A bloody murder of murder, madness, glamour and greed – the Thanksgiving Murders of the Gucci family

文/Sofia Lotto Persio

Image source: Visual China

preface

At the same time as Thanksgiving day 2021 is coming, a bloody case of the past giants has also regained people's attention because of a movie.

On November 24, local time in the United States, "House of Gucci" was released. Based on Sara Gay Forden's biographical literature, The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed, tells the story of a real murder within the Gucci family.

In this film, Lady Gaga plays Patrizia Reggiani, Maurizio Gucci's ex-wife, who hires a killer to assassinate her husband, who is drifting away. After serving an 18-year sentence in prison, Regiani was released in 2016 and is now 72 years old. She once said, "For members of the Gucci family, power is like a disease. ”

On the occasion of the release of the film, let's take another look back at this case.

Anonymous phone call

The phone call that would change everything came late at night on January 8, 1997. The anonymous caller asked to speak to Filippo Ninni, the police chief of Italy's Lombardy region, and asked for a meeting. The caller didn't want to reveal too much on the phone: "I just want to say one name: Gucci." ”

Nini is a sheriff who investigates what seems destined to become yet another Italian mystery: the assassination of Maurizio Gucci, the heir and former president of a fashion company with the same name.

Two years ago, on the morning of March 27, 1995, while entering the 20 Via Palestero building in Milan, where he was working, Maurizio was shot and killed by an unknown gunman, just a stone's throw from Milan's fashion district. All sorts of investigations ensued – was Maurizio involved in an improper transaction? Whether the notorious family, which was notorious for infighting, split ?—— but nothing came of it.

After meeting Nini, the informant introduced himself and explained that he lived in a one-star hotel in Milan, where he heard the night porter boast that he had recruited Maurizio's killer. The discovery put the police authorities on a tortuous path that finally cracked the assassination plot, which at the heart of maurizio's ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani, though the plot was even too old-fashioned for soap operas. (Forbes' request for an interview with Reggiani went unanswered.) ）

Reggiani's alleged role in the murder made her, a woman who looks exactly like Elizabeth Taylor, a scandal figure in Italy and fashion, and her notoriety continues to this day: a film about the murder, directed by Hollywood's famous missile Ridley Scott, is currently on the scene; in the film, Regini, who is dubbed "Lady Gucci" by the media, is played by Lady Gaga. In fact, the first rumors of the case being made into a film were about 20 years ago, and it was rumored that the director who wanted to make it at the time was Martin Scorsese. What makes this terrible story so shocking is that it has a fairytale-like beginning.

"Your retribution is still to come."

Reggiani and Maurizio met at an elite gathering in Milan, when they were both in their early 20s. The grandson of the Gucci founder was reportedly attracted to Reggiani's beauty and asked a friend, "Who was that pretty girl in red who looked like Elizabeth Taylor?"

Later, despite Maurizio's father Rodolfo's opposition to their union, the two married in 1972, and they looked — to quote from a popular Italian song of the time — like the most beautiful couple in the world. But that happiness lasted only a little over a decade, their marriage broke down in 1985, and their divorce went through a protracted legal tug-of-war that lasted nearly 10 years.

Later, in an interview with the Italian television show Story Maledette, Reggiani revealed that Maurizio had left her suddenly, and that he had gone on a short business trip to Florence but never returned. She said she learned of her abandonment from a family doctor.

In another TELEVISION show, "Harem," she said the key point in their relationship change was the death of Maurizio's father, Rudolf Gucci, in 1983. She said her father's death changed her husband as he began to act as if he no longer needed to care about anything or anyone. She complained on The Cursed Story that Maurizio did not give her any support when she underwent surgery for a brain tumor in 1992.

But Maurizio clearly cares about his role in the family business, where he has been working in the packing room since he was 15 years old. After his father's death, he inherited 50% of the company's shares, became chairman of the company, and began consolidating his control over the company. Maurizio was embroiled in various lawsuits, apparently to kick his family members out of the board — whose stake was reportedly eventually acquired by Bahraini investment bank Investcorp for $135 million.

By 1993, Maurizio had sold all of his remaining stake in the fashion company to Investcorp for $150 million to $200 million, ending Gucci's history in Italy and making Maurizio a very wealthy man. (Gucci is now a brand of French luxury Kering.) Around the same time, Regiani received about $1 million in compensation a year in the divorce settlement.

But Regiani wasn't happy about that. She was also unhappy with the way Maurizio handled the company's affairs, and in another interview at the time, Regiani recalled: "He recently told me: 'Do you know why our marriage failed?'" Because you think of yourself as president, but we can only have one president in our marriage. ’”

Later, Maurizio found a new, younger partner, Paola Franchi, and rumors that the two were planning a wedding also contributed to the development of the situation.

In the final trial, the extent of Regiani's resentment toward Maurizio became apparent, as the court at the time played a recording of a telephone message that Reggiani had left for the latter. "You've pushed yourself to the limits where your daughters despise you, and they don't want to see you again to forget the trauma." You're a deformed freak, an inflamed appendix we all want to forget," one can hear Regiani say in a voice full of resentment and excitement in the recording. "Your retribution is still to come."

"Momentary weakness"

Regiani's resentment towards her ex-husband is well known – and in fact, the fact that she is looking for a professional killer is also well known. She has twice asked her cleaner for help, and has even consulted a lawyer to ask what would happen if she "settled" her ex-husband. She has acknowledged this in court and in several interviews.

