For the families of the eight victims, the horror is twofold. First, the loss of their loved ones in unspeakable pain. Second, the knowledge that Il Mostro Di Firenze — The Monster of Florence —is a ghost. Without a final, definitive confession or a DNA miracle, the rolling hills of Tuscany will keep their darkest secret forever.
When Preston moved to Florence, he partnered with Spezi to write a book. Instead of a standard true-crime narrative, they found themselves living a nightmare. The prosecutors, enraged by the journalist’s skepticism of the satanic sect theory, arrested Spezi in 2006, charging him with being an accomplice to the Monster. Preston was threatened with arrest and expelled from Italy. Il Mostro Di Firenze -The Monster Of Florence- ...
Giancarlo Lotti, a former fence and alcoholic, confessed to being an accomplice in exchange for a reduced sentence. However, Lotti’s testimony was riddled with contradictions and was later proven to be largely false. Two other men (Vanni and a friend of Pacciani) were convicted as accomplices, but no court has ever definitively proven who pulled the trigger. The case gained international infamy through the work of American author Douglas Preston and Italian journalist Mario Spezi. Spezi had covered the case for La Nazione for decades, getting closer than any journalist to the truth. For the families of the eight victims, the horror is twofold
With Pacciani dead, the prosecutors did not give up. They posthumously declared that Pacciani could not have acted alone. They invented The Picnic at Scopeti : a theory that on the night of the 1985 murder of the French tourists, Pacciani, Calamandrei, and two other men (Mario Vanni and Giancarlo Lotti) had a picnic... and then suddenly decided to murder the couple. Without a final, definitive confession or a DNA