The Fall of Countess Agusta

At the just concluded trial for the murder of Maurizio Gucci, the last descendant of the famous Schneider dynasty of luxury "feathers", the widow Patricia Gucci was sentenced to 26 years in prison. After a psychiatric examination, it was established that she was perfectly sane when she ordered the murder of her husband, who died in March 600.000, for 95 marks. shot by three bullets as he entered his office in Milan. The public prosecutor successfully defended the thesis that the reasons for Gucci's murder were his wife's jealousy, hatred and greed ("the monthly check for 150.000 marks was not enough for her and she wanted the entire inheritance" - the explanation of the verdict reads). The main evidence was receipts of money transfers from Ms. Gucci's account in Monte Carlo, and it was established that she had been inquiring for months with a lawyer and a housekeeper about the possibility of hiring a professional killer. The trial itself was followed in Italy like the most watched TV show: the black widow feigned madness while the organizers (clairvoyant friend Pina) and the perpetrators (pizzeria owner and drug dealer) admitted their involvement. The participants were arrested only two years after the murder, and that was by chance, because one of them "exposed" himself in a tavern in front of thugs working for the Carabinieri.

Like the Milanese bourgeoisie, who are addicted to glass balls, but also to magnum 357, the fashionable resort of Portofino also had its scandal. At the beginning of the year, Countess Francesca Vaca Agusta, the heiress of the famous Agusta helicopter factory and a friend of the future Prime Minister Berlusconi, disappeared in broad daylight at the age of 58. The search was immediately concentrated on the surrounding beaches and the sea because it was assumed that the countess had drowned since pieces of clothing were found on the rocks. Only after 15 days was the body found, but on the Côte d'Azur, at a distance of about 400 km, although it has not yet been determined with certainty that it is her corpse.

JOURNALISTS WRITE: Journalistic investigations, although they are often based on false indications, wrong hypotheses and only disrupt the work of the judiciary and the police, have given all possible explanations for the tragedy: accident, suicide and murder. According to the version of the Italian investigative authorities, the countess lost control under the influence of alcohol or drugs and fell from a meter-high cliff. On the other hand, according to the claims of the French police who found the body, the suicide was simulated: the countess was first killed and later thrown into the sea. As in Agatha Christie's best book (but also by Dušan Kovačević), doubts swirl around the five of them who have been living with Countess Franceska Agusta in her villa in Portofino for the last few years. They are now accusing each other and fighting over the legendary inheritance, and since lately Francesca Agusta has been going to the notary once a week to change her will, there are practically the same number of wills as there were regular guests of the villa. The fiercest fight over inheritance is between two lovers, a housekeeper from Mexico and the owner of a famous local cafe, and the most morbid thing is that they all continued to live in the same villa as if nothing had happened.

Tragedy has recently (again) befallen the most powerful Italian family, the Agnelli family, owners of Fiat, so they can be identified with the Kennedys and their curse in another way. For the second time in the last three years, the dynasty was hit in the heart because after the death of the heir to the empire, Giovanni, his uncle's brother Edoardo also left. Thus, Umberto and Gianni Agnelli, the two richest Italians, both lost their first-born sons.

Edoardo Agnelli (46), Gianni's son, committed suicide in mid-November by throwing himself off a viaduct near Turin. He went out in his pajamas in the early morning, escaping his bodyguards, and considering his mental problems, no one suspected that it was suicide. As a probable reason for this tragic act, Italian journalists mention drugs, but also depression caused by marginalization within the empire: Edoardo Agnelli has long been out of business, except for a short-term work on the board of the family football club Juventus. The biography states that the heir to the Agnelli dynasty was obsessed with oriental mysticism, astrology, Buddhism, and as a follower of Sai Baba, he predicted the collapse of capitalism (!). Ten years ago, he was arrested in Kenya with 30 grams of heroin, and all the Italian newspapers announced this news at full blast, only to completely ignore it the very next day, after a couple of phone calls from Turin.

LATIN THE KENNEDYS: It caused collective grief in Italy in December '97. the death of his uncle, Giovanni Agnelli (age 36). Giovanni was the Italian version of John F. Kennedy (Junior): handsome, young, rich, uninfected by family vices (alcohol and sex). He was the pride of the nation, he successfully managed the Piaggio motorcycle factory that produces the famous Vespas, and before that he worked for several months, incognito (under the name Giovanni Rossi), as an ordinary worker on the assembly line. In the new century, he was supposed to manage the business empire of the Agnelli family, in which the production of Fiat cars represents only 40 percent of the total business. He was preparing to open a Vespa factory in China when he was struck down by a rare form of cancer that had so far only appeared in about thirty cases in Italy.

Around the same time as the verdict on Gucci's killers, the investigation into the traffic accident in which the famous stylist Nicola Trussardi lost his life two years ago was archived. After numerous expert examinations, it was determined that Trussardi died because "due to jet lag, he did not adjust his speed to the road." The family's lawsuit against the Italian Mercedes also fell into the water, because all the protective balloons still opened during the side impact to the fence.

The Italian public interprets this unprecedented series of deaths in the richest dynasties through ancient Greek tragedies in which envious gods punished the successful and lucky, and the murder of Gianni Versace in Miami should also be included in the same series of "life gave them a lot and took a lot." He is on his doorstep in July '97. with two bullets in the head, for unknown reasons, killed by ex-lover Andrew Cunanan. Versace was also national pride, and despite his open homosexual tendencies, his funeral was held in Milan's Duomo Cathedral, which until now had only opened its doors to characters like Puccini and Toscanini for such occasions. All the Italian and world stars paraded in front of ten thousand people, and the cynical headline of the Ansa news agency read "Review in the Duomo".