1978

March 18, Milan
Lorenzo Iannucci known as Iaio, 18 years old, student
Fausto Tinelli, 18 years old, student

Milan, March 18, 1978. Late afternoon. Fausto Tinelli and Lorenzo Iannucci known as Iaio, nineteen years old, are two inseparable friends: two busy boys on the left, frequent the Leoncavallo social center. In recent months they are part of a group of young people working on a dossier on heroin dealing in Milan. They are not militants of political parties. Often on Saturdays they go to Fausto’s house where his mother Danila prepares dinner. The appointment is at 19.30 at the Crota piemunteisa in via Leoncavallo, right in front of the social center. Fausto reaches the restaurant around 7 p.m. In the billiard room there are three young people never seen before. This is confirmed by some witnesses. Lorenzo arrives at 19.35, a few minutes late. At 19.45, Fausto and Lorenzo leave the club, cross the street and walk along Via Lambrate. The journey is short, three hundred meters. The two boys are now in Piazza San Materno, turn left into via Casoretto. Another eighty meters and are in front of the newspaper stand. The newsstander hears them comment on the headlines of the afternoon newspapers, La Notte and Il Corriere d’informazione, with articles relating to the investigation into the kidnapping of the president of Christian Democracy Aldo Moro and the killing of the five escort men, which occurred only two days earlier (March 16, 1978), in Rome, in via Fani. Fausto and Lorenzo are taking the stretch of road between via Casoretto and via Mancinelli. It’s 19.58. Three people are stopped in front of the Anderson School door. Fausto and Lorenzo are attracted by something or someone in via Mancinelli. The bell tower of the Casoretto church beats 8 p.m. Their path stops, forever. Eight Winchester bullets, 7.65 caliber, are fired by a professional killer. An execution. The bodies shrew to the ground. The first to fall is Fausto. The bullet hits him in the abdomen; the other three in rapid succession to the left hemithorax, right arm, and left lumbar region. Fausto makes a twist on himself. The fifth bullet reaches him with a smear by piercing the clothes. Then it’s Lorenzo’s turn. Three shots cause him to collapse on the sidewalk, as he attempts an impossible escape. Close to the killers are Marisa Biffi and her two younger daughters Alessandra and Cinzia Frontini. Ms. Biffi says: “Three boys are standing on the sidewalk and are 5-6 meters away from me. At the same time another young man is slightly bent and compresses his stomach with both hands. I hear three muffed shots that look like firecrackers there so much that I think that group of four people is joking. I don’t see any firearm flare. The three young people on the sidewalk run away quickly while the one bent over himself falls to the ground. Only then do I understand that something crazy has happened and I approach the fallen young man instead of immediately entering the parish. I see the physiognomy of a boy lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Immediately beyond his body and therefore closer to Via Leoncavallo, there is in front of me, a couple of meters away, the body of this boy that I had not seen either standing or on the ground before. I can certainly say that the one who falls first is Lorenzo Iannucci while the one already lying on the ground is Fausto Tinelli. Neither of the two boys speaks a word, not even an invocation for help. The murderers who flee in silence do the same, heading towards Via Leoncavallo. I exclude having seen a car start towards Via Mancinelli, immediately after the shots. I notice that the young man with the raincoat has a bag that looks like white cellophane in his hand. It seems to me that he directed him towards the squirming killer and that both hands are inside the bag. The young man is shooting at Iannucci. I have not seen any other bags in the hands of the two young people and I have not even seen any of them take an attitude such as what a shooter can assume. In my opinion, Iannucci shoots only one person. Perhaps the shots are mothened by a weapon equipped with a silencer. I repeat: I have the clear impression that the white bag is made of plastic and that the killer keeps his hands inside it. However, the young man’s arms are outstretched forward.” Marisa Biffi therefore recognizes two killers. The first is about one meter and seventy tall, slim, dark brown hair, wears a light raincoat. The second is similar to the first in build, it wears a camel-colored vest. Alessandra and Cinzia Frontini observe the crime from the same view as their mother Marisa Biffi. The three testimonies are overlapping. Tick the fourth head. Natale Di Francesco, a civil invalid, notices three young people fleeing at the intersection of Via Mancinelli and Via Leoncavallo, a few meters from the social center. Two killers are of normal build, one meter and seventy tall, dark and straight hair. No shells or bullets are found at the place of the double crime. Two 7.65 calibers are found among Fausto and Lorenzo’s garments. Next to Iaio’s lifeless body, the killers leave a blue wool cap soaked in blood. It will be destroyed in 1988 by the Criminal Corps Office of the Court of Milan. Around 20.10 in Piazza Durante, the police find a 9-caliber pistol thrown by a person aboard a large-displacement motorcycle. And a few minutes later, in Piazza Aspromonte, Pierre Manuel Orbeson and Magda Margutti notice two young people aboard a light green Kawasaki. The couple carefully observes the scene: the passenger gets off the bike, removes a sort of cover tied with a rubber band from the license plate and enters a nearby pizzeria. Pierre Manuel Orbeson memorizes the license plate number (MI 538738) and passes it on to the journalist Antonio Belloni. The bike is in the name of Gaetano Russo, convicted of robbery and theft, and Antonio Ausilio, indicted for various crimes, including attempted murder. On their behalf, no further investigations are carried out by the judicial police.