The consultancy filed by Professor Cattaneo rewrites the dynamics of the Garlasco crime. That’s why everything changes
Three hundred and fifty classified pages. And, above all, a fixed point that rewrites eighteen years of judicial history. Professor Cristina Cattaneo, consultant to the Pavia prosecutor’s office, filed her report on the Garlasco crime. The document (pivot of the new investigation which sees Andrea Sempio at the center of the investigations) is in the hands of the prosecutor Fabio Napoleone and his deputy Stefano Civardi. The contents are still covered by secrecy, but a key conclusion has already been leaked: the attack on Chiara Poggi, which occurred on 13 August 2007 in the villa on Via Pascoli, did not last a few minutes. It was an attack in two phases, longer than established by the sentence that condemned Alberto Stasi.
The computer’s alibi
That temporal reconstruction truly represents the heart of the case. Why extending the duration of the attack means calling Stasi’s conviction into question. The logic is simple: 23 minutes passed between the opening of the door of Poggi’s house and the turning on of Stasi’s computer. According to the final sentence, that period of time was enough for Stasi to kill his girlfriend, clean himself up, make the weapon disappear and return home. A possible sequence, but only if the murder had been very rapid. The Cattaneo report, on the other hand, “spreads” the attack over a wider time period. Here’s why those 23 minutes are no longer enough.
What links Sempio to the crime
There are those who argue that this element could push the Pavia prosecutor’s office to start the process for reviewing Stasi’s conviction and suspension of his sentence. But the procedural reality is much more complicated. The investigation into Andrea Sempio, the man currently in the sights of the investigators, indicates him as a possible murderer in collaboration with the Stasi and with unknown persons. Which makes it difficult, at least for now, to make a clear separation between the two positions.
Cattaneo’s new report is based on the analysis of traces of blood conducted by the Cagliari RIS, the so-called Bpa. Stains on the floors and sketches on the walls: all elements that allow us to reconstruct the probable position of the murderer during the crime. The anthropometric analyzes on Sempio were used to verify whether his physique was compatible with that posture. And the answer, according to what transpires, would be positive. But compatibility does not mean certainty. In short, it’s just a clue, certainly not proof.
At the moment, two strong elements remain to concretely link Sempio to the crime: footprint number 33 found on the wall of the stairs and her family’s DNA found under Chiara’s nails. They are not enough. To hold a charge before a judge you need something else. What the investigators call the “queen test”.
The last curve of an infinite case
The investigation is at its final stage, they say (to tell the truth, we’ve been hearing this for some time). But in this case every curve has always hidden another straight. An infinite circuit that always opens up new and more complex questions, curves to be tackled at an increasingly lower speed to avoid crashing. What is certain is that the Cattaneo report has already changed the playing field. Now the Pavia prosecutor’s office will have to decide if and how to move. With the classified documents finally in hand and a truth that, despite everything, will still have to wait (perhaps forever) to be written in full.
