Construction worker, strongly attached to his family, present husband and proud father of his daughters. Never a problem with the law. No one could have imagined that Salvatore Vassalli, 59 years old from Canosa di Puglia, could be the murderer of Mauro Di Giacomo, the esteemed physiotherapist shot dead under his home in via Tauro, in the Poggiofranco district of Bari, on the evening of 18 December 2023. The investigations, coordinated by the Bari Public Prosecutor’s Office, despite an initial moment of uncertainty linked to a misleading clue, made it possible to collect elements which, piece by piece, led to the identification of the 59-year-old from Canosi as the presumed person responsible for an apparently unexplained crime.
The precautionary measure
The man was arrested and taken to prison. He is responsible for the crimes of voluntary homicide, aggravated by premeditation and cruelty. In fact, from the findings it emerged that, after having discharged all the bullets from the gun onto the victim, he attacked his body by hitting him in the face with the butt of the weapon. He then fled in his dark car. Vassalli knew Doctor Di Giacomo. One of his daughters had turned to the professional in 2019 for physiotherapy sessions on her arm but, perhaps due to a wrong manoeuvre, she had suffered permanent damage to the limb. For this alleged error, always denied by the physiotherapist, a civil lawsuit was brought for compensation for damages. Di Giacomo would also have proposed a conciliatory path. Salvatore Vassalli, however, had never accepted the injury suffered by his daughter and for years harbored hatred towards the professional until the dramatic epilogue.
The motive for the assassination, therefore, was to be found in his idea that it was necessary to take justice into his own hands. The investigations revealed that the 59-year-old Canosino had carried out inspections under the victim’s home and near his professional office on more than one occasion, as early as February 2023. On the evening of December 18, upon his arrival home, Dr. Di Giacomo found himself in front of him. First a brief discussion, then the shots and then the escape towards Canosa di Puglia. The alleged murderer was framed by the images of the video surveillance cameras which recorded what is presumed to be his car first run a red light and then take a road against traffic.
The cross-checks then led to defining the picture of the situation. «I’m unaware of everything, he never told me anything. In the evening he is always here”, said Vassalli’s wife, interviewed by a television journalist.
A bolt from the blue. No one in the house knew anything, even though, according to the wiretaps, when speaking with his daughter Vassalli he made a comment that the investigators interpreted as an attempt to exculpate himself for what had happened.
Prosecutor Rossi: «This is like the wild west»
“The alleged murderer committed this act believing he had to take justice into his own hands.” commented the Bari prosecutor Roberto Rossi.
«The constant delegitimization of judges and the judicial system entails the risk of using violence to be right instead of waiting for the correct social dynamics», added the chief prosecutor of Bari. «If you think that you can do without the judges or that judges as a category do not respond to questions of justice, the effect is this, the Wild West, the idea that you can take justice into your own hands, and it is a very dangerous culture whose effects we see”, concluded Rossi.
