a man who owned a pizzeria outside of florence who looked just like him and was so harassed by his neighbors, that he cut his throat. he committed suicide. there was a butcher who looked just like this fellow. a mob formed in front of his butcher shop and the police had to come disperse the mob. there was a taxi driver who looked like this fellow. the people would scream and jump out of the taxi. >> what the sketch did not provide was any solid leads. then one day police got an anonymous letter containing a newspaper clipping. >> about a double killing that took place in 1968. >> all the way back to '68? >> all the way back to '68. and scrawled on this clipping was a sentence "take another look at this crime." >> the spent shells from the '68 murder were still in the evidence room. police tested them and were astonished to find that they matched the monster's gun. so the same gun, the same bullets were used in this 1968 killing? >> yes, and it was also the same m.o., a woman and a man who had

been making love in a car who were killed in the act of making love. >> so was it the monster? >> this is what they immediately thought, it must be the monster, but the strangest thing was this crime had been solved. the killer had been found. >> or had he? colon health probiotic cap a day helps defends against occasional constipation, diarrhea gas and bloating. you

the year was 1968. the crime, a double murder. the victims, a man and a woman making love in a parked car. the gun, the very same .22 beretta that the monster of florence was using to terrorize the tuscan countryside. now in their frantic hunt for the monster, police reopened what had seemed at the time like an open-and-shut case. >> the killer was the husband of the woman who was having an affair with somebody. and he had basically said that he was jealous of his wife having this affair. he had waited for them, and when they were making love, he jumped out of the bushes and killed them.

>> the killer's name was stefano mele. and all during the '70s and early '80s, when the monster killings took place, he was either in prison or a halfway house. >> there was no way this guy could be the monster. >> yet somehow the same gun was used in the '68 killing and these monster killings. >> that's right. exactly. >> how could the gun have passed from stefano mele to the monster of florence? italian reporter mario spezi got a clue when he managed to interview mele at the halfway house where he was being held. >> this is very important. he said, they will kill again. they, not he. >> who is they? >> that's when spezi realized that this man had not acted alone. he had had at least two accomplices. >> so many secrets buried in the tuscan hills, and another was about to be unearthed. police slowly realized that the 1968 murder was far more than the act of a jealous husband. >> it was actually a group of sardinians who had settled in

tuscany, and it appeared to be a clan killing in which the husband was the fall guy. he was going to be the shooter, he was the guy who was going to take the fall, but there were three other men involved. and each one had a motive. >> the group from the island of sardinia was known to be insular and violent. its leader, salvatore vinci, had a bizarre relationship with stephano mele and his wife. >> it turned out they had been involved in absolutely kinky and depraved group sex encounters where this woman was used as bait to lure young men and young women and sometimes even teenagers and children back to this house where they would have sex parties. and she was sort of the center of attention. they called her the queen bee. >> and preston claims vinci was enraged when the queen bee who had slept with all his sardinian countrymen, started an affair with an outsider, a sicilian. >> he was furious with her, and he wanted revenge.

>> investigators came to believe that salvatore vinci ordered his group to murder the queen bee and her lover. >> so the police formulated a theory that the monster of florence was one of these people who had got such a sick pleasure out of it, he just had to do it again and again and again. >> so the hunt for the monster focused on that circle of sardinians with access to the gun. the new strategy even had a name. >> the sardinian connection or in italian they called it the la piste sarde, the sardinian track. >> in 1982 police arrested one of the sardinians that they believed either was the monster or knew who was. and in september of 1983, while he was in custody -- >> the monster struck again. >> a young german couple was making love in the back of a vw bus. the monster shot through the window, killing both. murders nine and ten. >> and then he entered the vw bus, and that's when he discovered he had killed a

