Mass murderer born 168 years ago still
officially on the run
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Simone Pianetti shot and killed
seven perceived enemies |
Notorious
murderer Simone Pianetti, who is regarded as a hero by some Italian and
American anarchists, was born on 7 February 1858 in Camerata Cornello in the
province of Bergamo.
In July
1914, Pianetti went out with his rifle one day and shot and killed seven people
living in his local area who he believed had wronged him. He then went on the
run and after firing at some Carabinieri officers who tried to arrest him, escaped
into the mountains above Bergamo.
A search was
carried out by more than 200 officers, from the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri
and an infantry regiment, to try to capture him, but Pianetti managed to stay
hidden in the mountains near the villages of Olmo al Brembo and Cassiglio.
Despite a 'Wanted' poster being published and circulated by the local Prefetto, offering a 5000
lire reward, Pianetti was never caught and his body was never found.
It is known
that when he was young, Pianetti had fired his rifle at his father without
injuring him, after an argument over a legacy. He was not charged with any
offence as a result and, with the agreement of the local head of the
Carabinieri, he left Italy and went to the USA.
Years later,
he returned to Italy, his journey being paid for by his father, and he went
back to live in Camerata Cornello, where he got married and fathered seven
children.
He opened a
small restaurant where customers were also allowed to dance, but because the
local parish priest and other church officials did not approve of the dancing
at his restaurant, he was eventually forced to close it by the municipal
authorities.
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A reward of 5,000 lire was offered
for help with the search for Pianetti |
He then
opened an electric powered mill, but this later also turned out to be an
unsuccessful business venture because his reputation was blackened by his
enemies and he lost all his money and became impoverished.
As the only
person in the area who did not attend church, Pianetti steadily grew to believe
that everyone hated him, which led to his murderous rampage in 1914.
On the
morning of 13 July, Pianetti went out with his rifle and a list of the people
who he believed had contributed towards his business failures and his poverty
by either closing him down, or cheating him. His eventual victims were the local
doctor, Domenico Morali, the manager of the municipality, Abramo Giudici, and
his daughter, Valeria, Giovanni Ghilardi, a shoemaker, Stefano Filippo, a
priest, Giovanni Giupponi, a layman, and Caterina Milesi, a farmer.
It is
thought his actions in 1914 could have been inspired by those of Gavrilo
Princip, a Serbian student, who had assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and
his wife the previous month, the famous killings that set off the events that
led to the start of World War I.
Pianetti was
known to have survived in hiding in the mountains for some time and it is not
known, when, or where, he eventually died. It is thought it may have been in 1952
in Milan, but this has never been proved. There were also reported sightings of
him in the Bergamo mountains, as well as in America and Venezuela.
Some of the
local people began to see the fugitive Pianetti as a liberator, and wrote on
walls, praising him, with slogans such as ‘Long Live Pianetti, we need one in
every town’.
It is
thought people helped him stay hidden from the authorities by giving him food.
Some residents were later sentenced to terms of imprisonment for helping him.
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The village of Camerata Cornello, where
Pianetti carried out his killing spree |
In his
absence, Pianetti was sentenced to life imprisonment, which was accompanied by a
sentence of five years in continuous solitary confinement.
Many
theories have been put forward about how he escaped justice. Some people claim
to have met him years later in America, and there is a theory that in his old
age he returned from there and lived with his son, Nino, in Milan, until he
died in 1952.
In later
years, Pianetti’s story came to be admired by some Italian and American
anarchists because of the actions he took against what was perceived to be the
bigotry of those in authority in Italy, in the religious establishment and the society
of his time.
He is remembered in towns in the Brembana Valley as a sort of avenger,
often referred to as a righter of wrongs, and a hero opposed to the people in
authority. The “romantic” aspect of his story endures, leaving aside the tragic
and criminal side, and the threat of “doing like Pianetti”, (in the Bergamo dialect fà de Pianetti) is sometimes used.
Pianetti’s death has never been recorded and the case against him has
never been dropped, so he is now officially on the run aged 168.
His birthplace, Camerata Cornello, a comune of Bergamo, about 20
kilometres (12 miles) north of the city, is one of the oldest villages in the
Brembana Valley.
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