Three months later her body was discovered in scrubland nearby So began one of the most complex murder investigations in Italian history which will reach its climax later this year The call was put through to the public prosecutor’s office, in the centre of the provincial capital Bergamo, a city 11km east of Brembate di Sopra. The magistrate on duty was Letizia Ruggeri, 45, a tough former policewoman who had earned her stripes fighting Cosa Nostra in Sicily. She had been a magistrate for almost 15 years, and knew what needed to be done. Within minutes she had dispatched both state police officers and carabinieri, military police, to Brembate di Sopra. Yara’s gym instructor confirmed that she had seen the teenager earlier that day and that she had done some light training before heading off. The police quickly established that the last known contact with Yara was a text message she had sent to a friend, Martina, at 6.44pm, agreeing to meet at 8am the following Sunday. That was the last anyone heard from her. Read moreThe gym was part of a large sports complex a garish building with many entrances and exits Besides the large sports hall there was a running track A few people said they’d seen two men – possibly in conversation with Yara standing near a red car – but there was little more to go on than that Ruggeri called in tracker dogs: a breed of bloodhound, Segugio Italiano Instead of following the expected route back to Yara’s home in Via Rampinelli Ruggeri’s dogs went in the opposite direction towards a small hamlet nearby called Mapello When the team analysed the last signals from Yara’s mobile phone the result showed that it had been registered as present in Mapello at 18.49 that evening Everything seemed to point away from Yara’s family but investigations of this type always start at home Ruggeri and her team questioned every member of the Gambirasio family looking for signs of discord or dark secrets Yara’s parents were well-known and respected: her father an architect whose father had been the local postman they had four children: Yara had an older sister Ruggeri put wiretaps on hundreds of phones Her team also tried to trace the owners of all the handsets – some 15,000 – which had passed through Mapello on the day of Yara’s disappearance One of these belonged to a Moroccan man called Mohammed Fikri the interpreter heard the phrase: “Forgive me God Fikri had been working in a builders’ yard in Mapello but by the time investigators had put the pieces together Italian authorities intercepted the vessel and arrested Fikri They searched the van he had been using and discovered that it contained a blood-stained mattress “People liked him as the guilty party,” Ruggeri told me ruefully last year “because he was foreign.” But Fikri was quickly cleared and the blood was extraneous to the investigation Dog handlers search for Yara Gambirasio in December 2010 Photograph: LaPresse/SpadaAs autumn slipped into winter Brembate di Sopra found itself at the centre of a mystery which had captured the country’s imagination The Gambirasio family were horrified by the sudden glare of publicity TV cameras became a permanent fixture in their quiet cul-de-sac lowering their shutters and even turning down the idea of a torchlight procession to raise awareness and the rare statements from the parents were devout pleas for privacy and patience The reticence of the Gambirasio family reflected the culture of this region The province of Bergamo is much closer to Switzerland than Naples and the Bergamaschi are generally more reserved than their southern countrymen “It’s in the spirit of mountain people to disdain gossip and not to repeat nonsense,” Piero Bonicelli I don’t say anything until I’m certain it’s true.” Desperate to discover the whereabouts of their daughter, the Gambirasio family did share some photographs of Yara with the press in the days after her disappearance – Yara queueing to take communion; doing the splits in the gym; a studio photo of her in a yellow top; in an Italy football shirt; on the beach – but no one came forward with any useful information When her parents finally made a televised appeal a few days after their first Christmas without Yara hesitantly read a plea: “Help us return to normality” He explained that the family values were “love and that they would be giving no interviews This wariness towards outsiders owes much to the region’s history an old name which means “the town of the mountain” The city has always been a strategically important citadel The Bergamaschi are used to seeing off invasions Just a few miles west of Brembate di Sopra is a small town called Pontida where in 1167 the Lombard League – the alliance of northern Italian cities which joined together to resist the German Holy Roman emperor The Oath of Pontida still exerts a symbolic power today It’s frequently evoked by the separatists of the Northern League to rally sentiment against outsiders: against the perceived indolence and corruption of southern Italy or against immigrants from developing nations This setting was part of what fascinated the Italian public about Yara’s disappearance The province of Bergamo seemed to represent two different sides of the country a close-knit place which nurtures suspicion Yara’s disappearance has continued to grip the Italian public over the past four years criminal investigations in Italian history she stared at her desk and just said “incredible” four times exactly three months after Yara disappeared a middle-aged man named Ilario Scotti was flying his radio-controlled plane in the small town of Chignolo d’Isola Chignolo is surrounded by industrial estates and the scrubland by Via Bedeschi seemed like a safe unpopulated place for Scotti to try out his new model aircraft The model aeroplane wasn’t functioning as Scotti wanted so he brought it down to earth amid the tall weeds he caught sight of some rags on the ground nearby as well as the sim card and battery for her LG phone “Yara’s disappearance had really disturbed me – I’m a mother too and the only thing worse than the death of a child is the disappearance of a child.” Chief investigator Letizia Ruggeri at a press conference