homosexual couple by mistake. >> police hit the sardinian gang again, arresting two more of its members. florentines hoped the terrifying case had finally been solved. but then in july 1984 came the headline everyone dreaded, "il mostro e tornato," the monster has returned. the victims were young lovers parked in the country north of florence, both shot to death with that same beretta .22, the woman, just 18, mutilated. but this time it was worse. >> in this case, the monster had done more than just remove the woman's vagina. he had also cut off and taken away her left breast. >> murders 11 and 12. there was outrage across italy, and now police were the focus of it. >> because again and again, the police have been arresting people, and again and again the monster had been killing people when those suspects were in custody. >> in september of 1985, the

monster committed a crime that hannibal lecter would find hard to top. the young lovers this time were tourists from france, camping in the hills south of florence. as they made love in their tent, the monster shot the woman in the face, killing her instantly. the man was shot several times, but somehow managed to burst from the tent. >> here's someone who's running for his life, and yet the killer was actually able to catch him, reach up behind him, cut his throat. >> the killer then returned to the tent and mutilated the dead woman in his new, more terrible way. but he still wasn't done. >> one of the prosecutors in the case, a woman named silvia della monica, received in the mail a letter addressed like a ransom note, you know, letters cut out of a newspaper. and inside was one item, it was the nipple from the victim. >> the monster's grisly taunt was the exclamation point on a string of murders that had spanned 11 years and taken 14

lives. it had transfixed and terrorized a nation. investigators tried one last time to crack the sardinian clan they arrested its leader, salvatore vinci, whom they had long suspected but didn't have the evidence to convict him. >> much to everyone's chagrin and outrage, he was acquitted. just too much time had passed. i mean witnesses were vague. they couldn't remember. the hard evidence was gone. and he walked. and this was a huge surprise because they were so sure they were going to convict him that they hadn't anticipated that he was going to walk, and they didn't have any charges ready to hold him on after that. that guy walked out of the courtroom and he disappeared. and he's never been seen again. >> crushing, after six years of investigation, the sardinian track had apparently come to a dead end. the gun had not been found. the monster of florence was still at large. italian authorities sought help from outside the country.

they asked the fbi's behavioral science unit to formulate a psychological profile of the monster. the fbi report described a lone killer, sexually impotent, acting out a ritualized anger toward women. someone who felt he could only possess a woman by murdering her and mutilating her body. italian investigators questioned hundreds of men but made no progress. until they received an anonymous letter about a farmer who lived just outside florence. >> pietro pacciani was known to be very violent. he beat his children, he beat his wife. people were frightened of him. >> he was certainly a monster, but was he the monster? police arrest a man they suspect of being a serial killer who has murdered 14 young lovers. will the killings stop? when "murder on lovers lane" continues.

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msnbc now. i'm craig melvin. shoppers have a few more hours to get last-minute gifts and many stores are offering huge markdowns. retailers could bring in $417 billion this holiday season. despite leading the polls in virginia newt gingrich may win the state. the former house speaker and rick perry will not appear on the primary ballot because they failed to submit ret choired numbers of signatures. write-ins in the commonwealth are not permitted. more news on msnbc. in november 1994, pietro pacciani, fingered by an anonymous tip, went on trial. accused of being italy's most notorious serial killer. it had been almost nine years since the murders had mysteriously stopped. now all of italy was focused on one question. was pacciani the monster of florence?

>> he was a drunken peasant who as a young man in 1951 had caught his fiancee being seduced by a traveling salesman. he had killed the traveling salesman, stomped his head in, and them raped his fiancee next to his body. >> and prosecutors claimed, the the murderous pacciani had said something that seemed to link him to the monster killings decades later. >> when he saw his fiancee uncover her left breast, that's when he had gone crazy. >> the left breast? >> very important clue. >> important because in his last two killings, the monster had cut off the left breast of his female victims. and why did the monster killings suddenly stop in the mid-1980s? pacciani's history offered a sordid explanation for that too. >> he had been in prison for raping his daughters. >> police found another set of clues when they searched pacciani's house. first, an erotic print of a woman, her breast exposed with what looks like a flower between her lips. second, a fine art print.

