Vincenzo Verzeni

Case record (Vincenzo Verzeni)

Background

Vincenzo Verzeni was born in Bettanuco, in the Bergamasco region, in 1849. He measured 1.66 m (5ft5) and weighed 68 kg (150 lbs). He was described as robust like workers in the fields, calm and quiet, and as keeping to himself.

Vincenzo Verzeni came from a problematic family background. His father was described as violent, beating his wife and son during frequent drunken rages, and as obsessed with saving money and almost allergic to expenditures. In this environment, Vincenzo was described as incapable of cultivating interpersonal relationships with girls his own age. Due to fear of his dominant father, he lived “entirely in a world of his own,” with anger described as breaking free under frustrations and resentments.

Vincenzo Verzeni was born to “a respectable family” and was said to have an “irreproachable background” and “quiet ways.”

The offence

Vincenzo Verzeni became “a terrible criminal” due to his instincts. He reportedly tied his victims and first tried to strangle them. He was described as possessing the temperament associated with the Thugs, and it was said that once arrested, at the slightest disagreement with his fellow prisoners, he would automatically roll up tightly his scarf.

In less than two years, Vincenzo Verzeni assaulted seven women. His attempts were frustrated five times by the unexpected arrival of some passer-by or by the vigorous resistance of the victim, and on those occasions he fled without being recognized. Later, suspicions were said to be absent until specific cases.

In the cases of two unfortunates—one described as a young girl of fourteen and the other as a woman of twenty-eight—only the bodies were found. The bodies were described as completely naked and “so horribly mutilated that it was impossible to determine whether the murder had been arisen as part of some other crime.”

The source described mutilations including:

• the abdomen being cut along its whole length,
• the intestines pulled out,
• the limbs smashed to pieces,
• and the entrails scattered on the road with bloody clothing, or carefully hidden in basements or beneath piles of straw.

A specific detail was described: the killer gathered up, one by one, the victim’s hairpins and hammered them symmetrically into geometrical rosettes into the flesh of the body or into the ground.

Vincenzo Verzeni was described as the “Strangler of Women” and as considered the earliest serial killer in Italy of whom detailed and accurate records existed.

The source also described that Vincenzo intended to take Giovanna Motta to his house to cook her flesh, but panicked and hid the body under some straw, where her mother found her. It further described that he never touched or even looked at his victims’ genitals, stating that he was ignorant of how to have intercourse. It also stated that he derived pleasure from strangling them and sucking.

The source states that the expert evidence related Vincenzo to a “morbid perversion of the affective faculties” and a confusion of the will, and that responsible at the beginning of the deed, he ceased to be so under the tyranny of a growing delirium that increased as did the act itself. In such moments it was said he felt an enormous strength and either saw nothing or all appeared red.

The source included a description of the confessed act and effects:

• “The act of squeezing a living throat and, above all, the mutilation of the bodies,”
• “the biting and the sucking of blood,”
• and that these produced a “paroxysm of sensual pleasures.”

Investigation

Vincenzo Verzeni’s career was described as unfolding during a period lasting from 1870 through 1874, with the police unable to capture him.

He was captured thanks to two witness statements, and he was put on trial.

The source stated that Vincenzo killed only two women, and attacked six more. Most of his victims were related to him, and he failed most of the time due to some passer-by. He was said to have always managed to get away without being recognized.

The source also described that he was arrested over testimony of a woman he attacked the night previous to his second killing.

Arrest

Vincenzo Verzeni was arrested over the testimony of a woman he attacked the night previous to his second killing.

Trial

The trial at the assizes court of Bergamo was described as very short. It was said the court lacked unanimity, so he was sentenced to forced labor instead of to the firing squad.

The court found him guilty by a one vote majority of “the two murders and of the attempted murder of four more women.”

Doctor Cesare Lombroso was called upon because of expertise in psychiatry. The expert decided Vincenzo was partially insane.

Doctor Lombroso quoted Vincenzo during the trial as saying:

“I have really butchered some of the women, and I have tried to strangle a few more, because I take immense pleasure in these acts. The scratches found in the thighs weren’t the product of my nails, but of my teeth, because after the strangulation I bit her andsucked the blood that dripped out, which I enjoyed very much.”

The source further stated that Doctor Lombroso maintained Vincenzo came from a family affected by retardation, and that Vincenzo was affected by necrophilomania or an insanity for monstrous or bloody love affairs.

Sentencing

Vincenzo Verzeni was condemned in 1872. He was condemned by the Court of Justice of Bergamo to hard labour for life.

Because the assizes court lacked unanimity, he was sentenced to forced labor instead of to the firing squad.

He was also described as sentenced to closed psychiatric confinement in the status field of this case record.

Appeals

No appeal information was included beyond the lack of unanimity at trial.

Outcome

Vincenzo Verzeni was locked up inside the judicial mental hospital of Milan on April 13. On July 19, he slipped into an impenetrable muteness.

He underwent numerous sessions of “cura morale,” described as incorporating “the most cruel treatments in modern psychiatry,” including:

• boiling glue burns,
• electric shocks,
• total isolation,
• total darkness,
• ice showers poured on his head from a height of 3 m. (10 ft.),
• alternated with “’surprise baths’ in hot water.”

At four in the morning on July 23, nurses found Vincenzo Verzeni dangling against the wall, naked except for his slippers, tied by the neck to a rope attached to the bars in the window. The nurses sought to administer first aid, cutting the rope, but the medic rushed to the scene could not do anything except pronouncing him dead.

In the case status field, Vincenzo Verzeni was released and died on December 31, 1918.

Aftermath

No further aftermath details were included.

Timeline

• 1870 — A period lasting from 1870 through 1874 was described as during which panic spread throughout the Bergamasco countryside and Vincenzo eluded the police in all efforts to capture him.
• 1872 — Vincenzo Verzeni was condemned in 1872 by the Court of Justice of Bergamo to hard labour for life.
• April 13 — Vincenzo Verzeni was locked up inside the judicial mental hospital of Milan.
• July 19 — Vincenzo Verzeni slipped into an impenetrable muteness.
• July 23 (4 in the morning) — Nurses found Vincenzo Verzeni tied by the neck to a rope attached to the bars in the window; he was pronounced dead.
• December 31, 1918 — Vincenzo Verzeni died.

Other details

The source described Vincenzo Verzeni as belonging to “the category of innate criminals” whose anatomical and physiologic characteristics included:

• cranial asymmetry with overdevelopment of the left frontal lobe,
• a bony crest found in the large apes and in primitive savages,
• ossification of the temporal artery,
• a squint.

Vincenzo Verzeni was described as confessing to Dr. Lombroso that:

• squeezing a living throat and
• mutilating the bodies,
• along with biting and sucking blood, produced a paroxysm of sensual pleasures.

The source included an additional statement that Vincenzo Verzeni “went down in history” as the “Strangler of Women” and that he was considered the earliest serial killer in Italy of whom detailed and accurate records existed.

The source described his first victim as Giovanna Matta, 14 years old, attacked while she was on her way to reunite with her family in Suiso; she never reached her destination and “disappears mysteriously at that point.” Her body surfaced four days later, “horrendously mutilated.”

The source described that he attacked seven women in total, and that his victims included two women whose bodies were found only, including the young girl aged fourteen and the woman aged twenty-eight.

The source also asserted that he “always managed to get away without being recognized.”

The source included commentary on Dr. Lombroso as the father of modern criminology and described a pathway to an American definition of the term “serial killer,” stating it as “a murderer who commits at least two murders at longer or shorter intervals,” acting out of exhilaration, a psychological need (of a sexual nature), and seeing acts as a challenge.