After the arrest of Pietrolungo from Cetrara for the double murder of the Fioretto Begnozzi couple in Vicenza 33 years ago, the suspect avails himself of the right not to answer
Cetraro, 14 June 2024 – Remain silent: Pietrolungo from Cetrara, under investigation for the double murder in Vicenza 33 years ago, avails himself of the right not to answer. A crime on which they want to shed full light and there would be new elements to allow all this. The latest so-called “cold case” came out of pure chance: a hair bulb found in a handkerchief found by carabinieri of the Scalea company in Cirella di Diamante and included in the national database, a result compatible with the findings of that double murder which occurred in Vicenza on the evening of 25 February 1991, when the civil lawyer Pierangelo Fioretto was shot dead on his return home, around 8.15pm, in contra’ dei Torretti, in Vicenza.
His wife, Mafalda Begnozzi, also died in the ambush. As is known, the men of the Flying Squad of the Vicenza Police Headquarters arrested Umberto Pietrolungo on the morning of Tuesday 11 June, believed to be one of the two killers of that double murder, currently confined in the Cosenza prison.
From what has been learned, Umberto Pietrolungo from Cetrara, 58 years old, 25 on the day of the double murder, availed himself of the right not to respond.
Pietrolungo, for a series of reasons, is indicated as a prominent figure in the Muto gang operating in Cetraro and mainly on the Tyrrhenian Sea of Cosenza. The alleged killer of the Fioretto Begnozzi couple from Vicenza, assisted by his lawyers Giuseppe Bruno and Marco Bianco, was interrogated yesterday morning in Cosenza prison. The interrogation would not have lasted long as he would have decided not to answer, maintaining silence on facts that could concern his youth.
THE PROSECUTOR GIORGIO BRUNO. On the occasion of the announcement of the arrest of Umberto Pietrolungo, the chief prosecutor of Vicenza, Lino Giorgio Bruno, who is dealing with the case, also clarified in some way the idea that the investigators may have had on the role of Umberto Pietrolungo and a second killer not yet identified. «We can exclude – declared the prosecutor Bruno – that Pietrolungo, among other things very young, he was 25 years old at the time, was the bearer of a personal interest in the murder, just as I would like to exclude that it could be the other material executor is the bearer of a similar interest. In the background – according to the prosecutor – there is certainly an instigator and the commitment, however after more than thirty years, because we must take this into account and with the means at our disposal it will be to identify other people who are involved in the affair ».
THE ELEMENTS OF INVESTIGATION – As we mentioned previously, the scrupulousness of the Carabinieri of the Scalea company facilitated the investigations. In a hotel in Cirella, closed at the time, the military intervened coordinated by Captain Regina, commander of the operational and radiomobile unit and directed by Captain Andrea D’Angelo. On that occasion the soldiers were busy at the site of Roberto Martini’s wounding, which occurred with gunshots. It was January 8, 2022, in Cirella di Diamante, inside the San Daniele hotel. In the room where Umberto Pietrolungo had been, out of particular scrupulousness, also because the Cetrara native was considered a fugitive, it was decided to carry out a thorough check, not leaving out any detail.
The finds recovered in Cirella di Diamante
And, from one of the findings subjected to examination by the biology section of the scientific investigations group of Messina of the Carabinieri, “consisting of a hair bulb isolated on a handkerchief, it was possible to extract a genetic profile which denoted total allelic overlap with another sample obtained – we read – from the oral swab collected from a person identified in the context of a separate criminal proceeding initiated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Castrovillari”. The acquisition of the documents by the Vicenza Prosecutor’s Office, requested from the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of the Catanzaro Prosecutor’s Office, “made it possible to ascertain that this last sample had been drawn from Umberto Pietrolungo, a person born in Cetraro on 20 March 1966. The coincidence of the profiles, ascertained by the Scientific Police, was affirmed on the basis of the best science and genetic experience. Therefore, two originally unknown subjects, whose genetic profile had been acquired, more than thirty years later, in various places in the national territory and extracted by sections specialized in forensic genetics of distinct police forces, in reality had to be considered a single subject, now certain and identified”.
