The Monsters of Circeo

The less young will remember one of the crime stories, among the bloodiest that our country remembers, which took the name of "Massacre of Circeo"

On September 30, 1975, at 10:50 p.m., a night watchman heard strange noises coming from the trunk of a car parked in a residential neighborhood of Rome.

Once the carabinieri arrived, they discovered two girls, Donatella Colasanti and Rosaria Lopez.

Donatella was still alive, while Rosaria was dead.

Their nightmare, however, had begun two days earlier, when three boys from the upper middle class of Rome invited them to a party in Circeo, a seaside resort south of Rome.

After a couple of failed attempts to convince the girls to have sex, the boys forced them by pointing a gun at their heads.

Two days of terror, rape and torture followed: Rosaria was drugged and strangled in a separate room, while Donatella was beaten for many hours and finally strangled.

At that moment, she realized that her only chance of survival was to fake her own death.

After being placed in the trunk, Donatella remembered one of the boys who had sarcastically commented: “look, the sleeping beauties”.

Once back in Rome, before disposing of the bodies, the perpetrators decided to park the car and go to dinner as if nothing had happened.

As soon as the car became silent and despite having the body of her best friend thrown on top of hers, Donatella gathered her last strength and managed to let out a weak scream.

Of the three monsters, only two received life sentences: Angelo Izzo and Gianni Guido.

In Italy, even with a life sentence, a prisoner can be temporarily released for 24 hours, in case of good behavior.

In 2004, Angelo Izzo (pictured center) while on one of these types of permits, managed to strangle Carmela and Valentina Linciano, a mother and her fourteen-year-old daughter.

He would receive another life sentence.

Guido (pictured right) would escape from prison and travel first to Buenos Aires, then to Panama. His freedom would last only two years. His sentence would then be commuted from life to 30 years, then back to 14.

He was released in 2008.

Andrea Ghira (pictured left) would successfully escape and join the Spanish Legion. He would die of an overdose in North Africa without having spent a day in prison.

Donatella's mind and body never recovered from the trauma and she died in 2005 of breast cancer. She was 47 years old (she is pictured when she is pulled out of the trunk and shortly before her death). Continue reading