An arrest for double voluntary homicide, a 33 years later from a brutal attack that shocked Vicenza. The victims were a well-known lawyer and his wife, shot dead gun shots in the home garden. The arrested person is a Calabrianidentified, according to the accusation hypothesis, on the basis to the DNA test and fingerprints. It’s about Umberto Pietrolungo58 years old, whose name is linked to Calabrian Muto clan. The announcement was made during a press conference by the public prosecutor Lino Giorgio Bruno.
The murder occurred on a winter evening, on February 25, 1991, in the central district of Torretti in Vicenza. It was around 8.15pm when some witnesses reported a heated argument between the lawyer (specializing in bankruptcy and corporate law) and two men. The neighbors heard someone shooting gun shots and when the men of the Vicenza Flying Squad arrived they found the lawyer’s lifeless bodies Pierangelo Fioretto 59 year old and his wife Mafalda Begnozzi 52 years old. The bullets were 7.65 caliber. Fioretti had been hit in the back of the head, the woman in charge. From the ballistic reconstruction it emerged that the assassins had also fired the “final shots” to make sure that the couple was dead.
Investigations without outcome – The Fioretti murder has long been a mystery, with the most disparate hypotheses. In contra Saint Lucia Green surgeon’s gloves torn to pieces and a semi-automatic with a silencer inserted had been found. A few days later, onBacchiglione embankment, a second very similar gun had been found. A was also found leather glove, which would ultimately prove decisive, even if more than three decades later. At the time the methods of analysis of the finds they were unable to direct the investigation towards the solution. The testimonies had reconstructed the movements of the two people who had searched the lawyer Fioretto first at home, then in Court, inquiring about office opening hours and the possible return from the lawyer’s office. They had used an Alfa 75 light in color, which was found stolen in Milan. This reconstruction, which aimed to two killers professionals, given the nature of the facts and the preparation. Without further evidence, however, the case was closed in December 1996.
The case reopens – It was a true “cold case”, an unsolved case. In 2012 the scientific police cabinet of Padua decided to reanalyze the evidence using new techniques provided by forensic science. The scientific cabinet of Rome had isolated on the leather glove three genetic profiles, all attributable to male subjects. However, a sample coinciding with a known person was needed. The twist occurred in February 2023, thanks to a genetic profile regarding another case. This is how we traced back to Umberto Pietrolungo. However, after a long time, other evidence was also needed to be able to accuse the man of the double murder multiple offenders. We started from the comparison of the somatic features with the identikit of the time.
Then it was ascertained that Pietrolungo had been arrested a few months after the murder together with two members of the Francesco Muto’s mafia clan in Milan. On that occasion he was found in possession of both one narcotizing spray and 7.65 caliber bullets similar to those found in Vicenza. Another element that in retrospect can become indicative is the fact that during a control in Gorgonzola (Milan) Pietrolungo was found together with a fellow villager with whom he allegedly committed a crime kidnapping and a robbery against a jeweler in Genoa in the autumn of 1991, the same year as the murders. However, the element that became decisive was the Fingerprints which had been found on the barrel of one of the two pistols. They were compared thanks to very modern techniques, from which the correspondence with those of Pietrolungo emerged.
The motive is missing – There is still no motive to close the matter. There are, in fact, elements to believe that Pietrolungo was hired by someone to face Fioretto. But who was the instigator? And above all, why? At the time, legal files were dug into and the lawyer’s affairs were reconstructed, looking for possible conflicting interests. Another thread is that of accomplice, that is, the person who was with Pietrolungo and had searched for Fioretto with him, leaving quite a few traces in the city.
