Commissario Bagnante was not available
.
The dentist of Piacenza remains silent. His lawyer, Avv. Michele (photo, bottom left) maintains that his client is totally extraneous to the events, real or imagined by the Forti couple. Meanwhile, Dott. Ramoverde observes absolute silence in his cell
.
Gazette della Svizzera, 10th September 1960
Milan, from our special envoy: Ismaele Belluno was a retired publisher. He had made his fortune in textbooks, and for many years led a peaceful, uneventful life. His two daughters had grown up, married and had raised families
.
In his will, the father had bequeathed everything to his two daughters, to be shared fairly between them. Then his wife died and in 1958 he employed a young woman to be the housekeeper of the three villas that he owned. Clearly things took a turn forthe worse when Belluno, now in his late sixties, announced his intention to marry the young woman, Eva Bardizza, nearly forty years his junior
.
That there was conflict between the father and his son-in-law, there can be no doubt. On one occasion, the old man was reported to have taken to his bed when Sig. Ramoverde, husband of Matilde Belluno, slapped the young housekeeper for alleged insolence. A few days later after this incident, Belluno summoned his lawyer and made drastic changes in his will; it is believed that he intended to bequeath everything—or nearly everything—to his future wife. Among other things, the Belluno fortune included a sumptuous villa in the city of Piacenza and Villa Laura ninety kilometers away, near Borgo Genovese and the confluence of the Po and the Ticino rivers. A third house in the hills above San Remo is famous throughout Italy for its beautiful gardens
.
On 3rd August, Belluno was found murdered in the Villa Laura near Borgo Genovese. He had been battered to death with a blunt instrument and the walls of the building were smeared with his blood. Also murdered was his young wife-to-be; she had been battered and, according to the forensic scientists, drowned in a bath of cold water. As to the assassin, he left no clues concerning his identity; cold-bloodedly he wiped the walls and floors of any trace of fingerprints. The coolness with which the assassin behaved has led the local police to believe that the murderer knew the house—and his victims—intimately
.
Three weeks after the dual slaying, the investigating judge arrested Douglas Ramoverde, Belluno’s son-in-law. However, Dr. Ramoverde, a dentist from Piacenza, has an alibi and he has stuck to it consistently. After spending the weekend on the Ligurian coast at the Villa Ca’ degli Ulivi, where his wife, Matilde, and his seventeen-year-old son were passing the month of August, Ramoverde maintains that he took his car, a Fiat 1100, and leaving the Villa Ca’ degli Ulivi at twenty-three hours on the night of the first of August, drove straight back to Piacenza. Unfortunately, he can find no witness to corroborate his version of the facts. Furthermore, from a close analysis of thevehicle’s odometer and Ramoverde’s own logbook—he noted down when and where he bought petrol—it would appear that instead of driving the 250 kilometers to Piacenza, he in fact covered 285 kilometers on the night of the murder. It is thus quite possible that Ramoverde took a detour north to the River Po and the Villa Laura. One thing is certain: he was within a radius of eighty kilometers of the Villa Laura on the fateful night of 1st August
.
But the most damaging piece of evidence against the son-in-law is the testimony of several local inhabitants who have sworn to seeing a two-tone Fiat 1100 identical to Ramoverde’s hidden not more than 200 meters from the Villa Laura both on the night of the murder and on previous evenings. Ramoverde has claimed that such a sighting can only be a coincidence. However, on the afternoon following the murder a man wearing sunglasses paid a garage owner in Piacenza to clean his two-tone Fiat 1100. In
.
The dentist of Piacenza remains silent. His lawyer, Avv. Michele (photo, bottom left) maintains that his client is totally extraneous to the events, real or imagined by the Forti couple. Meanwhile, Dott. Ramoverde observes absolute silence in his cell
.
Gazette della Svizzera, 10th September 1960
Milan, from our special envoy: Ismaele Belluno was a retired publisher. He had made his fortune in textbooks, and for many years led a peaceful, uneventful life. His two daughters had grown up, married and had raised families
.
In his will, the father had bequeathed everything to his two daughters, to be shared fairly between them. Then his wife died and in 1958 he employed a young woman to be the housekeeper of the three villas that he owned. Clearly things took a turn forthe worse when Belluno, now in his late sixties, announced his intention to marry the young woman, Eva Bardizza, nearly forty years his junior
.
That there was conflict between the father and his son-in-law, there can be no doubt. On one occasion, the old man was reported to have taken to his bed when Sig. Ramoverde, husband of Matilde Belluno, slapped the young housekeeper for alleged insolence. A few days later after this incident, Belluno summoned his lawyer and made drastic changes in his will; it is believed that he intended to bequeath everything—or nearly everything—to his future wife. Among other things, the Belluno fortune included a sumptuous villa in the city of Piacenza and Villa Laura ninety kilometers away, near Borgo Genovese and the confluence of the Po and the Ticino rivers. A third house in the hills above San Remo is famous throughout Italy for its beautiful gardens
.
On 3rd August, Belluno was found murdered in the Villa Laura near Borgo Genovese. He had been battered to death with a blunt instrument and the walls of the building were smeared with his blood. Also murdered was his young wife-to-be; she had been battered and, according to the forensic scientists, drowned in a bath of cold water. As to the assassin, he left no clues concerning his identity; cold-bloodedly he wiped the walls and floors of any trace of fingerprints. The coolness with which the assassin behaved has led the local police to believe that the murderer knew the house—and his victims—intimately
.
Three weeks after the dual slaying, the investigating judge arrested Douglas Ramoverde, Belluno’s son-in-law. However, Dr. Ramoverde, a dentist from Piacenza, has an alibi and he has stuck to it consistently. After spending the weekend on the Ligurian coast at the Villa Ca’ degli Ulivi, where his wife, Matilde, and his seventeen-year-old son were passing the month of August, Ramoverde maintains that he took his car, a Fiat 1100, and leaving the Villa Ca’ degli Ulivi at twenty-three hours on the night of the first of August, drove straight back to Piacenza. Unfortunately, he can find no witness to corroborate his version of the facts. Furthermore, from a close analysis of thevehicle’s odometer and Ramoverde’s own logbook—he noted down when and where he bought petrol—it would appear that instead of driving the 250 kilometers to Piacenza, he in fact covered 285 kilometers on the night of the murder. It is thus quite possible that Ramoverde took a detour north to the River Po and the Villa Laura. One thing is certain: he was within a radius of eighty kilometers of the Villa Laura on the fateful night of 1st August
.
But the most damaging piece of evidence against the son-in-law is the testimony of several local inhabitants who have sworn to seeing a two-tone Fiat 1100 identical to Ramoverde’s hidden not more than 200 meters from the Villa Laura both on the night of the murder and on previous evenings. Ramoverde has claimed that such a sighting can only be a coincidence. However, on the afternoon following the murder a man wearing sunglasses paid a garage owner in Piacenza to clean his two-tone Fiat 1100. In
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