Photograph: LaPresse/SpadaThe autopsy was conducted by Italy’s most famous forensic pathologist She discovered traces of lime in Yara’s respiratory passages She had suffered multiple injuries from a sharp weapon which had pierced her clothing at various points It seemed that she had been attacked and abandoned The presence of lime and jute suggested the killer might be in the building trade The forensics team retrieved two DNA samples one from Yara’s phone battery and the other from two fingers of her black gloves but neither matched any samples the authorities had on record the commander of the scientific investigations department in Parma phoned Ruggeri We’ve found male DNA on the underwear of the deceased.” It was likely that the murderer had himself been wounded in the struggle Ruggeri and her team named the murder suspect Ignoto 1 Now the hunt for Yara’s killer could begin in earnest and Ruggeri divided up the duties: the police were responsible for taking DNA samples from family members from school friends and people in the gym; the carabinieri concentrated on the phone records cross-referencing all the mobile phones that had moved from Brembate di Sopra to Chignolo d’Isola on 26 November 2010 Each phone user whose number appeared in both cells was tracked down and asked for a DNA sample Pavia and Rome a minimum of six hours to transform just a few samples of DNA into something which could be read was immense and the investigation would go on to become one of the most expensive manhunts in Italian history Yara’s funeral took place on a hot morning in late May 2011 which was topped with a huge bouquet of white flowers as the hearse slowly drove towards her gym The ceremony took place in the sports hall where she had spent so many hours training a large crowd watched the funeral on a giant screen and heard the condolences of Giorgio Napolitano investigators had taken thousands of DNA samples but they still had no leads Close to the scrubland where Yara’s body had been found was a nightclub called Sabbie Mobili (Quicksand) Ruggeri knew that murderers tend to dump bodies in areas with which they’re very familiar in spring 2011 investigators started taking DNA samples outside the club on busy Fridays and Saturdays Sabbie Mobili had a reputation for violence – a young man from the Dominican Republic had been murdered outside its doors on 16 January 2011 – but the club had helpful records Clubbers required a membership card to get in and so the authorities could easily track down anyone who went there regularly One of the samples from Sabbie Mobili seemed strikingly similar to the suspect The man who gave the sample was called Damiano Guerinoni He was quickly excluded as a suspect – he had been in South America on the day of Yara’s disappearance – but geneticists were convinced he was a close relative of the murderer ‘bingo – just a couple of more days’ [and we’ll have the murderer].” As Ruggeri and her team put together the jigsaw of Guerinoni’s family they made an astonishing discovery: Damiano Guerinoni’s mother had worked for 10 years as a domestic help in the Gambirasio home and had gone to Yara’s home twice a week throughout the young girl’s childhood Ruggeri resigned herself to the fact that it was just a coincidence This whole case is crazy’Zanni was a middle-aged woman who was very attached to her employers She recalled how Yara would always ask her to watch her latest gymnastics moves and Zanni would tell her to be careful not to hurt herself she was no longer working for the family but said her relationship with Yara’s parents was excellent To find herself at the centre of the investigation into Yara’s murder was “we intercepted [Damiano Guerinoni and Aurora Zanni’s] calls in the sense that we pressed them.” It was only after months of close surveillance that Ruggeri resigned herself to the fact that “it was just a crazy coincidence” This whole case is crazy.” Having seemed so close to a resolution Ruggeri’s team reluctantly discarded the angle of the domestic help The only promising lead they still had was the fact that Damiano Guerinoni’s DNA was so similar to that of Ignoto 1 Ruggeri’s team was now under intense pressure to find the killer Thousands of people were being DNA tested and some locals who hadn’t been approached for a sample suggested to the press that the investigation was haphazard Politicians made personal attacks on Ruggeri writing an open letter in January 2012 to the minister of justice asking for her to be replaced by someone “of proven experience” (Ruggeri filed a lawsuit against Belotti for libel on 20 April 2012 taking particular objection to his characterisation of her as a person of “low technical and moral profile”.) Behind these criticisms of Ruggeri was a strong undercurrent of sexism: what hope was there that this woman could solve such a complex crime a single-mother with long salt-and-pepper hair rode to work on an old Vespa and had a blackbelt in karate Ruggeri felt she was also being targeted because she had decided to drop the case against the Moroccan labourer “Many people thought I had made the wrong decision” The criticism was ferocious … I found it very tough.” Ruggeri decided to concentrate on the only promising lead she had: the Guerinoni DNA Her team spent months recreating the Guerinoni family tree Ruggeri pulled out a folder and showed me hundreds of names The investigators had worked out a complete genealogical tree as far back as 1815 with other branches of the family going back as far as 1716 The roots of that family tree were in the small village of Gorno It’s only 45 minutes’ drive north of Bergamo itself You arrive through a series of hairpin bends into a village that smells of woodsmoke and chickens you can hear the sound of waterfalls and cowbells The village is full of narrow flights of steps – the only horizontal patch of land is a sandy five-aside football pitch Although only 1,600 people live in Gorno and it seems like a quiet Let’s say they’re a bit promiscuous.” In 2011 two people in Gorno were murdered in unrelated incidents The same families have been here for centuries the names of Benedetto and Pietro Guerinoni are carved