POISON - Episode 4 - Snow in August
The Bassa Modenese is shocked by the sudden death of Don Giorgio Govoni, presumed head of the sect, electrocuted by a heart attack a few days before the sentence. But also by a nightly raid in which the 4 children of an unsuspected family are taken away.
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Transcription
Live Don Giorgio: I don't know ... I declare that I am not only innocent, but completely foreign to the facts ... After all the rest, you think about what could have happened, I don't know. It's such an absurd thing ...
This is the voice of Don Giorgio Govoni, the parish priest in the eye of the hurricane because he was identified by the children of the Bassa Modenese as head of the sect of satanist pedophiles.
Live reporter: Why do they have it in for you? Out of the microphone in your opinion, beyond the interview ... why are you taken as a scapegoat?
It is May 19, 2000 and a local journalist joins him while he is climbing on his Fiorino. He wears a white T-shirt, he looks resigned and looks resigned.
Live Don Giorgio: I don't know what ... what could have happened anyway ... justice will win, I hope ...
Immediately afterwards Don Giorgio puts a cigar in his mouth and starts the engine to go to his lawyer Pier Francesco Rossi. The Prosecutor of Modena has just asked for an exemplary sentence for him: 14 years in prison.
The priest travels the 23 km that separate him from the law firm. They make him sit in the waiting room. But it seems to have something wrong.
Rossi is busy in another room when he hears a thud coming from behind the door.
Live Avv. Rossi: I heard a scream, a rattle, they called me ... He was lying on the ground, he had had a heart attack. He died in my arms.
The sudden disappearance of Don Giorgio has the effect of an earthquake.
Live studio journalist: Don Giorgio Govoni dies in his studio
lawyer, he dies of a heart attack, after shouting his last
innocence..
TV broadcast on Don Giorgio:
The parishioners in tears applauded for a long time the exit of the coffin, from
they still have words of pain, anger and indignation.
TV broadcast on Don Giorgio - live parishioners:
Live woman: We will remember him as a parish priest
Live woman: With so much love, so much affection ... he will be the first martyr ... yes,
will be the first martyr!
Live man: This is a bad job here. Killing a Christian ...
they killed this one here!
The Bassa Modenese is mobilized, organizing funeral ceremonies in 4 different parishes.
Live parishioners
Live woman: I have no words ...
Live woman: But how could such a thing be born?
Live woman: Who knows if it was a bad thing, a slander ...
But for the children, the social workers and the Prosecutor there is no doubt.
Era he to direct the rites inside the cemeteries, with his tunic.
Era he to order the murders of small victims from obscure human trafficking.
Era he to load the bodies into his white van.
Who was this man really? A saint, as his parishioners describe him? Or a demon?
THEME SONG
Don Giorgio Govoni was a somewhat atypical priest. He was not a simple priest, but a point of reference for the whole community. He was born in Dodici Morelli, in the Ferrara countryside, in 1941. At the age of 25 he had taken his vows, but in the meantime he also worked in the small family trucking company, which he carried on after the death of his father.
The truck driver priest.
Everyone remembers him as a man of the people, who smoked a cigar, loved restaurants and knew the problems of the daily life of his parishioners.
In 1989 he founded an association, 'Il Porto', to help families in difficulty. And among these there was also that of the Galliera, to whom immediately after the eviction had found the cottage on Via Abba Motto, when the little Dario had been hosted by his neighbor Oddina and her husband, Silvio.
Live Silvio: ... Don Giorgio was formidable, even too good ... when
he was here the church was always full, you understand, all the young people were
with him ... no no no ... if all the priests were like this ...
To find Don Giorgio you had to go 'Dalla Marta', a historic trattoria surrounded by fields not far from San Felice sul Panaro, which has been offering customers the same menu for 55 years.
Live Marta: Combed macaroni with salami meat, gramigna with
the rib, tortellini in broth ... are all those dishes that went one
once, however, the minestrone, made as it once was, is not the same with the
dusts eh ...
Marta was like a second mother for Don Giorgio.