>> they found a reproduction of that famous painting by botticelli, the primavera. >> the original hangs in florence's uffizi gallery. on the right, you'll see a nymph being stalked by hermes. the greek god who escorts the dead to the underworld. look closer. >> flowers and vines are sort of spilling out of her mouth, kind of vomiting flowers and vines. >> remember the 1981 murder where the mutilated young woman was found in a field of wildflowers, her necklace draped across her lips? for the prosecutor, that image plus the nude plus the botticelli added up to evidence against pacciani. prosecutors argued he had staged the '81 crime scene to feed some strange obsession. how does a renaissance painting figure into a murder mystery? >> this is italy where history lives on in the present. and, you know, the idea that a renaissance painting is a clue to a modern crime is very sexy

and appealing. >> pacciani's trial, attended by families of the monster's young victims, was a media sensation. >> they had pacciani's daughters testifying about how he had raped them. testimony from the murder that he committed in 1951 was horrifying. all this was just -- just made pacciani look like a monster. >> and when it was over? >> he was convicted. as you might expect. >> but italian journalist mario spezi never believed that pacciani was the monster. for one thing, the gun and the knife that connected all the murders had never been found, and never linked to pacciani. what's more, spezi had been to every crime scene, and he knew the killer had to be smart, fast, skillful, nothing like the dim, drunk, overweight pacciani. spezi also saw a glaring contradiction. pacciani was a sex criminal, a convicted rapist. for the monster, mutilation seemed to take the place of sex. was there any evidence that the killer had sexually assaulted

the victim? >> never, never. he never had sexual -- >> activity. >> -- activity with the victims, never. >> spezi had also seen that fbi profile of the monster and thought it just didn't match pacciani at all. the profile said the killer was probably sexually dysfunctional. pacciani was not. probably lived alone or with an older relative. pacciani had a wife and children. and was probably in his 20s at the time of the first murder. pacciani had been almost 50. >> you know, from the theory of the botticelli paintings and the way of the working fbi, i prefer fbi. >> in 1996 pacciani's conviction was overturned and he was released. but then the monster case, already as intricate as the duomo, got even more complicated. a new witness came forward to say that he was involved in the killings. >> he said, we were working for somebody else who needed body parts.

well, immediately, the question arose, well, what was the purpose of the body parts? and the question was quickly answered, for satanic rituals, for black masses, for offerings to the devil. >> incredible as it seems, even though the witness admitted he had never met the satanists, even though there were signs he was mentally unstable, police jumped on the new theory that a satanic sect was behind the monster killings. >> translator: in this story of the monster of florence, there are elements that point to the theme of satanism. >> michele giuttari, a tough-talking, cigar-chomping veteran of the florence police department, says the evidence includes stone circles found not far from one crime scene. >> translator: inside one of these circles were found two roses and a wooden cross stuck upside down in the ground. this is clearly a satanic symbol. >> he also believes this oddly shaped stone found at another crime scene might have been left by satanists.

what do you think of this theory? >> it's completely crazy. it's completely crazy. >> spezi developed his own very different theory based on something he says he was told by a high-ranking member of the carabinieri, the italian federal police. >> they tell me to a journalist who is writing about the monster, they told this new story very interesting. >> the carabinieri had withdrawn from the case years before, reportedly outraged at the way it was being managed by local investigators. >> but obsession is obsession. they continued a secret investigation into the sardinian connection to see if they could figure out who the monster of florence was. >> the unofficial investigation had led to a suspect. he was the son of one of the sardinians involved in the '68 murder. so he could have gotten hold of the gun. the key to the whole mystery. >> this is the real, real problem of the case of the monster of florence. >> who has the gun and how they