into the stone The Guerinoni family were nicknamed i Fantì the “infantry”: considered by everyone to be loyal Investigators visited Giuseppe’s widow in September 2011 and found two stamps he had licked: one in order to validate his driving licence and another on a postcard he had sent to his family When DNA results came back from that sample they had another breakthrough: geneticists were convinced that Giuseppe Guerinoni was the father of Ignoto 1 Ruggeri’s team quickly built up a picture of Giuseppe Guerinoni and his family had been a bus driver who played the accordion at village festivals They had three children: a girl and two boys and after her husband’s death had moved to a nearby town a Jehovah’s Witness; Diego had a drug problem Neither provided a perfect match with Ignoto 1 If Ignoto 1 really was the son of the late Giuseppe Guerinoni “an investigation within an investigation.” She was now hunting a woman who 30 or 40 years ago had had an affair with a married man and given birth to a boy who went on to murder Yara Gambirasio It proved extremely difficult for investigators to penetrate the mountain villages – Ponte Selva Clusone and Rovetta – where they were looking for clues and leads Some Italian journalists spoke of the “cocciutaggine” of the Bergamo Alps – a caricature which only served to antagonise the already defensive locals “were irritated by the stereotype of highlanders closed in on themselves which implies [the silence of] Sicily and the mafia human element: the sort of person who goes into a bar in the village … and puts someone at ease so that something slips out.” Locals felt there was something cold about this investigation And it was changing the atmosphere in these small communities Investigators knew that from the early 1960s onwards Giuseppe Guerinoni used to go to a spa resort called Salice Terme Ruggeri’s team scoured records and registers tracking all the women who had stayed in the resort at the same time of year as Guerinoni They searched orphanages and homes for “fallen women”; they tested single mothers and women who had left the mountains for lower Bergamo Divorce was only legalised in Italy in 1970 – until that time many couples had stayed together despite infidelities Confirmation of paternity demands that at least 15 STR regions be compared the horizontal slot in a cemetery wall where his coffin was kept They were transferred by carabinieri to the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo for examination before being returned to Gorno just a few hours later It was now absolutely certain that Guerinoni was the father of Ignoto 1 As the investigation dragged on through 2013 the public slowly became aware of why a woman was being sought It became common knowledge that the late Giuseppe Guerinoni had had a lover and that she was thought to be the mother of the murderer “We have rediscovered,” wrote one journalist “that accursed desire for gossip which spices up small-town life everyone wants to know whose son so-and-so is.” Long-forgotten infidelities and old suspicions surfaced Bonicelli laughs as he describes how his journalists discovered five illegitimate children in two small villages: “Five It was like an open sewer: we were receiving anonymous letters people telling us about backgrounds and cuckolds.” A society which had always prided itself on its sense of loyalty and traditional Catholicism suddenly discovered the betrayals in its midst “Perhaps the point is this,” Bonicelli wrote in an editorial the investigation had been characterised by cutting-edge but it was an old-fashioned detective who broke the case open Marshall Giovanni Mocerino was Ruggeri’s right-hand man His desk is covered in hundreds of scraps of paper scrawled with names and numbers in different coloured inks Mocerino has bushy grey hair and black-rimmed glasses and speaks in a light-hearted a stubborn man: “I get fucked off when I can’t solve a case,” he told me he had lived in the Bergamo Alps area since 1983 and he had come to know the region well amid all the gossip about infidelities that had been sparked off by the hunt for Guerinoni’s lover he knew everything about Guerinoni’s life: born in Gorno Guerinoni had moved in the mid-1960s to Ponte Selva a nearby settlement which had grown up around the bridge over the Serio river He drove a public bus for the Motallini (later SAB) bus company In the 1960s and 70s he would have driven plenty of young women to and from jobs in the various textile factories Mocerino questioned Guerinoni’s fellow bus drivers one of whom had already gone to the press in March 2013 saying that Guerinoni had confessed to having got a young woman “in trouble” Another former colleague described Guerinoni as a “man” with a “capital M” that one of Mocerino’s sources finally gave him the name he was looking for and refuses to confirm who first whispered the name of the mystery woman to him but however it came about investigators had the final piece of the jigsaw: Ester Arzuffi Arzuffi had been a neighbour of Guerinoni’s in Ponte Selva in the late 1960s she had married Gianni Bossetti from Parre Bossetti was a man whose tough life had turned him inwards: he had been orphaned young and suffered from psoriasis Arzuffi seemed very different: an outgoing She got a job at the textile factory a few miles away in Villa d’Ogna Ruggeri’s team immediately cross-checked the DNA samples they had and discovered that Arzuffi had already been tested in July 2012 and realised that a basic error had been made by a geneticist in Rome – Arzuffi’s DNA had been compared not to Ignoto 1’s Now investigators hurriedly reran the test and discovered that Arzuffi was the woman they had spent so long looking for but she had continued her affair with Guerinoni and in the autumn of 1970 she gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl The boy was called Massimo Bossetti (his middle name was Giuseppe he was nicknamed “the animal” by his friends married with three children and living in Mapello the hamlet near Yara’s hometown where the last signal from Yara’s cell phone had been recorded on 26 November 2010 she set up a fake roadblock breathalysing drivers When her police officers stopped Massimo Bossetti they pretended the machine hadn’t worked the first time His DNA was immediately sent for overnight tests and results showed it was an exact match with Ignoto 1 One geneticist told me that the chance of a random match between Ignoto 1 and Massimo Bossetti was 2 x 10-27 the man accused of murdering Yara Gambirasio Photograph: The GuardianRuggeri wanted to observe Bossetti before arresting him to study his movements and behaviour from a distance but she was also worried that the news would get out and that he might leave town Bossetti was arrested and charged with the murder of Yara Gambirasio The Italian home secretary himself released a statement announcing his arrest was relief: the murder suspect was from lower Bergamo The suspect’s internet history
