Filippo Turetta’s list before Giulia Cecchettin’s feminicide: «Fill up, then scotch, ropes, wet sponge and knife»

«Fill up, check doors, hardware, shoelaces, socks, garbage bags, adhesive tape, ties above ankles and knees, wet sponge in mouth, knife». It is a list that leaves no doubt about the intentions of Filippo Turetta (22 years old), the one that emerged from the investigations into the cell phone of Giulia Cecchettin’s ex-boyfriend, the same one who killed her last November 11th. A list of things to do. Lapidary. Which tell how the actions to be implemented to prepare were clear in Turetta’s mind.

Turetta himself partially reconstructed them during the interrogation of last December 1st before the Venice public prosecutor Andrea Petroni, of which new details have emerged in recent hours. For hours in front of the prosecutor Turetta recalled what happened on November 11th when, after an evening spent at the Nave de Vero shopping center in Marghera (Venice), he took Giulia home and then stabbed her to death.

The “cursed” list

In his stories Turetta talks about sudden action, he seems to want to ward off the premeditation that could cost him life imprisonment. «I had bought the tape shortly before, in case it had been used to attach Giulia’s papyrus – He says– I used to take it in the car to attach anything. The knives were taken from the kitchen of my house, I had put them in the car because I had also had suicidal thoughts.”

His “cursed list” however, talk about something else. Starting from the “wet sponge in the mouth” and the change of clothes, which Turetta had in the car. «I changed the clothes stained with blood with others I had in the car – He says – In the car I always have a change of clothes, blankets, something to eat and drink.” In the days before the murder, however, Turetta had tried to buy online not only some things from his “cursed list” but also some handcuffs, a map (later actually bought) of the Veneto and Friuli area to move around without having to use the navigator. Not only. He updated her list with green ticks up to four hours before meeting Giulia at Nave de Vero. Last update (of the list), the «Knife»: done.

Shopping at Nave de Vero shopping center

When everything is “ready” Filippo gets into the car, goes to pick up Giulia, and accompanies her to Marghera. «By message she asked me if I would accompany her on a trip to the Nave de Vero to do some shopping. We went around the shops, she bought a pair of shoes and a skirt too I think. We thought we’d stay and have dinner there. Around 11pm we returned to Giulia’s house but stopped in a car park in Vigonovo so as not to be seen.

It had happened before, she agreed. We got together in January 2022, we have always had a beautiful relationship. There was a mini crisis in March 2023 but after two weeks we got back together.” Giulia had finished with Filippo some time ago. She didn’t want to get back together. He was looking ahead, she was due to graduate any day and would leave for a year to follow her dream, drawing comics. But Philip didn’t want to know.

The discussion

«That evening I wanted to give her a gift – he continued in the interrogation– a little monster monkey. With me I had a backpack that contained other gifts: another stuffed monkey, a small lamp, a children’s illustration book entitled “Monsters brush their teeth”. She refused to take it. We started arguing. He told me I was too dependent, too clingy to her. She wanted to move on, she was creating new relationships, she was dating another guy, Eric. I screamed that it wasn’t right. That I needed her. That I would commit suicide. She replied firmly that she would not return with me. She got out of the car shouting, you’re crazy, fuck you… leave me alone.”

Giulia, who for months had been worried about Filippo’s possible reactions to her abandonment, had told him about it to her friends saying that she only wanted to that he should disappear from her life, that evening she said “enough”, clearly. And it is at that point that Philip’s story intersects the two “lives”. The one from the cursed list and the one with the stuffed monkey that he wanted to give to Giulia in his backpack. Possession for Giulia, exercised for months through stalkingthe checking of his text messages with an app installed on her phone, and the cold list of ten points gradually ticked off for his death merge into a single terrible reality.

The stab wounds

«I was very angry. Before I also got out of the car, I took a knife from the back pocket of the driver’s seat – he told the prosecutor in December – I ran after her, grabbed her arm, holding the knife in my right hand. She screamed “help” and fell. I leaned down on her, gave her a tap on her arm, I seem to remember that the knife broke soon after. I then grabbed her shoulders while she was on the ground. She resisted. She hit her head I put her in the back seat. While we were in the car she started telling me what are you doing? You are crazy? Let me go. She was lying on the seat then sat up, he touched his head. At first I was just thinking about driving her then I started tugging her and holding her down with one arm. We stopped in the middle of the road, I tried to put the tape on her mouth, I don’t remember if she took it off or it fell off on its own because I didn’t put it on properly. He was squirming. AND got out and started running. I also got off. I had two knives in my car pocket behind the driver’s seat. I dropped one in Vigonovo, I took the other and ran after it. I don’t know if I pushed her or she tripped, she kept asking for help. I gave her, I don’t know, about ten, twelve, thirteen blows with the knife. I wanted to hit her in the neck, shoulders, head, face and then arms. I remember her looking up at me. She protected herself with her arms where I was hitting her. The last stab that I gave her was on the eye.”

The escape towards Barcis

20 minutes passed from Giulia’s screams in Vigonovo, 150 meters from Giulia’s home, heard by a neighbor who immediately alerted the police, to the decisive blows in Fossò in front of the Dior factory. Then the escape begins. «Giulia felt as if she were no longer there – says Turetta – I put her in the back seats and we set off. My clothes were quite dirty with her blood. I took the road to Barcis, I stopped at a point where there were no houses and stayed there for a while. I was even ready to suffocate myself with a bag, but even after tying it with tape I couldn’t and I tore it at the last minute. So I took her and went to hide her».

Giulia’s body left in the woods

When he says “hide it” Turetta is not using a casual term. Giulia’s body was not left on the side of the road. Around 3 am on the road to the Barcis forest, which would soon be closed to cars for 5 months, away from routes covered by cameras, Turetta carried the small body of that young woman on his shoulder, at a precise point of the journey, he took it down 50 meters into a cliff, where there was a small cave. There he laid Giulia down, under the rock, as if in a tomb. She hid it with the plastic bags that she had brought from home, and that presumably he will be back on the road to recover after having arranged the body of the young woman, leaving the book of illustrations “Even monsters brush their teeth” next to the body, almost as if it were a signature to the crime, almost as if to sanction, together with the end of that young woman’s life, also the end of his dreams. And he left.

By car towards Germany

«I had a packet of crisps in the car and a box with some biscuits. I have never bought anything to eat, the money I had I spent on petrol supplies. I wanted to take my own life with a knife that I had bought but I couldn’t – he still tells the prosecutor – I thought that if I had if I smoked and drank sambuca it would have been easier to commit suicide but instead I threw up in the car. Then I turned the phone back on and used Google Chrome. I was looking for news that would make me feel bad enough to have the courage to commit suicide. But I read that my parents hoped to find me still alive and this had the opposite effect. I resigned myself to no longer committing suicide and being arrested.”

The arrest

The arrest took place on Saturday 18 November at 10pm, in Germany near Leipzig, where Turetta finished his run with the Grande Punto. Turetta’s car which had traveled along the A9 motorway (6-lane road that connects Munich to Berlin) was stopped on the emergency lane near the town of Bud Durremberg because, according to the officers, it had run out of petrol and Filippo could not he had money to refuel again. The presence of the car was reported by other motorists who were speeding along the road at high speed. Meanwhile on Saturday morning the body of Giulia definitively extinguishing hopes of his family.

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