got it? >> yeah. >> spezi interviewed people who knew the suspect. they told him the man was a crack shot and an expert with a knife. and he had lived in another part of italy during the late '70s. that mysterious gap in the monster killings. spezi began to compare the new suspect against the fbi profile of the monster and found key similarities. the fbi said the monster probably picked murder locations he knew well. spezi found the suspect had lived near all the murder sites. the fbi said the monster probably was sexually dysfunctional. spezi found out that at the height of the killing spree, the suspect had a marriage annulled for inability to conceive children, which spezi believes was code for impotence. and remember the first monster killing in 1974 with those tentative stab wounds? the new suspect would have been just 15 at the time. perhaps still uncertain what his murderous ritual would be. while inspector giuttari chased satanists, spezi spent years

looking closer and closer at the carabinieri suspect. by the time he met preston in 2000, he had a convincing case. >> the more we looked at it, the more we eliminated other possible suspects, the more it seemed likely that he was the person, that he was the monster of florence. >> they began to refer to him by a pseudonym, carlo, and agreed he would be the focus of their book. they decided they had to talk to him. >> we went to his house at 9:30 at night, rang his doorbell. got buzzed up, no problem. >> after two decades on the trail, was spezi along with preston, about to confront the monster of florence? on my phone, i got internet! hotspot five dollars. hey, hey, hey, hey. i can see who's on my network people! lance? lance? yes, yes you are next. all right. dave, i'm in. ♪ ♪ katie!

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returning to our story, a serial killer stalks young

lovers in the hills of tuscany and defies all attempts to catch him. an italian reporter and an american writer are hunting the killer. but soon they will be hunted themselves. the monster of florence murdered 14 young lovers, terrorized a city, and eluded capture for 30 years. now authors mario spezi and douglas preston had arrived unannounced at the home of carlo, a truck driver they suspected might be italy's most notorious serial killer. >> and he invited us in with great charm and welcome. he was a very charismatic individual. also he was strange. he was dressed only in his underwear. he was very powerful with big rippling muscles and tattoos and scars on his body that looked like knife wounds or perhaps bullet wounds. it was hard to tell. >> and how old? >> he was about mid-40s, mid to late 40s. he seated us at his kitchen table. he offered us a glass of a

special type of sardinian liquor. >> he was a very intelligent man, and he joked with us. >> and we proceeded to ask him questions, very gently at first. questions about the case, you know, general questions. and, finally, the questions got more and more pointed until it was obvious to him and to us that we were accusing him of being the monster of florence. he never lost his smile. he never lost his charm. he never said wait a minute, what are you accusing me of? how dare you? no, he was so charming, so nice. >> he denied ever having a monster's gun, but he did say he owned a knife. >> the scuba knife, that that was his knife of choice. now, the medical examiner's report said that the mutilations had been performed probably with a scuba knife, which is a very particular kind of knife with a notch in it and serrations. >> the same kind of knife that the notch had been used in the killings? >> in the killings. >> then spezi asked the biggest question of all.

>> so you are not the monster of florence? >> you asked him outright? >> i asked him directly. i asked him, mario, i'm sorry. i can't let you do this scoop. >> i can't let you do this scoop. >> then he said something very vulgar in italian. >> the gist of it being what? >> the gist of it, i like my women living when i have sex with them. >> then the writers got up to leave. >> he said, ah, spezi, i forgot something. >> i never joke. >> and i never kid around. >> what did you take that to mean? >> well, it was a threat. in italian it's even more of a threat than it is in english. >> as you left his home after speaking to him, what did you think? >> well, me and doug, we were silent. we entered our car, and then almost at the same time, we say, it's him. >> if it was him, if carlo was the monster, it was a stunning moment. and it would make a great ending to their book on the monster case.

but another author was also at work on that other theory of the crimes. >> translator: i believe i have done my duty, seriously and for many years. i wanted to make the recent developments official in my book. so that this story is not forgotten. >> florence police inspector michele giuttari was writing his own book, and who could blame him? books on the monster case are big sellers in italy. and giuttari thought he had compelling evidence that a satanic cult was behind the monster killings like that oddly shaped stone found at one of the murder scenes. >> translator: a uniquely shaped rock was found, in the form of a truncated pyramid, to which the experts on satanism granted importance. >> florence was intrigued. mario spezi was amused. >> i called some friends of mine, and in an afternoon i found seven. >> seven of these. >> yes, it's a common object. >> and what was this strangely carved stone? >> an antique tuscan doorstop.