 was troubling using search 
words which implied a compulsion 
for pubescent young girlsInvestigators discovered plenty of circumstantial evidence Bossetti had frequently hung around Yara’s house; he parked his car in Via Don Sala and ate at the Toscanaccia pizzeria at the end of her road He had gone for regular UV showers at a tanning shop nearby using search words which implied a compulsion for pubescent young girls records suggested that his phone had been present in Brembate di Sopra on the evening of Yara’s disappearance but had been switched off from 5.45pm until the following morning at 7.34am the arrest was the reward for almost four years of dogged investigative work After enduring a barrage of criticism for alleged incompetence The case is likely to come to trial this spring and his lawyers are planning to contest the DNA evidence claiming that DNA merely indicates “presence three families are dealing with the devastation of the case to come to terms with her husband’s infidelity and the existence of his other children just as he was diagnosed with terminal cancer Giovanni Bossetti became the nation’s most famous cuckold learning at the same time as the rest of the country that none of his three children are his (leaks from the investigation revealed that Ester Arzuffi’s third child has also come under strain: since his defence sought to portray him as a family man two people have come forward to claim that they had affairs with his wife Such is the local loathing for Bossetti that since his arrest his twin sister – herself coming to terms with both her brother’s fate and the fact that the man she thought was her father is not biologically related to her – has twice been beaten up still denies that she’s ever been unfaithful to her husband awarding a gymnastics trophy named after her daughter Maura Gambirasio struggled to smile and made no public comments Yara is buried between her two grandparents in a cemetery just across the road from her gym only a signature next to a photograph of her wearing a white alice band All around the grave are mementoes left by her friends: gym shoes gazing at the resting place of his parents and his daughter Tobias Jones’s A Place of Refuge will be published by Quercus in May Follow the Long Read on Twitter: @gdnlongread This article was amended on 13 January 2015 to clarify that a DNA sample came from Yara Gambirasio’s phone battery either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content police went to the home of the widow of a bus driver in a small town in northern Italy The widow produced a box of documents that contained her husband's paper driving licence to which was affixed a marca da bollo (a postage stamp used for tax purposes) Perhaps – they reasoned – the back of the stamp would contain the dead man's DNA he had licked the stamp himself before sticking it on to the licence The police had already DNA-tested so many people and documents in their search for the killer of 13-year-old Yara Gambirasio that they did not hold out much hope of a breakthrough results came back from the lab showing that the DNA on the stamp was a close match to DNA found on the underpants and leggings of the murdered girl but they had a problem: he had died in 1999 – 11 years before the girl was murdered went missing on the evening of Friday 26th November 2010 It is the kind of place where nothing happens It is hardly open even by day – not even its church Her parents repeatedly tried to contact her on her mobile phone a Moroccan builder in the same town was arrested in connection with the case after boarding a ferry to Tangiers from Genoa Fikri was held for several weeks in custody but released when it became ever clearer that he was not the murderer Three months after Gambirasio's disappearance – on 25th February 2011 – her partly decomposed and frozen corpse was found in a field 10 kms from her home by a model aircraft enthusiast who was out ­flying his radio-controlled plane Yara had a dozen knife lacerations to her throat and back which were too superficial to have caused her death She had lost consciousness and died of exposure Despite the time that had passed since her death police forensic scientists found several good samples of DNA material from other people on her corpse Several thousand people attended her funeral at which a message was read from the Italian president Her family have refused to talk to the media Lieutenant Colonel Michele La Russo of the Raggruppamento Opere Speciali (ROS) is the Carabinieri officer leading the murder investigation rain and snow those two DNA traces were excellent And we were able to exclude saliva and sperm So that left blood." Gambirasio had not been raped but he adds: "There are many other ways to sexually abuse a girl the police launched a massive screening programme which involved not just combing DNA data banks but administering 15,000 voluntary DNA tests on men and women "Nothing so large had ever been attempted anywhere in the world before," says Giorgio Portera a former Carabinieri lieutenant and now a geneticist employed as a consultant by the family of the dead girl Or as the Rome daily Il Foglio put it: "There was launched an operation perhaps without precedent in the field of criminology and jurisprudence – the genetic screening of an entire territory." Among those asked to undergo the voluntary DNA tests were