Live Marta: He came in the morning to have breakfast, at noon, for lunch,
at dinner, at ten o'clock in the evening to get some milk and coffee ... In short, it was
his rectory. I have never seen Don Giorgio eat a whole meal,
because then it was the boom of the Moroccans, they came “Don Giorgio I, Don
Giorgio I ... "and he poor fellow said" if there is no pasta, Marta gives him the
my dish, which I eat this evening. "
None, among the many people we met in the restaurant in
Marta and in the small bars of the Bassa Modenese, she never told us she had
believed the accusations made against him.
Live man: A person who for twenty years, every year, has brought up gods
children to take care up in the mountains, but it is possible that in twenty years if
it really was ... did those things there, nobody ever talked about it ... for
twenty years? Then after two months it all turned out I'm messing up? I'm not there
I think here ...
Live Pablo: But you never believed in the history of abuse either
Sexual?
Live man: It is as if you were telling me tomorrow that it snows in August. can he
happen, but it's almost impossible.
Yet in 1998 the little Dario, Marta and Margherita with their stories reveal the other face of this man: a depraved maniac, a manipulator, a murderer.
It hadn't taken long to trace his identikit. All the details reported by the children matched his description. A man of medium height, with gray hair, glasses, a little overweight, who wore high-heeled boots.
On 10 July, the police raided the parishes of Staggia and San Biagio for a search, and analyzed his computer. In the chronology there are three searches that make you think: child, hard, friends of children.
In the parsonage, the police inspector of Mirandola, Antimo Pagano, also finds men's boots with heels, very similar to those described by Dario on the famous priest who led the black masses. And finally a book about Satanism. Nice trouble.
Don Giorgio ends up in the register of suspects. It will not be long before the Galliera family, the Scotta family, the Giacco family and the others begin a process for him to discuss for years to come.
According to the Modenese prosecutor, the parish priest and the gang had moved to three different cemeteries, identified thanks to the descriptions of the children: that of Massa Finalese, that of Finale Emilia and that of Staggia, just the hamlet where the priest lived.
And here, however, we are faced with a big mystery. Because among the inhabitants of the area asked by the investigators, nobody had ever seen groups of adults and children wandering around the cemeteries at strange times. Nobody.
Alessia and I went to have a look. It is a sunny day.
Live Pablo: So, we are in Massa Finalese and there is the cemetery ahead ...
Live Alessia: Full inhabited center ... there is also the flower stall
The florist is called Davide, he is a tall, robust man, they know him in the village
all. He and his father have always done this job.
Live Davide: 35 years old, since 82 we are open, so ...
Live Pablo: When did you hear this story for the first time, what did you think?
Live Davide: Neither my father nor I have ever noticed anything strange ...
Because the cemetery is a hundred meters from the square, so ... there are many people who
also passes, people who see ...
And actually when we get closer there is something that does not immediately return.
We remind you that the children said that they were brought here in groups, late in the evening.
Sometimes it was Don Giorgio who opened the door, with a bunch of keys. At other times, however, to enter, they were forced to climb over the high entrance gate, which is right on the road that enters the village.
Live Pablo: Now we are at the entrance to the cemetery, we make you feel how close the cars that pass in front of us are ... (car noise) two or five meters passed us.
It is very difficult for a group of people together with children to enter here in the evening without being noticed by anyone. There is actually a secondary entrance.
We enter from there.
This place has nothing different from any provincial cemetery. Gravel, trees and many gravestones with the surnames of the area that are repeated.
Live Pablo: It is really small!
Live Alessia: And above all it is not covered, therefore perfectly visible.
Cemeteries are always frequented by the same people. Some come there every day. Any changes, changes or misplaced details are immediately noticed.
Yet the children had told of human sacrifices, of blood, and of Satanists who unearthed corpses.
Is it possible that no one ever noticed anything the next morning?
Right next to the secondary entrance, there is another flower shop. It is closed, but the number of the florist, Manuela, is at the door.
We call.
Live Manuela: There was never anything strange or particular in there. Never. I repeat: never.
Manuela has been working at the cemetery for several years. By now she is almost an expert in burial techniques too. According to her, preparing a hole for a coffin two meters deep, in the middle of the night, with a simple spade is not child's play, especially in certain seasons of the year, when the ground is wet or hard as rock.
Live Manuela: You have to open the lid, pull out the body, stretch it up high. It is a movement of earth two meters deep by two meters long. Because it is physical fatigue. Unqualified people, who may even have to do something a little quick ... it's technically impossible. Sorry for the term but for me it's a big shit. Point.
