The murder of Chiara Poggi

Why the Garlasco case has come up again and what has happened in the last seven days

The investigators, who have accelerated their investigation over the past week - with searches at Sempio and his parents' home and the search for the murder weapon in the Tromello canal - are now ready to unveil a few tricks up their sleeve

by Enrico Bronzo

20 May 2025Aggiornato il 21 maggio 2025, ore 07:32

Un'immagine di Chiara Poggi, la studentessa uccisa il 13 agosto 2007 nella sua abitazione a Garlasco (Pavia). ANSA/EMMEVI

3' min read

3' min read

The investigators, who in the last week have accelerated their investigations - with searches at Sempio and his parents' home and the search for the murder weapon in the Tromello canal - are now ready to unveil a few tricks up their sleeve, while waiting for the evidentiary accident to return that genetic match that for the prosecution places the suspect in Via Pascoli when Chiara Poggi was killed.

In the filing on Sempio - signed by Preliminary Investigation Judge Fabio Lambertucci and requested by Assistant Prosecutor Mario Venditti and Substitute Prosecutor Giulia Pezzino - that fact is already explained by a mediated contact between Chiara's fingers and the keyboard of the computer at Poggi's house (not cleaned with reagents) on which Sempio may have left his fingerprints some time before.

An explanation that does not convince a public prosecutor's office marked in recent years by poison and infighting.

The current investigation - awaiting twists and turns almost 18 years after the crime - begins with a re-reading and a new reconstruction of what happened on the ground floor of the cottage where Chiara Poggi's parents continue to live.

The hypothesis is considered - denied by the verdicts - that there might have been a scuffle between the victim and Sempio such as to justify that genetic trace on the fingernails, which for the prosecution finds no other justification.

The dynamics of the murder - photos in hand - show Chiara Poggi being shot a few steps away from the front door, dragged across the floor, lying on the jamb before being thrown down the stairs where she was found.

He is wearing pyjamas - indicating that he opened to someone he knew -, no sign of forced entry, no attempt at violence, the only thing missing in the house is a hammer.

The Hammer

A hammer was found on 15 May 2025 by dredging an irrigation ditch that runs near the railway in Tromello, not far from Garlasco. A super-witness recently pointed to the canal as a possible location where the murder weapon could have been found. Sources close to the investigation report that more than one object has been found that is compatible with what is being searched for. At the moment, this is the only detail that has emerged from the confidentiality of the investigators, who urge caution because it could be commonplace objects. The tool was found in the 300 metres where the search by the Carabinieri and fire brigade was concentrated.

The reconstruction of the murder

The 26-year-old woman, shot shortly after breakfast, was killed - according to experts - between 9.12 and 9.35 am.

The killer is one for the Supreme Court, although the trail of a double weapon and two killers is back in the press.

The genetic trace, already entered in the trials against Stasi, is considered in the expert report signed by Francesco De Stefano not usable because it is unreliable.

It is not an identifying DNA but only marks the paternal line and is not datable, i.e. it could have been left long ago on the surface then touched at another time by the victim.

But now not convincing to the magistrates is also the alibi shown by Sempio a year after the death of the 26-year-old girl - the receipt for a parking space in Vigevano paid for an hour starting at 10.18 a.m. - and the illness charged by Sempio's mother to the name of a former fireman.

"Suggestive, but lacking in substance", the receipt affair: when he was first heard, "he did not produce any receipts to support his allegations", a very curious way of creating an alibi, the judgement of the gip in the 2020 filing.