"I must admit that there was a time when I really wanted to get rid of him. I wanted to do it, so I looked around for someone to do it. But my intention ends here — just an obsession, just a longing," she told Cursed Story. "What wife never said, 'I want to kill that guy?'"

No one knows more about Regini's obsession than Giuseppina Auriemma, who has been portrayed in media coverage as a self-styled wizard — though she denies the role — and has been Regjani's girlfriend since her first meeting in Ischia in 1976. In 1994, Regiani felt that brain surgery was having a negative impact on her memory and needed some outside help to recall something, so Olima moved in with her and helped her write a book about her and Maurizio.

What happened next caused a heated debate in the courtroom, with the two women's elaboration of the assassination and their respective roles in it fundamentally disagreed. Olima, who has been in debt, claims that she is "weak for a moment" and agrees to Regiani's request to let her go to a killer.

Regiani claimed that she did not know that Olima had gone to find a killer, and that she had been coerced into paying 600 million lira ($365,000) for the assassination of Maurizio and an advance deposit of 150 million lira.

Uncontroversially, Olima got in touch with Ivano Savioni, the night guard at the hotel where she stayed every time she went to Milan, and she knew Savioni was having financial difficulties. She asked him about hiring the killer, and Savionic then found Orazio Cicala and negotiated the price of assassinating Maurizio, and the two decided that Chikala would find and hire the killer.

After receiving an anonymous phone call on the evening of January 8, 1997, the police began investigating Savioni. At this point, the night janitor is once again looking for the killer – this time with the goal of threatening Regiani to pay the previously agreed balance, even killing her if necessary.

A plainclothes policeman pretended to be interested in the job and then secretly recorded their conversation. In the early hours of Jan. 31, Regiani, Olima, Savioni, Chikala, and Benedetto Ceraulo, the killer accused of murder, were detained and prosecuted. The investigation confirmed that it was Chicala who drove a green Renault Clio, carrying Serrauro, from the car to shoot Maurizio to death and injure the building's porter, Giuseppe Onorato, who survived.

Evidence against Reggiani includes her diary of March 27, 1995, the day Maurizio was murdered, and her diary contains only one word: "Paradeisos," or "heaven" in Greek. Regiani later refuted the claim that it meant a form of celebration, though she admitted to being "relieved" to learn of her ex-husband's killing. "Paradeisos" was just a word she wrote down, she said, because she loved it so much that she wanted to use it as the name of her next villa.

Although the media changed her nickname from "Gucci Lady" to "Black Widow," Regiani never admitted that she ordered Maurizio's murder, and Serrauro always insisted that he was innocent. But in November 1998, Serrauro was sentenced to life imprisonment, 29 years in prison for Ricgiani and Chikala, and 25 and 26 years for Oliver and Savioni, respectively, but both were ultimately commuted. In November 2000, Italian media reported that Reggiani had attempted suicide the day after he had been transferred from San Vitoré prison in central Milan to the opera prison on the outskirts of the city.

Years later, Regiani recalls the events that led to her imprisonment and still hasn't fully admitted her guilt. "I don't consider myself innocent, I think I'm innocent. But on the premise of 'innocence', I have to admit that I made too many mistakes," she said on the "Cursed Story" show in 2002.

Return to the fashion world

In 2014, after serving 16 years in prison, Regiani participated in a work parole program that included working a job and volunteering. This allowed Regiani to work part-time at Bozart Jewelry. Maurizio Manca, the company's boss, told Forbes that Regini works like a designer — pairing jewelry with clothing and supervising the design of handbag collections.

Manka said the job was a good fit for Regiani because it brought her back into the fashion world.

"Our cooperation has been generally enjoyable. You can see that she is a woman who is used to giving orders," he said. "Our company has certain internal processes... But we made that clear at the beginning, and then we developed a good relationship. ”

Regiani worked there for about three years, sometimes sharing memories of her past with new colleagues, "sometimes with regret, sometimes with sadness, sometimes with nostalgia," Manka said. "She'll talk about what she wore when she met with the Trumps and the Kennedys, and what she would wear now."

Manka said they didn't expect the company to be attacked later for hiring Regiani — they barely expected anyone to care about what happened nearly 20 years ago. But in fact, Regjani, who was eventually freed in 2017, has never been completely forgotten or stepped out of the spotlight, either through media interviews with her or her recent actions in court.

Regiani now faces financial claims from Honorato and French. Honorato was the doorman who was injured by the murderer of Maurizio Gucci, while French was Gucci's girlfriend when he was killed. In addition, she is struggling to keep the annual alimony she received from the Gucci family after the divorce.

Her two daughters, Alessandra, 42, and Allegra, 38, who refused to pay divorce compensation to their mother after inheriting their father's inheritance, eventually went to court. An appeals court ruled in 2017 that Regiani was entitled to that annuity, but her daughter appealed the ruling, and the case has now been transferred to Italy's supreme court.

According to Regiani, her finances were previously run by her mother, Silvana Barbieri, who objected to any payments to French and Honorato. After Babili's death in April, Regiani said she intended to cash in on the payments. "I'm going to turn a new page," she said in an interview with Italian television in November, "and I want to do the right thing." ”

As for her longtime fame, at least in a recent interview, she claimed that she wanted it to eventually disappear, at least for the sake of her two daughters. Asked last month on the Italian television show Cursed Story how she felt about Lady Gaga playing her, she said she learned about it from media coverage and was saddened by it. "I have two daughters, and I don't want them to relive their father's death," she said.

Translated by Vivian School Li Yongqiang