you can find them in antique stores all over tuscany. >> the foundation of the satanic cult theory was a doorstop. spezi soon published his findings in the newspaper. >> and he ridiculed giuttari. ridiculed him. >> it was a classic spat between two writers, except that one of the writers was also a cop. >> the police arrived at spezi's apartment 6:00 in the morning, turned the place upside down. then behind spezi's door, they found the doorstop. later in the report they made they said that now they had evidence that connected spezi directly to the scene of one of the crimes and to the satanic sect. >> it seemed incredible, but it was no joke. >> here's a guy who knows everything. he's followed the case obsessively. >> and he had the hexagonal stone. >> and he had the hexagonal stone. >> mario spezi, reporter, now a suspect. so you were under investigation -- >> yes. >> -- for murder?

>> for murder. >> and just when you think this case couldn't get any stranger, another twist. an ex-con came to spezi and in return for a few euros gave him a white-hot tip. the source claimed that carlo had taken him to one of his hideaways on the grounds of this centuries-old villa, and what he had seen inside might crack the monster case once and for all. >> he told me that he saw in his house the gun and in a little armoire six metallic boxes. >> the gun, and in an armoire, six boxes matching the number of women who had been mutilated by the monster. tantalizing, and if true, proof that carlo was the killer. did you believe it? >> well, yes. >> spezi just about had a heart attack. he was telling me this. i said, mario, this sounds too good to be true. >> it's a renaissance villa. >> but preston was intrigued enough that he asked spezi to

take him to the villa. >> so mario's thinking, finally, this is the place? >> exactly. >> preston says they didn't get a chance to investigate. >> we did a very quick little walk around, but it was pouring rain. and we didn't do anything else. we were there for no more than 10 to 15 minutes. >> they found no answers that day. just more trouble than they ever imagined possible. >> i was thinking towards the end of this thing, i'm never going to see my wife and children again. all because so many people came to louisiana... they came to see us in florida... make that alabama... make that mississippi. the best part of the gulf is wherever you choose... and now is a great time to discover it. this year millions of peopl e di d. set a kin ds o record next year we're out to do even better. so come on down to louisiana... florida... alabama... mississippi. we can't wait to see you. brought to you by bp and all of us who call the gulf home. i can't figure out what to get for my husband. easy. name some things that aren't on your list. jumper cables, camo anything, a power drill

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w8móooóoog in the spring of 2006, douglas preston and mario spezi's book on the monster of florence case was published in italy. the authors described their lone suspect who they called by a pseudonym, carlo. and they ridiculed the work of police inspector michele giuttari whose own book claimed a satanic cult was

responsible for the murders. >> they spin these outrageous theories, satanic sex, body parts used in bizarre rituals, and then they start looking for the evidence to support the theories. >> giuttari claimed it was spezi and preston who were spinning a fairy tale. >> translator: if he writes a novel and then says it's the truth, it's not right. it's presumptuous. he isn't telling the truth. >> the war of the writers was about to escalate. remember, acting on a tip, spezi and preston had gone to an old villa searching for evidence against carlo. they found nothing, but soon afterward, preston's cell phone rang. a judge overseeing the monster case wanted to talk to him immediately. preston went to his office. what did they want to know? >> they asked, why did you go to the villa? what did you do there? how long did you spend there? and you know, my italian is not perfect. i started stumbling and stammering which i do in italian and it suddenly occurred to me, my god, i sound like i'm lying to them. >> and then a twist that truly