young men who frequent a disco called Le Sabbie Mobili (Quick Sand) near the field where the dead girl's body was found These included Damiano Guerinoni whose DNA was very similar to that of the killer who was by now nicknamed by police "Ignoto Uno" (Unknown One) This young man was ­unquestionably a close relative of the killer had even worked for several years as a daily help for the dead girl's family So the police began to investigate his family His father is one of 11 brothers and sisters It was via this route that they arrived at the dead bus driver – one of his uncles – Giuseppe Guerinoni In September 2012 they went to the house of his widow in another small town near Bergamo called Clusone – 30km northeast of Brembate di Sopra Clusone boasts one of the most impressive surviving external medieval murals: "The Triumph of Death" executed in 1485 by Giacomo Borlone de Buschis Its inscription declares: Non è omo così forte che da mi non po' schapare (No man exists strong enough to be able to escape from me.) It was in Clusone – nearly two years after Yara's disappearance – that they made their first breakthrough "Finding the marca da bollo on the ­driving licence in the house of the bus driver's widow was a significant step forward," says Lieutenant Colonel La Russo "It connected the killer with a real person at last – even if he was dead." who had died in 1999 aged 61 had three children with his wife who were quickly excluded as suspects He was "a strong man able to live each day in symphony with his vital spirit" an old friend Antonio Negroni would later tell the press that he must also have had a child – a male child – out of wedlock and that this child was the killer That the killer was a man rather than a woman was clear from the DNA samples found on the dead girl according to the former Carabiniere lieutenant Portera the DNA on the marca da bollo was "insufficient" because the DNA trace was "feeble" and he insisted that the body of the deceased man be exhumed samples of his DNA were taken from one of his femurs There was a total absence of old-fashioned clues as to the identity of the murderer; the only way to catch him was via modern science So the police had to track down the illegitimate child of the dead bus driver and one way of doing that would be to identify his mother She was in the dark about her dead husband's extra-marital activities and like all the major protagonists in this saga The police reconstructed a biography of Guerinoni's private life and of every single woman he had ever known the kind of omertà that you associate not with the north of Italy but with Sicily and the mafia but in the end we got there by means of patient They located a former colleague of the bus driver he was a ladies' man and lots of young women travelled on his bus to and from work he got into trouble." But he was either unable or unwilling to reveal to police the name of that woman He now risks prosecution for 'false testimony' which is a crime in Italy as there is no right to silence there The police tracked down the woman from her DNA Police identified 532 women who the dead bus driver had known in his life with whom he could have had sexual relations and who were still alive They DNA tested them all first in 2012 –2013 and again in 2014 Like all the other women identified by the police as women that knew Guerinoni she consented to a DNA test without protest Her DNA was a perfect match for that found on the dead girl – perfect in the sense that she is the mother of the killer "She has the female part of the DNA of Ignoto Uno," explains Portera Arzuffi has been married to the same man – Giovanni Bossetti – since 1967 when she was 19 years old These days she and her husband also live in Brembate di Sopre The couple have three children: two twins (a boy and a girl) born in 1970 – Massimo Giuseppe and Laura Laetizia – and a younger son – Fabio But the DNA tests revealed that the father of her twins is not her husband her eldest son – ­Massimo Giuseppe Bossetti – now stands accused of being the killer "It's complicated but the female twin was excluded as a suspect because in females the chromosomes are different," explains La Russo But could the bus driver not have had another illegitimate son – Ignoto Due with the same DNA – who killed the girl but those children could not be the killer because even though their DNA would be a close match it would not be close enough." The police soon arrived at Massimo Giuseppe Bossetti an apparently happily married 43-year-old carpenter who has three children aged 13 10 and seven and whose only quirk seemed to be a passion for sun lamp massage parlours the police set up a roadblock near Bossetti's home in Mapello a village a few kilometers from Brembate di Sopra But they now had his DNA on the breathalyser tube which they swiftly sent off to the lab for analysis The match between the DNA on the breathalyzer tube and the DNA on the dead girl's clothing was clear To be precise it showed 21 compatible markers (16 to 17 are normally considered enough) and their forensic experts are almost completely sure that he is the killer the police arrested Bossetti at the building site where he worked He refuses to speak except to say that he is innocent and that he does not understand how his DNA is on the dead girl's clothes which the DNA that was found on the dead girl also reveals This was a detail the Italian police discovered in the course of their inquiries from a visit to a lab in Washington DC with more sophisticated technology has spoken only once to the media – to the Corriere della Sera – when she denied having an affair with the bus driver but admitted that she had known him as a young woman and said: "I did not have an affair with him unless my mind is playing me absurd tricks." there remain many doubts about the alleged culpability of Bossetti two men came forward to tell magistrates that they had had affairs with Bossetti's wife He last used his mobile phone on the night of the murder at 17.45 and then switched it off until 7.44 the following day was filmed by the security-cameras at the Shell petrol station opposite the gym in Brembate di Sopra at around 6pm and 