“There are other areas that can be investigated and which can bring out the truth.” A few terse words that do not hide the suffering and the sense of impotence. The family of Massimiliano Lucietti does not give up and wants the truth about who killed Max. A few days after the filing of the request for dismissal by the Prosecutor’s Office, the lawyer Guliano Valer, who assists the parents of the young 24 year old hunter killed on 31 October 2022 by a rifle shot in the woods of Celledizzo, in Val di Solefiled a notice of opposition asking the investigating judge to order new investigations.
The gentle giant
Mother Mirta, father Roberto and younger brother Mattia maintain maximum confidentiality, but ask for further information. They want the truth about who took up the rifle and fired the shot that killed Max, the «gentle giant», as everyone in the village called him. A truth that has always been invoked also by Maurizio Gionta’s family, assisted by their lawyer Andrea de Bertolini, the 59 year old former forest ranger who took her own life the day after the young man’s death due to the weight of suspicion on him. On the dashboard of the car she had left a note that has the flavor of a desperate cry of innocence: “Don’t attribute blame to me that I don’t have.”
The investigations
A year and a half has passed since the tragedy, but the mystery remains. The in-depth investigations of the Carabinieri of the investigative unit and colleagues of the Parma Ris who they analyzed around thirty 270 caliber rifles acquired by hunters in the area Celledizzo and of similar calibers, did not resolve the doubts. The RIS examined the rifles in detail one by one, carrying out tests and firing tests and comparing them with the fragment of a battered bullet found near the victim. But nothing.
The only certainty remains the bullet found in the woods which belongs to a .270 caliber Winchester rifle, the same weapon Gionta had that morning, but he wasn’t the one who shot it. And this is the other certain element. The scientific insights of the Ris carabinieri leave little doubt: on the hands and clothes of the former forest ranger no traces of gunpowder were found. It was therefore not he who fired the fatal shot that killed the young firefighter. According to the reconstruction of the prosecutor’s consultant Davide Ognibene, the anatomopathologist Dario Raniero, the shot would have been fired from a distance and reached the right jaw of the unfortunate hunter. No blood had been found on the young man’s body so-called “tattoo”, the burn halo that characterizes the shot fired at point blank range. Massimiliano had been found near a tree stump where he had installed the rifle. According to the consultant, the young man died within minutes.
The families
It was 7.44am when the alarm went off, a few minutes later, around 7.55am, the police arrived together with the firefighters. He had been retired 59 year old was the first to raise the alarm, he had also immediately called Max’s father, Celledizzo is a town of few souls where everyone knows each other and when Maurizio Gionta had found Max’s lifeless body he immediately called for help and his father Roberto. The Prosecutor’s Office immediately opened an investigation, but the year and a half of close and meticulous investigations were not enough to resolve the yellow, the carabinieri did not leave out any clues, but in the end they had to give up and after having delivered the final information the Prosecutor’s Office asked for it to be dismissed. The profound pain and sense of helplessness of two destroyed families remains, but until the 360-degree truth emerges, Lucietti’s parents will not rest.