shocked him. >> the judge nodded to the stenographer, she pressed the button on her computer and here's my voice. here i am talking to mario spezi. >> giuttari and his men had been tapping spezi's phone, and even broken into his car, planting bugs there, too. they recorded him and preston discussing the case. and on tape, spezi said something that struck the judge as highly suspicious. we did it, we did it all. >> we did it. we did it. yes. >> spezi says what he meant was that he had turned all his information about carlo over to police. but the judge interrogating preston had a different interpretation. >> he said you went to the villa to plant evidence to incriminate an innocent man of being a monster of florence to deflect suspicion from mario spezi himself, who, as you know, is being investigated for murder. >> this is like out of a crime novel. >> yeah, it is. and he said, you're an accessory to murder if you don't tell us what you know. at this point, i thought they

were going to put me in handcuffs and take me into a cell or something. >> the judge told him he had another option, get out of the country. >> i left italy the next day. >> but mario spezi had nowhere to go. they arrested you? >> yeah, i was six days, six days in a cell without seeing anyone. >> in solitary confinement? >> yeah. >> and the man who put him there? his literary rival, inspector michele giutarri. giutarri now says he does not suspect spezi of murder, but does say he obstructed justice. why would preston and spezi plant evidence? >> translator: probably because this would have been proof of the sardinian connection and therefore, all the work that the police and the prosecutor's office had done was mistaken. it's also possible that he had his book in mind. >> the inspector told us he had proof that spezi and preston were dead wrong about carlo, the

man they suspected of being the monster. >> translator: evidently, mr. preston did not do the least bit of fact checking. in 1983 when the two young germans were killed, this person was in prison for another crime unrelated to the monster crimes. >> if giutarri was so sure that carlo was not the monster, we asked if he would set up a meeting for us and that night at giutarri's office, it happened. after conferring with him for nearly an hour, carlo agreed to speak to us, but not on camera. standing face-to-face, at times uncomfortably close, carlo answered our questions with a smile that barely concealed his contempt. we asked if he was good with a knife. he said no, although he does own a scuba knife. he's a diver. we asked if he was a good shot. he said he had never fired a gun. not even a toy. we asked about his prison record. he said he was sure he had been in prison during one of the monster killings.

he just couldn't remember which one. we later checked his record and found that, in fact, carlo had never been in jail during any of the monster killings. he and giuttari were either mistaken or lying about that. but carlo did have a criminal record. the man who had claimed he had never fired even a toy gun had been arrested for illegal possession of firearms. we asked carlo flat out, are you the monster of florence? he locked eyes, gripped my hand and said one word innocente, innocent. when we asked if there was anything more he wanted to tell us, he said what really made him angry was spezi and preston's suggestion that he was sexually impotent. his words, and i quote, if spezi's wife were younger and prettier, i'd show them who isn't impotent. i'd show you right here, right now, on this table.

so here we are, more than 20 years after the end of a killing spree that left 14 young people dead. the murder weapon has never been found. there's no definitive proof of a sardinian connection, let alone of a satanic cult. the guy who tipped spezi about the villa and iron boxes was a con man out to make a few bucks and the endless investigation has now turned into a monster itself eating more of its own. the judge who interrogated doug preston is under investigation for abuse of his office. so is inspector giuttari who told us carlo was in jail when he really wasn't. giutarri is also serving a suspended sentence for making false statements in an unrelated case. and mario spezi, a high court in rome finally cleared him of criminal wrongdoing. he says the book about carlo is the last thing he'll ever write on the monster case. do you believe it? >> i believe. >> do you believe he's the one? >> i can't prove, but i believe. >> does it even matter anymore? pia was just 18 in 1984 when the

monster killed her and her boyfriend. pia's mother told us she stopped wondering who the monster is long ago. knowing won't bring pia back. but doug preston says he has to know. >> why do people become obsessed? you just think you're so close, i think the next bit of information that i turn up is going to strike gold. it's going to illuminate the truth. the truth is lurking somewhere in the world, all we have to do is find it. >> the monster may never be caught, but according to one famous florentine, he'll never escape either. in his poem "the inferno," renowned italian poet dante alighieri detailed the punishments he said await for each sinner in hell. the murderers, he wrote, are boiled in blood. that's all for now. i'm stone phillips. for ann curry and all of us at