In addition, traces of the rituals should be seen the next morning, such as large mounds of loose earth, that someone should have noticed. Caretakers, florists, relatives of the deceased, policemen ... Nothing.
We move to the cemetery of Finale Emilia, seven kilometers away. If you remember, at the beginning of this series we played the tape with the voice of a little girl who, during the investigation, is brought right here for an inspection.
It is Margherita, the last daughter of the Giacco family, the Campania family we mentioned in the third episode. His father Santo had recently ended up in prison, accused of pedophilia.
Live Santo: It is the first time that I have heard it, it is a word ... that I have heard this
word "pedophony" ...
Margherita - I want to remind you that we have changed her real name, like that of all the children in this series - had been taken away from home for about a year, and after a few months of talks with the ASL psychologists she had started talking.
Live Margherita: Then at the end there is the castle ...
Live Claudiani: ... there is the castle at the bottom ...
She was a very precise girl, who remembered everything, even the road she took to get to the cemetery.
Live Margherita: Yes yes, there is a narrow street that you can go on foot ...
In the recording you are listening to it is in the car; sitting next to her is the PM who is dealing with the case, Andrea Claudiani ...
Live Claudiani: Listen but you didn't come here anymore ...
... with him the police commissioner who is following the investigation, Antimo Pagano ...
Live Claudiani: Where are we inspector Pagano?
Live Pagano: We are between Pavignane and Massa Finalese, 3 km are missing
... and there is also the ASL psychologist Valeria Donati ...
Live Donati: You remember the agreement eh, when you no longer want that you are afraid, you have to say it ... otherwise we cannot understand ...
After a few kilometers, they reach the cemetery of Finale Emilia, which is located along a tree-lined avenue, a few minutes walk from the center. The girl points to the adults where she and the others entered.
Live Claudiani: ... this entrance here?
Live Margherita: Yes ...
This conversation took place in 1999, 18 years ago, exactly where Alessia and I are at the moment. From here you have a nice overview of the complex.
This is a much larger cemetery than that of Massa Finalese. After the gray colonnade at the entrance there is a path that, through a lawn full of tombstones, leads to the covered area of the niches. Margherita hadn't felt like entering, and had preferred to stay in the car, from where she had indicated points that she remembered well.
Live Margherita: That little meadow ...
Live policeman: That?
Live Margherita: Pratino ... There if I remember correctly they dug children and they put children ...
The problem is that nothing has ever been found in the meadow you indicate. Above all, it is full of houses around here.
Live Pablo: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 houses overlooking the cemetery ... There is a pink house practically 10 meters away
Live Alessia: The windows of those houses lead into the cemetery ...
The pink house is part of a small housing complex, around 7 or 8 apartments. In the common courtyard we meet some condominiums. They tell us that the owner is Mrs Federica and they take us to her.
Live homes
Live Erica: Federica is the Erica! Sorry to bother you!
Live Federica: No, nothing!
Live Pablo: Good morning lady!
Live Erica: These gentlemen are from television ...
Live Pablo: Really radio
Live Federica: Mamma mia, I am put by….
Live Pablo: No of the radio, of the radio, we are of the radio, not yes
worry, you can stay with the curlers on your head ...
Live Alessia: It's the same ...
Live Federica: Oh my mom ...
Live Pablo: Can I ask you, from your house, do you see the cemetery from your house?
Live Federica: Yes, from above
Federica lets us in.
Live Pablo: So, now we are at the home of Mrs. Federica who lives ...
who has the house that looks into the cemetery and we are seeing if from
window you see something.
The bedroom overlooks an expanse of tombstones.
Live Pablo: Oh misery, you just ...
Live Alessia: It has a view!
Live Pablo: From here you can see the tombs, what is it, it will be 30 meters ... 20 meters
Live Federica: Yes, yes!
Live Alessia: But this house was there in 1997 ... was it already there?
Live Federica: Siiiii… please !!
Live Pablo: So let's say if hooded people came here to do satanic rites with torches? You here from your room ...
Live Federica: With torches? But yes ... I would have seen them!
Live Pablo: Would you have seen them?
Live Federica: I've never seen anything!
