The Yellow of Bolzano — Shocking Update

The crimes resolved

I had just stepped out of the shower on Monday to hear my wife, Silvia, yelling something. I opened the door to the bathroom and she said “Benno ha confessato!” Benno has confessed!

For those of you who haven’t read the back-story, this article provides the details, plus my 2¢ in terms of a theory on what went down.

On February 6, after weeks of searching, the body of Laura Perselli, Benno’s mother, was found in the Adige River. At this point, Benno was already under arrest, and sitting in solitary confinement, in the local jail. Upon hearing his mother’s body had been found, Benno requested an interview with the prosecution. Two meetings took place in the following days.

Now, a month later, the body of Benno Neumair’s father, Peter, has still not been found. The search for Peter’s body has focused solely on the Adige. This has angered some of Peter’s relatives — namely his brother — who believes Peter’s body is somewhere in the mountains.

Yesterday, March 8th, we found out why the search has been so limited. It seems that during the first day of interviewing after the body of Laura Perselli was found, Benno confessed to murdering both of his parents.

He said that he and his father had an argument — Benno and his parents had been arguing a lot as Benno had had substance abuse issues that were surfacing again. During that argument, in their apartment, Benno said he strangled his father. Then, he said he waited for his mother to return home — hiding near the front door — and strangler her when she walked in. Later in the evening, according to his statement, he drove both bodies to a bridge over the Adige River and dumped both bodies into the icy water. He then went to his girlfriend’s house for dinner, stayed the night and went home the next morning.

Police investigators kept Benno’s confession, which was made while his legal representatives were present, secret. We don’t have an official word as to why, but speculation is that they were continuing to investigate the girlfriend to see if she was a willing accomplice to the murders.

As for my initial theory, except for the fact that I was right about Benno being the killer, I got all the details wrong! In my defence, some of the details released by police were false. For example, they said Benno’s and his parents’ phones all went dark at the same time. It turns out that this was not true: Peter’s phone went dark first, then, later, Benno’s phone and the phone of his mother were switched off. My guess is that these leaked “facts” are tossed out to the public to see how persons-of-interest react.

It’s hard to know when more details will be made public, but that’s what we know now.