Her body would be found in two days. The investigation of the crime continued for two decades. There were five people in the dock – three police officers and the wife and son of one of the officers.
What happened that fateful day at the police station?Why were all the defendants happy about the jury’s verdict?We are in Italy, in the small town of Arce, where 6,000 people live today. It’s a remote province in a mountainous area, far from the sea coast. Rarely do tourists get here.
On June 1, 2001, 18-year-old Serena Mollicone, a senior in high school, left home early in the morning to visit the local hospital. She had arranged with her father to be back by 2 p.m., then had a date for 4 p.m. with a young man in a cafe, and in the evening the girl planned to sit down to study for exams.
Serena and her older sister were raised by their father, a schoolteacher. Her mother passed away due to illness when the heroine of our story was not even six years old. The girl grew up humble and responsible, played clarinet, dreaming of going to pedagogical college.
Her disappearance on a normal Friday afternoon and disconnected cell phone forced her father to contact the police in the evening. But to look for an adult girl law enforcement agencies were in no hurry. “She was out for a walk, it doesn’t happen!” – The lazy Italian carabinieri waved off the agitated parent on the eve of the weekend.
Two days later, on June 3, Serena’s body was found in a nearby forest. There was a head wound in the area of her left eye. Her mouth and nose were taped over with several coils of plaster and a plastic bag on her head.
Forensics concluded that the head wound was not fatal, although it is likely that Serena lost consciousness. The unidentified perpetrators apparently decided to get rid of the girl, who could expose them, and deliberately taped her respiratory organs.
Death by asphyxiation. There were no signs of abuse.The girl’s father and friends said she should have filed a police report that day against the student, Marco Mottola, who was distributing drugs to youths. He had gotten some of Serena’s acquaintances hooked on the nasty stuff, and she did not want to be an innocent bystander.
Marco was apprehended and a school book belonging to Serena was found in the trunk of his car. Perhaps the book had fallen out while the guy was carrying the bag, or maybe the unfortunate girl’s body.Had he intercepted the complainant on his way to the police?
No, Serena walked into the police station. She approached one of the carabinieri named Santino Tusi. Upon hearing what the girl wanted, the dumbfounded policeman took her to the office of an officer whose name was… Franco Mottola. He was the father of the young drug dealer.
Soon Marco Mottola himself and his mother arrived at the station. No outsider saw what was going on in the office. The investigators had to reconstruct the picture of the crime bit by bit.The investigation lasted almost 20 years. Hundreds of examinations, interrogations, exhumation of Serena’s body…
Santino Tusi, the same Carabinieri who did not take the girl’s statement, but took her to Officer Mottola, in 2008 shot himself on the eve of another interrogation at the prosecutor’s office.
But none of the suspects confessed.Finally, in 2020, the prosecutor’s office indicted the five.According to the investigation, when Serena Mollicone was in Franco Mottola’s office, he immediately summoned his son and wife.
Perhaps the aggressive Marco, or even all three, attacked the girl. At some point she hit her head on the doorjamb (traces of blood were found there, and traces of wood in the girl’s hair) and lost consciousness. And then the family decided to get rid of the dangerous witness. With the help of a band-aid and a plastic bag.
Two of Franco Mottola’s subordinates assisted in removing the body and hiding it in the woods.Marco Mottola, the son, was charged with murder, his mother and father with aiding and abetting, and the two carabinieri with aiding and abetting.
Most of all, 30 years in prison, the prosecutor demanded for the “werewolf in uniform,” Mottola Sr. For Mottola Jr. 24 years, for his mother 21 years, and for the accomplices 15 years each.The trial lasted several months and ended quite unexpectedly.
On July 16, 2022, the jury in the Italian town of Arce completely acquitted all five of them. But then they had to be escorted out of the building under guard as a crowd of angry locals, dissatisfied with the verdict, gathered in the street.
The prosecution was never able to convince the jury that Serena Mollicone was deprived of her life in the police officer’s office. Yes, the girl was in the office, yes, she hit the doorjamb… But intentional strangulation with a band-aid and a bag is impossible to prove. Maybe someone else did it…
All five former defendants received compensation for unlawful prosecution.