Yet from here you can see everything. And you probably hear everything too. Let's make
a test. Alessia goes down and goes back to the central avenue of the cemetery. There
we see very well.
Live Federica: The girl is there ... she sees ... here ...
Live Alessia: Hi!
Live Pablo / Federica: Hi!
Live Pablo: Yes, I feel it perfectly
Live Federica: But God, me too ...
Alessia is not screaming. And if his voice comes loud and clear at Federica's window in broad daylight, think what he should have heard in the silence of the night.
Live Pablo: But have they ever asked you, Police or Carabineri, if you have ever seen something?
Live Federica: Never. Never, never never ....
Live Pablo: No, it's impossible though, sorry….
Live Federica: It is the first time. Never anyone, it's the first time someone has asked me anything.
Live Pablo: It's crazy ...
Why didn't they go and ask her or her neighbors?
If a person were killed at night in the middle of the street, the first people to whom it would be logical to ask for information would be the inhabitants of the houses around… Did you notice anything strange? Heard screams? In this case, no. No question. And no evidence, other than the children's stories. Detailed it is true, but still only stories.
And to say that the police and the Prosecutor had worked meticulously, without neglecting anything.
They had beaten cemeteries, countryside, abandoned ruins. The lawyer Pierfrancesco Rossi recalls that when a little girl had told of corpses thrown into the Panaro river, near the cemetery of Finale Emilia, the research was concentrated there.
Live Avv. Rossi: And so they dredged the river, spending then it seems to me 90 million lire, something like that, to find nothing.
Nothing. Nothing, apart from a skull ... but dating back to the Second World War.
And again: 90 million to dredge a river, and you're not going to ask who, from his bedroom window, sees the cemetery?
No. Because the Modena Public Prosecutor's Office, the police, Mirandola Marcello Burgoni's head of Social Services, and the psychologist Valeria Donati are absolutely convinced that the children's testimonials are credible. Why should they lie?
Furthermore, on the priest's computer, which everyone indicates as the head of the sect, there is a trace of suspicious searches.
The boots are there, as are the glasses that the little ones talk about.
The inspector Antimo Pagano, in the course of his investigations, moreover discovers that the parish priest is also a frequent visitor to notorious local places, a meeting place for prostitutes and truck drivers.
It all comes back. Evidence of the murders will have to come out. It is only a matter of time.
It is the summer of 1998, in town there is no mention of the Giro d'Italia just won by Pantani, of the anomalous heat wave, and of the parish priest, and his band of pedophiles.
At that time, another child was removed from the family by order of the Juvenile Court.
The sixth, after Dario, Elisa and her little brother Nic, Marta and Margherita. Its impact on the fate of Don Giorgio and many other people will be devastating.
The girl's name is Cristina Morselli.
She is the daughter of Giuliano and Monica, who live just outside the village, in the countryside. He is a worker, she is a housewife.
It is a family with many problems.
Monica, the mother, suffers from a severe form of schizophrenia, has frequent epileptic seizures, and is unable to take care of Cristina and her little brother, who is only one year old.
The little Cristina, moreover, is already followed by the neuropsychiatric service of the ASL of Mirandola, for a learning difficulty encountered at school.
Giuliano says that he does not have a good relationship with the psychologist who follows his daughter.
Also because for some time Cristina, when she is at home, has been making disturbing speeches, and has been using strange terms such as "removal" or "foster family".
Until one morning Giuliano receives the call from a social worker.
Live Giuliano: He calls me around 9 in the morning and tells me "Giuliano should come here to Mirandola, you and your wife to sign papers, together with the baby". When the girl was at home, she heard the phone call, she gave birth to the leaf because they had already told him about possible estrangements in other families, and she had hidden under the bed, and she no longer wanted to go out.
Live Pablo: And how did you react at that point?
Live Giuliano: I pulled her by the foot, she clung to the bed underneath and didn't want to go out. I took her by the hand and pulled and ... she went out ... but she was crying, and now I was crying too.
Giuliano, who has understood what is about to happen, prefers not to create problems and brings the child to them, confident that the situation will be resolved in a short time. What he still doesn't know is that his daughter, in the weeks leading up to that phone call, told social workers that he and her mom do "bad things" to her. After the removal, the child is examined by doctor Maggioni of. Milan, the same gynecologist who had found signs of abuse in the others. little girls involved. And even in this case the outcome of the visit leaves no doubt: Cristina has suffered violence.