10 minutes later by the video-cameras of the Banca Credito Cooperativo near the girl's home Bossetti went to the town frequently to see his brother and his accountant and had passed through it the night of the murder on his way home from work to avoid the heavy traffic on the more direct route broke her silence only last month in a TV interview in which she proclaimed her husband's innocence: "They cannot explain to us how his DNA was found on Yara's clothes," she said and he was always there – as he was that night." There remain doubts as well about the ­accuracy of DNA analysis a 24-year-old Italian woman Annalisa Vincentini was shot dead in a pine wood on the coast near Livorno the Italian police said that DNA traces found on her corpse matched "perfectly" those of a 23-year-old British barman from Liverpool had been arrested by British police under an international arrest warrant DNA traces found in her car and on her corpse had been circulated throughout Europe and matched – so it was claimed – those of the barman whose DNA had been tested in 2001 when he was arrested for drink-driving the barman was on duty in the pub where he worked in Liverpool on the day of the murder and furthermore he had never even been to Italy There is now no suggestion that he is anything other than completely innocent the British police admitted that they had bungled the DNA match between the samples sent from Italy and those of the barman in their DNA data bank a different man was convicted of the murder in this case investigators had to do the DNA screening of the 532 women who might have had an illegitimate child with the bus driver twice The first screening in 2012–2013 did not identify the mother of the killer whereas the second screening at the beginning of 2014 did The investigators ordered the second screening – according to some sources close to the inquiry – only after Antonio Negroni the town where he had lived – finally told a carabiniere officer the name of the woman who was the mother of his illegitimate children: Arzuffi Lt Col La Russo denies the importance of this testimony and he also denies that mistakes were made in the first screening we tested only the nucleus in the DNA samples from the women but we then discovered that the nucleus of the DNA on Yara's corpse was damaged and too poor for a match with the mother although it was fine for a match with the father," he says "So we ordered a second screening in which we tested the mitochondria that surround the nucleus of the DNA which contains more female traces." says: "We have of course asked to do our own DNA tests because my client professes his innocence and is adamant that the DNA found on the deceased cannot therefore be his." When news emerged in 2012 that the Italian police were seeking illegitimate male children of the bus driver in connection with the murder of Gambirasio Bossetti did ask his mother: "Did you ever know Giuseppe Guerinoni?" He admitted this to magistrates It is perhaps the closest thing they have to proof of his guilt from a man who continues to protest his innocence – apart from that nearly perfect DNA match – of course Correction: This article originally made an error in describing a model plane as being radar-controlled when it was meant radio-controlled Newsletters in your inbox See all Massimo Bossetti guilty of killing Yara Gambirasio in case involving 18,000 DNA samples and revelation of illicit affairs One of the most sophisticated murder investigations in Italian history concluded on Friday with the key suspect jailed for life after being caught through a combination of DNA evidence and the revelation of family secrets. Massimo Bossetti, 46, was found guilty of killing Yara Gambirasio in November 2010 and dumping her body in a field where she was found three months later. The 13-year-old had been on her way home from a gym class in Brembate di Sopra, a town close to Milan, when she was abducted and suffered multiple injuries. was sentenced by the Bergamo court to life in prison for the girl’s murder Judges said he would lose parental rights over his three children though they did not grant the prosecutor’s request to put him in isolation for six months His DNA had been found on Gambirasio’s body and fibres from his van were on her clothes Bossetti professed his innocence and challenged the scientific evidence The Gambirasio family responded to the verdict in a statement released through their lawyers even if we know that no one will bring Yara back to us,” her parents said The conclusion of the year-long trial follows the testing of 18,000 DNA samples in the wake of Gambirasio’s body being found, in an unprecedented operation mounted on the back of public pressure to find her killer. Through a sample given by a relative of Giuseppe Guerinoni, who had died in 1999, police found the DNA evidence was a close match to the deceased and in 2013 decided to exhume his body. Read moreFurther tests confirmed the suspected killer was Guerinoni’s illegitimate son sparking a hunt throughout the area to discover who had borne him a child decades earlier It wasn’t until June 2014 that police pinpointed Bossetti as the chief suspect who was married and has denied the affair with Guerinoni The breadth of the police investigation revealed a number of other illegitimate children and affairs including allegations by two men who claimed to have had affairs with Bossetti’s wife The massive operation came to a head with the arrest of Bossetti in June last year after he was stopped at a fake roadblock where police took his DNA sample under the guise of a breathalyser test Massimo Bossetti has been charged with the murder of teenager Yara Gambirasio Tue 20 Jan 2015 at 11:06When 13-year-old Yara Gambirasio disappeared near her home in 2010 it set in train an investigation that has totally transfixed a nation It is the criminal investigation that has obsessed Italy a tragedy for a small town and a highly controversial investigation in which cutting-edge techniques have shed light on hidden infidelities and stirred up age-old prejudices What began as the search for a missing schoolgirl grew into a manhunt that seemed cursed to find