Almost three people a day, for a total of 900 missing persons reports in 2023: a number that gives you chills, especially when compared to another. «Given these almost one thousand cases, only once was the search activation plan required by law activated» reports Fabrizio Pace, psychologist, criminologist and president of Penelope Piemonte, the association that has been helping the families of missing people since 2012. «Our very existence confirms that there is a flaw in the system. We are volunteers and act as a bridge with the institutions, which should involve us directly in the research. Instead we receive very few complaints and the institutions often ask us for help: it is clear that something needs to change.”
Unfortunately, the phenomenon reported by Penelope is nothing new and the numbers confirm it. What pushed the association to publicly denounce the problem was the emblematic case of Claudio Ellena, the 86-year-old who disappeared on February 14th and was found lifeless on March 5th, twenty days later. The old man was on a cliff in Pino Torinese, sitting aboard his Lancia Ypsilon: «We must all feel responsible for letting a person die of starvation – Pace pressed – The autopsy says that Ellena died of a pulmonary embolism, so it wasn’t an accident. He could have been saved, but instead he suffered a long agony because we didn’t look for him properly.”
Claudio Ellena and, above, his Lancia Ypsilon in the cliff at Pino Torinese
Pace retraces what was done and not done in the twenty days between the disappearance and the discovery of the 86-year-old from Turin. Next to him are his family: «It is sad to know that a missing person is not being searched for. It must never happen to others again” Maria Teresa Ellena, Claudio’s sister, vents her voice with a broken voice. “When we filed a report, the police didn’t define it as a disappearance but as a voluntary removal – recalls Claudio Ellena’s niece, Patrizia Zaccara – Then we found ourselves asking every day, without anyone telling us anything about the searches.”
Maria Teresa Ellena and Patrizia Zaccara
Initially it emerged that the 86-year-old’s mobile phone had first connected to the cell of the Collegno airfield and then to that of the Tetti Miglioretti area in Pino Torinese, where he was then found: «Yet they only looked for him in Collegno and not in Pino – underlines Pace – And even today there is no authorization to recover the call records”.
Zaccara resumes: «We went everywhere to look for my uncle, who was then found by chance. Our appeal is that he does not repeat himself with other people and that searches be organized immediately, that his cell phone be located, that flights with helicopters and drones be carried out to find people who can often be easily traced ».
Ellena’s relatives report, in essence, the contents of the brief that they sent to the public prosecutor Alessandro Aghemo (supported by the Penelope association and the lawyer Roberto Saraniti). Now the prosecutor is investigating for manslaughter against unknown persons: «We ask the investigators to explain to us when Claudio died: the autopsy doesn’t say it but there are elements that demonstrate how he lived in that car for a long time. Our hypothesis is that there was negligence in the rescue efforts.”
According to the Penelope association, Ellena’s case could be just one of many: «People cannot be searched by issuing a statement to the police. You have to actively look for them, wandering around the places where they can be found from the early hours. Otherwise we will never find them and what happened to Mr. Claudio could happen to any of us”.
Fabrizio Pace, president of the Penelope association
It wouldn’t even be the first time, as Pace himself recalls. A sad “precedent” is that of Flavio Cogotti, 55 years old, who disappeared from Orbassano hospital and was found dead ten days later, 500 meters away. It was July 21, 2022 and he was hospitalized there for tests. He suffered from anxiety and depression, with states of mental confusion and temporary amnesia. In the following hours, searches began with canine units of the Carabinieri, local police and civil protection, collecting testimonies of sightings between Rivalta and Turin. False alarms, evidently: his body, in an advanced state of decomposition, was found on the evening of July 31st in via Prima Strada at the Interporto Sito (not far from the hospital).
«We had given precise indications on the location of the searches, also because he had left there in slippers and diapers – recalls Fabrizio Pace, president of the Penelope association – Unfortunately they looked for him outside Turin, but he was only 500 meters from the hospital. Then we asked for an autopsy and to investigate, yet nothing was done: we cannot accept that no one is responsible for such a tragedy».