Psychologists begin to dig into her memories and the little girl slowly starts to open up.
It is the whole family that abuses her. Her paternal grandfather, parents and uncles who, according to her stories, also force her to attend cat sacrifices every night, and then put her back to bed.
Also this time, it is not long before Cristina's memory leaves the walls of her house, crosses dark streets, and stops in front of the gate of a cemetery.
"Which one?" The psychologists ask her.
Cristina has no doubts, that of Massa Finalese.
It will be the little girl who will absolutely describe the most atrocious scenes.
He will say that Don Giorgio, after the rituals, carried away corpses of babies in his white van.
Here is his report:
“They made us throw them in the air, they fell and then they put them in a. tarpaulin, they made the children's blood drip and made us drink it. Then after. they told us we were children of the devil because we had committed a. murder. Then I once killed a small child with a knife. My father kept him too and I planted a knife in his heart. "
Cristina describes a scene full of devil and vampire masks, just as Dario and Marta had done. It all seems too clear now.
The psychologist then asks her one last question:
"Do you remember who the other kids were?"
"Yes" replies Cristina "my four cousins, the children of Aunt Lorena".
Live French speaking people.
Live Pablo: Bonjour, excuse moi, je cherche le Cours ST Barth.
Live man: The premiere at gauche.
Alessia and I are in France, in Salernes.
We are looking for an address.
Live Pablo: The due bis should be ...
Live Alessia: Two. Is this huh?
Live Pablo: See if this is the intercom… what does it say?
Live Alessia: Lorena and Stefano ...
Live Pablo: Okay
We came to speak with Lorena Morselli, who has lived here since the day she ran away from Massa Finalese 18 years ago.
You have already heard her voice, it was the woman who was crying on the phone, while telling us about the dawn of November 12, 1998, when her children, the cousins of
Cristina, they were taken away.
Live Lorraine phone call:
Pablo: How old were your children?
Lorraine: 11, 9, 7 and 3 ... and then after I looked at them one last time ...
Now Lorraine lives in an apartment on the first floor a stone's throw from the historic center of this small Provence village.
Live Lorraine: Vous etes arrivée ...
Live Pablo: Nous sommes arrivée… Good evening, bonsoir…
Live Alessia: Good evening Lorena
Live Pablo: ça va?
Lirena: ça va, ça va, ça c'est bien passé?
Live Pablo: Oui, très bien
Lorraine: Très bien? C'est long, c'est long. Allez ... Take a seat.
Her fifth son also lives with her.
Live Lorraine: Stefanoooo
Live Pablo: Stefano ... how are you? Pleasure.
Live Stefano: How are you? Have a good trip?
Live Pablo: Do you speak Italian well?
Live Stefano: Yes, yes, I speak it!
Live Pablo: Do you speak better Italian or French?
Live Stefano: French is better ...
Lorena dotes on him. He is the only child left with her.
Lorena Morselli was born in 1959 in Massa Finalese, from a very Catholic and large family. She is the first of 5 children.
Live Lorena: I dreamed of becoming a teacher, I dreamed of having a beautiful one
family, to meet a good boy ...
Someone like Delfino Covezzi, a nice boy from the same parish. At first, only timid glances and some hidden winks, then ...
Live Lorena: We talked to each other, we got engaged and then we decided to get married. At our wedding there were 200 people, perhaps even more, because they all loved us.
Lorena and Delfino are the model couple in the country. He finds work as a tiler and she as a kindergarten teacher, her childhood dream.
In 1987 their first daughter was born. We will call her Veronica. Then come Pietro, Federico and finally Aurora, born in '95.
That of the Covezzi family is a peaceful existence, divided between work and voluntary activities in the oratory, in a country where nothing relevant ever happens.
At the beginning of 1997, however, strange rumors began to circulate in the local press about the family of Dario, the last son of the Galliera, who at that time had been definitively removed.
Of course Lorena did not expect that her family's name would soon appear in those same papers.
This story also begins to become hers when her granddaughter Cristina is removed from her father Giuliano.
Lorena takes charge of the matter and begins to ask the Mirandola Social Services for explanations. Call, ask for appointments, fight ...
