Interesting, do you have any sources to back up the claim that Antonio Vinci is not the murderer? From what I've read about the case it pretty much has to be somebody connected to the Sardinians, and I think there is a very strong case for it being Antonio

And what exactly are you referring to when you mention Preston landing in hot water? He was arrested but this is covered in the book - and it's all too easy to believe the Italian legal/justice system is the guilty party in all this.

Cicada 3301 is pretty interesting. I'm sure there was an oot thread about it. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_3301

The rest of the stuff in that "article" is rubbish.

Well, Vinci was never even charged with the murders and Giuliano Mignini denied he was the murderer in interviews. I'm gonna have to hunt about to source this and atm don't have the time, but I'll definitely find it for you. The article I linked states Vinci was proven to have no involvement in the murders.
Giuttari claims Vinci was in prison during some of the murders. Preston via the 48 hours programme claims Giuttari is lying.
Michele Giuttari also covers the issue in his books "Blood Buddies" (at his trial, convicted Monster of Florence suspect Mario Vanni kept answering all questions with "We were picnic friends" or Compagni di Mirenda, which became a popular expression in Italy shortly after to describe shady characters and the title is a play on that) and also his "The Monster: Anatomy of an Investigation".
I've only read summaries and reviews of the books because at present there's no English versions.

Wrt Preston, I meant hot water by getting arrested.

As for the cops being the guilty party, I dunno. This article covers that aspect in slightly more detail. Interestingly enough it claims that Spezi has a previous conviction for defamation.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-save-her.html
To clarify, the MOF case is very murky and complex. There's a string of collateral suspicious deaths suspected of being connected to the murders, dodgy bank accounts, alleged cover ups involving the honest to God Italian secret service and all sorts of just plain weird stuff. I'm somehwat (although nowhere near as much as I'd like to be) knowledgeable on the case as it's fascinated me for years now and will happily answer any questions you have on it, honestly and to the best of my knowledge with links whenever possible.
Thing is, it's going way OT from the thread, so if you'd like to create a thread or me to create one or pm me then that's no probs. Alternatively if the mods don't mind a side discussion on a specific linked wiki article then that's no probs to continue here for me either. I'm new to 2+2 though, so however you wish to proceed would be better as you're more in the know about stuff like this.

Have you actually read the book?

I've also been fascinated by the case, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Italian judiciary, but I would not be surprised if Preston's claim that they arrested him in order to discredit him is completely true.

What I love about the MoF case is how superbly it encapsulates so many facets of Italian life; dietrologia, an obsession for the occult, and the utter disregard for Occam's razor, to name but three.

Yeah several times, quite a bit of the source material is plagiarised from English author Magdelin Nabb and again is full of inaccuracies, deliberate omissions and outright falsehoods in part.

The villains in Preston's book are Giuttari and Mignini, yet in a linked interview with Preston I gave in my first post, he calls Mignini a sincere man and honest & incorruptible judge, which shows he's being contradictory to say the very least. His co-author Spezi according to another link I provided states he has a previous defamation conviction. Another provided link states that Vinci was shown to be innocent of the murders.
Spezi has lost another defamation case taken against him by Giuttari, which casts grave doubt on the veracity of the account given by Preston & Spezi.
Why do you regard Preston as such a valid source?

As I said the MOF case is very complex, so Occam's Razor wouldn't really apply here.

Yes, Antionio Vinci was questioned by police and they let him go. This does not mean he isn't the monster. As far as I'm aware - and I could be wrong - there is no strong evidence to suggest Vinci isn't the killer, and Preston's narrative makes the most sense.*

I think non-Italians have a hard time getting to grips with just how corrupt the Italian establishment is, Preston and Spezi's respective arrests mean very little in the grand scheme of things.

--

*The link you provided just said Antonio was arrested and let go, 1000s of men were questioned surrounding the case, it means nothing.

No it didn't. With respect, the link I first provided stated that:
Spezi had the criminal charges against him dropped solely due to the statutes of limitations expiring or "prescrizione" in Italian.
http://www.umbria24.it/mostro-di-fir...ri/302196.html

He was however taken to civil court by Giuttari who won his case for defamation & slander against Spezi, due to the false allegations in his and Preston's book. This is now a matter of public record. I'm off today so am gonna go hunting now for the Mignini interview where he states Vinci is not the Monster, I'll try have it for you later.
Again, why do you think Preston's narrative makes the most sense when I've provided a link showing him to be an unreliable narrator, with his praise of Mignini in an Atlantic interview and sliming him later?
Citing general police corruption to bolster your opinion isn't a valid point with all due respect.
Preston also has plenty of motive to lie, considering he was arrested for attempting to plant evidence to frame Vinci. I will happily list the falsehoods and omissions in his book from memory, if you wish.

It sounds like you guys have some passionate views on this issue, but most of the people reading this thread are not going to have much interest. Perhaps you could start a new thread where you guys, and anyone else who is interested, can discuss the issue without derailing a long-term thread with some excellent other content?

My sincere apologies & I was aware of the OT nature, again my bad. Cheers.

Yeah no posting either really stupid brief articles like i did or talking too much in depth ITT. duh

Yeah, I figured this was coming. Sorry for the derail.

Corupus, let's take this to PMs.

Grantland just posted a good piece on Jack Parsons / the occult / Devils Gate Dam

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prosp...-jack-parsons/

why dont you guys open a thread and maybe report the post in here to a mod so he can extract them.
the monster of florence case is very interesting and i would be interested in what you guys have to say about it.
my personal knowledge of the case so far is just based on reading a few articles about it on the internet and prestons book so if he is a charlatan i would be interested in that too.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derail

I was thinking of this as a kind of joke, but it's a pretty interesting short wiki, if you like this sort of thing. (Tools, contraptions, how it's made, etc.)

I've pm'd Bertie to ask him if he'd like to start a MOF thread, as I figure his original link would be a good OP and hopefully the mods could transfer our posts on to it, but if he's not keen I may start one myself, & apologies to all again for the near derailment cheers.

Long time read of this thread, first time poster. Start a thread about the MOF. It's a cool story and there seems like some decent disagreement. Might be a fun read

Brief and random, mainly for your trivia bank:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgehog%27s_dilemma

I think that's apocryphal or just a parable; interesting as a description of psychology, but not ethologically sound. Porcupines raise or lower their hair/quills and I don't think they have much trouble approaching each other on friendly terms.

Not unless they reproduce asexually...

Finally after at least a year of reading I found something worth posting.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_%28airline%29

It is the "secret" airline used to ferry people from Las Vegas to "area 51" I found several of the hotlinks within the article interesting as well. The URS corp. in particular.


Big! thanks to everyone who's contributed thus far to the thread, It's been REALLY awesome reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroo_Onoda

Japanese soldier continues fighting WWII on his own until 1974.

Cambridge Five

Somehow reading about Turkmenistan lead me to these early cold war era Spies in the UK. Every member of the spy ring has a pretty ridiculous life story and all sorts of interesting spinoff articles related to them.

Lost a good hour of my life on this one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montserrat

This is I think interesting cos I hadn't heard of this place before George Martin documentary.

LANSA Flight 508

This one might be interesting to anyone who's read In Cold Blood or seen Capote. It's briefly mentioned in the book, but I'm surprised that Truman Capote didn't delve deeper into it considering how much of the book is obviously "fictional nonfiction". I wonder how much thought he gave to whether Dick & Perry were involved in this too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_family_murders