Garlasco, eighteen years of yellow for an avoidable error. And now the report on the impossible “zig zag” walk has been overturned
Perhaps a few hours would have been enough to solve Garlasco’s unsolvable crime. And yet 18 years wasn’t enough. Years of trials, appraisals, evidentiary incidents and reopened investigations. Yes, because on the body of Chiara Poggi, on the shoulder covered by the pajamas, the murderer had left his signature at the bottom: the imprints of four fingers. Index, middle, ring and little fingers. Sharp, perfect, usable. The sign of a hand that had grabbed the victim by the back, or perhaps pushed him during the attack.
Well, today those footprints no longer exist. Or rather, they have been contaminated, rendered unusable. And with them vanished the possibility of closing the case before it became the most famous and controversial crime episode in Italy, which has held sway for almost two decades. The mistake was made in the first hours of the investigation, when a policeman turned over Chiara’s body which was on the stairs. The victim’s shoulder thus came into contact with the copious bloodstains scattered at the crime scene. And in a single instant, those four footprints mixed with the blood, losing all evidentiary value.
This is probably the most serious of the many mistakes committed from 13 August 2007 onwards. The one that prevented justice from reaching the truth. Of course, the doubt remains that those footprints could have been Chiara herself, who perhaps had huddled in her arms trying to protect herself after the first attack. But it is a doubt that can never be resolved. Because those footprints, in fact, are no longer there.
Garlasco’s technical innovations
Eighteen years later, the Garlasco crime continues to produce investigative news and judicial twists, one after the other, as in an Emmy Award-winning thriller series. The latest narrative twist to change the plot comes from the Court of Cassation, which has just made known the reasons with which it confirmed thecancellation of the seizure of computers and telephones of the former prosecutor Mario Vendittiinvestigated as part of the investigation into the alleged controlled archiving of Andrea Sempio. According to the judges, the acquisition of data and devices by prosecutors would have been “disproportionate”while considering the temporal extension of the investigations to be legitimate.
But there is also another technical innovation. In fact, a consultancy commissioned by the Poggi family appears to analyze the killer’s walk. According to the experts, the alleged “zig zag” walk would have been impossible. This would be demonstrated by the digital superposition of the orthophoto of the large pool of blood in front of the folding door. A crucial point is precisely this: could the killer have avoided the pools of blood scattered around the house?
The truth is increasingly distant
In the 2009 trial, the experts simulated the murderer’s walk and concluded that, despite placing “at least one foot” above the pools, there would have been the “possibility of failure to intercept blood”. The new report turns everything upside down again. And it adds another piece to an infinitely complex mosaic which, instead of composing itself, seems to fragment more and more.
Eighteen years, three trials, two suspects at different times, dozens of conflicting reports. Everything, perhaps, could have ended in a few hours. And instead, those four fingers that could tell the truth about Chiara Poggi’s murder, today no longer tell anything.