one dead-end after another - until investigators launched what may be the largest DNA dragnet in criminal history his defence lawyer has promised at least one final twist a witness he claims will fatally damage the case for the prosecution when Yara Gambirasio went missing in the small town of Brembate di Sopra in northern Italy She had left her family home at 5.15pm to go to the local municipal sports centre for her regular gymnastics class When Yara had not returned by 7pm her parents tried to call her on her mobile phone When they failed to get an answer they alerted the police Officers in the regional capital Bergamo immediately sent several teams in the foothills of the Alps an hour north of Milan Yara's gymnastics teacher told the police that she had done some light training and left shortly after 6pm Yara had texted a friend at 6.44pm to arrange a meeting the following Sunday and that was the last anybody had heard from her It was the start of a three-month search for Yara during which her family including her parents Fulvio and Maura (an architect and a teacher in a nearby school) were questioned by detectives who also talked to virtually every inhabitant of the town The Gambirasio family (Yara had an older sister and two younger brothers) appeared to be solid A handful of witnesses could provide only vague statements Tracker dogs followed a path in the opposite direction to the street which would have brought her home tracking a scent towards the nearest village When the police checked they confirmed that Yara's phone had last been registered in Mapello before it went "dark" The local investigating magistrate Letizia Ruggeri a 45-year-old former policewoman who began her career investigating the Cosa Nostra in Sicily immediately ordered the checking of records of more than 15,000 mobile phones registered in Yara's home town and the nearby villages The investigator also ordered wiretaps on hundreds of phones used by potential suspects recorded several weeks after the disappearance in which a Moroccan-born man called Mohammed Fikri was thought to have said: "Forgive me Lord Fikri had been working in a builder's yard in Mapello the village in which Yara's phone was last registered Police intercepted him as he was about to board a ferry bound for Tangiers in early December A mattress in the back of his van was found to have bloodstains on it though he was held and questioned and many in the media (and some police) believed they had their man very private people who were shocked to be in the national media spotlight made an appeal for information at Christmas it was not until the afternoon of February 26 exactly three months after she had disappeared that a local man stumbled across the badly decomposed and partially frozen remains of a young woman on scrubland outside the nearby village of Chignolo d'Isola She had suffered multiple stab wounds and was partially undressed But later examination concluded she had not been sexually assaulted Examiners concluded that she had been dumped The investigation moved up a gear as Magistrate Ruggeri faced increasing pressure and vilification from many including local right-wing politicians who stated publicly that a woman - and a southern Italian woman at that - could not handle the case Ruggeri and her team decided on a drastic course A DNA sample had been recovered from Yara's remains The team would use it to launch what may be the largest forensic DNA dragnet ever carried out by a police force Some 15,000 voluntary DNA tests were carried out on virtually every adult male (and many women) living in the area a former police lieutenant turned geneticist who was employed as a consultant by the family of the dead girl told reporters: "Nothing so large had ever been attempted anywhere in the world before "an operation perhaps without precedent in the field of criminology and jurisprudence - the genetic screening of an entire territory" Some sections of the Italian media labelled it an act of desperation And there were questions raised about the risks to privacy and the characterisation of all locals as suspects What the investigators were hoping for was a fresh lead The tests included DNA samples taken from men who frequented a nightclub near the field where Yara's body was found One was from a local man called Damiano Guerinoni whose DNA turned out to be very similar to that recovered from the body of the dead girl Guerinoni was quickly ruled out as a suspect He had been in South America at the time of the murder But forensic scientists working in labs in Rome told the police that he had to be a close relative of the man they were looking for Further tests of the wider Guerinoni family narrowed the lead to an uncle But there was one problem - Giuseppe had died 11 years before the murder Police went to his widow and were able to find an old application for a driving licence with a stamp that had been licked by the dead man They were able to extract DNA samples from the residue of the saliva - and later from the exhumed body of the dead man - that proved Giuseppe Guerinoni was the father of the man whose DNA had been found on the dead girl while the dead man had three living children with his wife they were all quickly excluded as suspects The investigators now arrived at one conclusion Giuseppe Guerinoni had a secret son and he was the man they were looking for Now the police had to track down the illegitimate child of a dead bus driver They had to find the woman with whom he had secretly fathered a son They questioned all of Giuseppe's friends and family to build a picture of his life Some friends acknowledged that he was a ladies' man close-knit communities in the mountain regions were willing to give details After months of painstaking investigation the police compiled a list of 532 women who would have been known to the dead man and could have possibly had a sexual relationship with him first in 2012 to 2013 and then again in 2014 Arzuffi had been married to the same man - Giovanni Bossetti - since 1967 But the DNA evidence proved that her eldest twins Massimo Bossetti was tested (using a fake drink-driving checkpoint set up on the edge of the