Live Lorraine: I saw that people were turning upside down. They were not for the child, for the family, they were against everything, against everyone. On the phone they kept saying to me, “The boy is always telling the truth. The child always tells the truth "...
Live Pablo: But they didn't tell you what this truth was.
Live Lorraine: Nothing, they didn't give us an argument. Until one day ... Cristina had told of cemeteries. And sacrifices. And his cousins, the children of Aunt Lorraine.
Live Lorraine: It was November 11th, it was San Martino. We had promised grandmother Maria that we would go and eat roasted chestnuts with her. My children were happy because Delfino had renewed the car. And then nothing, we went back home normally, to shower and to bed. The next morning at half past five my daughter, the youngest, had asked to pee. I was in the kitchen to drink a glass of water and at that moment I hear the doorbell ring. And from the door I say "But who is it?". They replied "Police lady, don't worry, open up".
Seven police officers entered the house. "Lady don't worry, wake up your husband." Seven of them gathered around his bed and when he woke up he found the police in front of him, seven officers!
"Come and we will tell you ... we will tell you what your niece tells you". Cemeteries, devils, hoods ... the procession, the screams ... the desecrated graves. And then I say "What do you want?" I remember that the children in the room were starting to whisper anyway. I felt "psst psst psst" and certainly also wondering what was happening in the house with so much police. Well when they started saying to the children “Get dressed, have breakfast and then come with us to the police station”. There I realized that there was something wrong.
At the same time, a few blocks away, other agents are putting handcuffs on the wrists of Lorena's father and brothers, including Giuliano, Cristina's dad. His wife Monica is also arrested.
Everywhere in town the lights of the steering wheels color the sunrise blue. It is on one of these machines that Lorraine climbs. Her husband Delfino follows her on their car together with their sleepy children. After twenty minutes, the small convoy reaches the police station of Mirandola.
Live Lorena: And there a girl turns up and says to me "Ah hello Lorena how are you? Are you OK? Oh how beautiful your children are! My name is Valeria Donati ". Then they told us "The children stay here, you go up, go and make a signature and then we'll take you home." And I still took advantage of those few minutes that I still had to look at my children, because I felt that something very serious was happening. Then at one point one of my daughters, the oldest, began to cry, without saying anything. And he looked at me with wide eyes. And I looked at her. I tried to be calm to reassure her. Then my third son looked at the older one and he too started to cry. At this point Valeria Donati began to scream "You are a bad mom! You see? You are a very bad mother, it is you who make your children cry! You scare them! ". And at the moment of detachment my children left me with these words in their ears. In my heart I said "Lord I entrust you my children ... I entrust them to you".
When Lorena and Delfino go up to the first floor by themselves, they find the head of social services, Dr. Marcello Burgoni.
Live Lorraine: With a sheet in hand that was the decree of the juvenile court ... therefore "you were incapable parents, you entrusted your children to the devils to bring them to the cemeteries at night, so the Juvenile Court decides for them that they are removed and for you must come to the social service talks starting tomorrow ”. My husband and I looked at each other ... the crying has begun and is no longer finished.
After a few days Lorena and Delfino are given back the videotapes that the police had seized at their home.
Live Lorena: It was the school parties, it was the baptisms, it was ... the Carnival.
Here is the cruel irony. A very religious woman, who built her life around Christian values, accused of worshiping the devil.
November 12, 1998 in Massa Finalese is no ordinary day. The news that the kindergarten teacher took the children away in the middle of the night leaves the town open-mouthed.
Lorraine's colleagues are in shock.
Live Lorraine: Everyone said if they took us away from these children in class, they can take away the whole class.
The balance of that night is dramatic: together with his 4 children, two other children from Massa were sent away, and 6 adults ended up in handcuffs, practically all of Lorraine's family. All accused by little Cristina.
The only reason Lorena and Delfino were not arrested is that the granddaughter said she only saw her little cousins in the cemeteries, not the two of them.
Live Lorraine: Nobody understood then and nobody understands today what happened ...
Lorraine's children follow all the others. Shortly after the departure they are visited. The girls by Dr. Cristina Maggioni, the boys by her colleague, Dr. Bruni. The outcome is always the same.
People are beginning to be afraid.
