Rimini, 7 June 2024 – With the registration of Louis Dassilva One chapter closes in the register of suspects and another opens in the book of the mystery that began at around 10.10pm on October 3rd. That evening there 78 year old Pierina Paganelli he was returning from a prayer meeting with the group of Jehovah’s Witnesses and in the basement of via del Ciclamino 31 he met his death. Wielding a kitchen knife with a blade 15 centimeters long, the killer struck 29 times.
On the left, the victim Pierina Paganelli; on the right, the suspect Louis Dassilva
Stab wounds inflicted brutally in the damp basements where Pierina had gone to park the car. A crime which, however, had to wait until 8.30 the next morning, when the body was found at the bottom of the stairs leading to the underground. daughter-in-law Manuela Bianchiwife of Pierina’s son Giuliano Saponi, who was hospitalized at the time of the crime due to a mysterious accident that left him dying in May 2023.
Upon discovery, the timer starts counting minutes, hours, days and months. Months of investigations, carried out by the Rimini flying squad first directed by deputy commissioner Dario Virgili and now by the chief commissioner Marco Masia. A work that began with the analyzes of some cameras located in via del Ciclamino. One in an underground garage, one who captured Pierina’s screams, the moments of an attack during which the pensioner attempted to escape by going through the fire doors. In vain.
No testimony. A crime of “maybe I heard…” and of family poisons, exacerbated over time by the voices of the extramarital relationship Between Louis Dassilva and Pierina’s daughter-in-law, Manuela Bianchi. Rumors leaked like smoke between the cracks and became increasingly cumbersome in the circle of suspicions that, in the first months, had cemented itself between Louis, Manuela, Dassilva’s partner, Valeria Bartolucci and Bianchi’s brother, Loris. It is the crime of private investigators and legal consultants, of defense teams established before anyone was even investigated. Then the crime vanished.
Armored behind increasingly intense investigations, technical checks on the lift, escape route of the assailant, photometric measurements. But never sinking the blow, with those DNA tests, unrepeatable investigations, on the traces found on Pierina’s body and still to be catalogued. We went from the blood of the murderer, later revealed to be that of a little girl who had injured herself while playing, to his voice, height, strength. All. Less than the name. Now the Prosecutor’s Office has moved the first pawn.
