A series that holds your interest but skips some information that would have made it easier to understand why the accused was guilty. A Guardian article at the time of his trial clears up most of the anomalies though.
3 Reviews
To be continued...?
punishmentpark30 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
An interesting and of course gruesome case, I never heard of it before for as far as I remember. When the suspect finally appears, I would not have guessed that this was a cold-blooded killer, but looks can be deceiving. The case is quite carefully told from A to Z, and at some point I was afraid they would never find their suspect. But they did, the (illegitimate) son (who als has a twin sister) of a bus driver, but who grew up only knowing his stepfather. The mother denies, but it seems futile...
But there's something strange about how the defense of the suspect keeps saying that there was no mitochondrial DNA on the victim, while, through a complicated way of deducting, a special team ended up with this mother and son through the use of mitochondrial DNA? Somehow I feel like I've missed something there, or did the defense? Was there mitochondrial DNA at first, and was it all used up during the research? I'll honestly tell you, things got a bit blurry there for me.
What was very striking, was how the suspect was aware that the arrest team came for him: he was the only one getting nervous and he was clearly trying to escape. That was a big red flag for me in thinking he was / is not innocent, but it is not hard evidence. The other thing that struck me, and this was disclosed only very briefly near the end, was that the suspect was in fact working near (or on? I'm not sure) the site where the victim was abducted / disappeared at the time, but that the defense kept bringing up that there had been no witnesses - which of course does not mean he wasn't there...
It's always frustrating to have 'information' thrown at you from twoo sides, pro and con, and that there seems to be no consensus about the facts and the evidence. I mean, if there had been no mitochondrial DNA, how would they ever have gotten their man? They talked about a certain 'allele 26', which lead them directly to the mother. How can science be wrong there? I must say I'm still puzzled by it all. Certain, more straight forward facts, like the suspect trying to flee, working near the site at the time of the disappearance, his stash of iffy porn, persuade me to think(!) he was / is their man, but that's not hard evidence.
I still thought this documentary to be captivating and intriguing, but it also left me with questions and an unsatisfactory conclusion. And some more checking on the internet tells me that there is still no end to this case, presenting me with new facts and possibilities as to who did this and possible faults in the case... to be continued, I should hope!
But there's something strange about how the defense of the suspect keeps saying that there was no mitochondrial DNA on the victim, while, through a complicated way of deducting, a special team ended up with this mother and son through the use of mitochondrial DNA? Somehow I feel like I've missed something there, or did the defense? Was there mitochondrial DNA at first, and was it all used up during the research? I'll honestly tell you, things got a bit blurry there for me.
What was very striking, was how the suspect was aware that the arrest team came for him: he was the only one getting nervous and he was clearly trying to escape. That was a big red flag for me in thinking he was / is not innocent, but it is not hard evidence. The other thing that struck me, and this was disclosed only very briefly near the end, was that the suspect was in fact working near (or on? I'm not sure) the site where the victim was abducted / disappeared at the time, but that the defense kept bringing up that there had been no witnesses - which of course does not mean he wasn't there...
It's always frustrating to have 'information' thrown at you from twoo sides, pro and con, and that there seems to be no consensus about the facts and the evidence. I mean, if there had been no mitochondrial DNA, how would they ever have gotten their man? They talked about a certain 'allele 26', which lead them directly to the mother. How can science be wrong there? I must say I'm still puzzled by it all. Certain, more straight forward facts, like the suspect trying to flee, working near the site at the time of the disappearance, his stash of iffy porn, persuade me to think(!) he was / is their man, but that's not hard evidence.
I still thought this documentary to be captivating and intriguing, but it also left me with questions and an unsatisfactory conclusion. And some more checking on the internet tells me that there is still no end to this case, presenting me with new facts and possibilities as to who did this and possible faults in the case... to be continued, I should hope!
A real-life detective story
paul2001sw-125 March 2017
'Murder In Italy' is an unimaginative title for an interesting documentary, the story of a police investigation which took several years to piece together the evidence pointing to the murderer of a teenage girl. But the implicated man has never admitted his crime, and, while convicted on a combination of DNA and circumstantial evidence, he continues to assert his innocence. As this film tells it, there's a fairly strong proof of his guilt, as well as an interesting tale how small scraps of forensic evidence were slowly fitted together to solve the mystery. Indeed, the story is more riveting than most detective dramas. What remains elusive is the motive - and a final explanation of why this terrible thing happened.
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