Lorena and Delfino suddenly became radioactive. And the air that you breathe in many houses has also become radioactive. Their closest friends don't know how to behave.
This is Antonella, teacher and volunteer in the parish.
Live Antonella: Our children played together. Because every week we found ourselves praying so it was also a "be careful because even if we stand nearby we can even be subjected to a different control". Any act could be read incorrectly and therefore even just, I don't know, take a shower or walk around the house freely which means maybe even in briefs "I'm going to take the tank top in the room, I forgot it", it could become a dagger that came to you suddenly ...
This is Manuela, the florist from Massa Finalese.
Live Manuela: This is what frightens you, the right term, you don't understand what's going on ... People who until yesterday were together the parish group and
Carnival wagons were built, tomorrow you find yourself being held up as pedophiles. Does not exist. Does not exist. A kindergarten teacher who looks after children and her husband is at the priest's bar, there is no rapist. I mean you don't believe it. It displaces you. It scares the country with news too big to listen to.
The community, which previously assisted passively, now begins to mobilize.
Demonstrations are organized in front of the Juvenile Court and the Prosecutor's Office, and signatures are collected in the squares. Everyone wonders: is it lawful for a couple of parents to be taken away in that way, on the sole basis of the accusations of an eight-year-old girl?
Also the Honorable Carlo Giovanardi and the Senator Augusto Cortelloni, in a parliamentary question of 4 March '99 to the then Minister of Justice Oliviero Diliberto, asked: "Why were children taken who never said anything, especially children of parents who are not even investigated?"
The news is no longer just local news, but ends up in newspapers and on TVs across the peninsula.
The pressure on the Juvenile Court of Bologna and on the Social Services of Mirandola increases.
Now pay attention to the dates, because there is a strange coincidence.
The Minister's response is scheduled for March 11. But close to that date an extension is requested and everything is postponed for a week, to March 18th.
However, on March 17, a day before Diliberto's expected intervention, a guarantee notice arrives at the couple's home: the two older children, Veronica and Pietro, who have been living with the new foster families for 4 months, accused them of sexual abuse.
Those children who had never said anything for all that time had started talking within days of the Minister's reply.
And to collect their testimony was Valeria Donati.
Now the position of Lorraine and Delfino has changed. So the choice of the Juvenile Court to remove their children has become legitimate.
The couple ends up in the increasingly large group of people who have entered the orbit of the Modena prosecutor's office.
But just in that moment of confusion and bewilderment something totally unexpected happens.
Lorena finds out she is pregnant again.
Live Lorena: It was my lifeline ... truly joy, finding myself a mother, finding myself an exchange of love, of tenderness ...
But shortly after the joy gives way to worry.
Giving birth there, after all that has happened, means risking finding social workers even in the delivery room.
Exactly as it had just happened to Federico Scotta and his wife, the parents of Elisa, one of the first girls indicated by Dario.
They too, after the removal of the two children, were expecting another child.
Live Scotta: ... and how he was born Mr. Marcello Burgoni with the court decree saying that he had to pull it away ...
Live Pablo: In the hospital?
Live Scotta: Yes, directly, in the hospital.
Lorena at this point runs away and still pregnant, with the help of some friars, reaches Salernes, in Provence, where Stefano will be born and where the Social Services cannot do anything to her.
The couple must rebuild their lives from scratch. You find work as a housekeeper. Delfino continues for years to go back and forth between France and Italy, to follow the hearings of the trial. Until 2013, when he is struck down by a heart attack.
Lorena's escape is yet another blow to a community already upset by Don Giorgio Govoni's involvement in this story too difficult to digest.
Live Antonella:
We were afraid. Why know that one morning at 5 you can be woken up by the police and taken to the police station, and then never see yours again
children clearly is something that scares you, because as it happened to them, if the children start talking, they start saying "but I played
with this, I'm with that other "and names come out, they can come looking for you too.
Live Manuela:
I left and went to the police station. I said to him “if you happen to come and get my baby, I recommend loading the weapon because I don't give it to you. You have to shoot me. "
The country begins to fear that the monsters are not the priest, the teacher or the devils who go to cemeteries at night.
Perhaps there is a much bigger threat to children around. The real danger does not come with the fall of the dark, but at first light
dawn.