village) early last summer and found to be a perfect match to the original DNA sample The test showed 21 compatible markers (16 to 17 are usually considered to be enough in Italian law) an apparently happily married 43-year-old carpenter with three young children has been charged with the murder of Yara and will stand trial this spring He has said nothing beyond proclaiming his innocence His lawyers have said that while the DNA may match he has no idea how it got on the dead girl and it does not prove he killed her They also claimed last week to have a witness who can refute prosecution claims that he was in the area when the murder happened It has been a tortuously complex investigation with many twists and turns grimly fascinated by what has happened in the drama so far Receive today's headlines directly to your inbox every morning and evening Please check your inbox to verify your details The Yara Gambirasio Case: Beyond Reasonable Doubt is a new five-part documentary series on Netflix that strikes up a conversation about one of the most prolific murder cases from Italy in recent times When a young schoolgirl of 13 was found dead in the Brembate di Sopra area of Bergamo in 2011 the Italian media and the public launched a devastated outcry against the horrific crime While a suspect was identified and arrested in 2014 and then eventually tried and found guilty as well many consider the case to be still unsolved The Yara Gambirasio Case promises to bring the matter back into public discussion and make some efforts to find out the real truth while also providing an interesting watch for those unacquainted with the grisly murder case The Yara Gambirasio Case begins with old photographs of a bright and happy girl with her father Fulvio describing her as someone who was always kind and nice to others Both the visuals and Fulvio’s voiceover make it clear that Yara is not really present to tell her own tale Yara Gambirasio was a young schoolgirl whose disappearance caused a massive stir in the Italian media and society at large Born into a middle-class family in Brembate di Sopra Yara was interested in rhythmic gymnastics from a very young age resulting in Yara and her three siblings also growing up with these values Within a short while after beginning training young Yara turned out to be very skilled in gymnastics was not really very different in that regard as Yara left home to go to her practice at the gym which was only a couple of blocks away from her house which was past Yara’s usual time of return her mother started to call her up to check on her The parents mention how their daughter had a habit of calling up and informing them about every little detail made the situation a bit suspicious for them Maura’s calls were also unanswered and redirected to voicemail Maura called up the authorities at the gymnasium only to learn that Yara was no longer at the place and must have left a long time ago This was when the alarm bells went off for the Gambirasios and they immediately informed the police about their daughter being missing.  The police initially considered whether the girl might have run away from home but her family was confident this was not the case and she had not had any experiences or made any connections that would make her think like a rebellious teenager and then panic changed to a feeling of despair for the family as days passed with no trace of Yara While everyone at the gymnasium reported that the girl had left after her practice nobody had actually seen her leave since the main doors of the facility were not visible from the practice area The security camera right outside the facility was also in an inoperative state meaning that her movements could not be tracked in any way After talking to the authorities and also the other gymnasts one of whom was the last one to speak to Yara over text messages the police were sure that she must have left the gym and not returned home The fact that she did not have any money with her as she always walked to the place from her home and so did not carry her purse meant that she must have gotten into a car with someone she knew and trusted enough.  in the Bergamo area by the police and citizens with helicopters also being used to scan localities from above The police opened up to any suggestions by the common people all while the media was extensively reporting on the case of the girl who seemed to have disappeared but none of it led to any significant result A local boy who claimed to have been an eyewitness said that he had seen Yara with two men on the evening of her disappearance but this information did not lead the police anywhere either A team of sniffer dogs was eventually employed to find the girl and their movements made it seem like the girl had indeed left the gym and walked in a direction opposite to her home The dogs stopped at a shopping mall construction site some two kilometers away around three months after Yara’s disappearance the first major breakthrough was made when a man was pursuing his hobby of flying model planes over an empty field behind a few clubs and other businesses the man had to go retrieve it when he found something unnatural and he immediately informed the police about it The decomposing body of a young girl was found and the clothes and items on it confirmed that it was indeed Yara Gambirasio The autopsy that was conducted suggested that the girl had been a victim of sexual assault and then she had been left to die in the empty field As everyone in the community and the entirety of Italy demanded a proper investigation into the matter and a strict punishment for the perpetrator the police went on to conduct one of the biggest manhunts in the history of Italy in order to solve the mystery of Yara Gambirasio’s death The most important finding by the police from the autopsy was that Yara seemed to have been murdered in the same field where she was found with her hand clutching grass that matched the ones growing at the place Fragments of lime and small metal balls were found on her clothes and body suggesting that the assailant must have been a construction worker as these objects are usually found at construction sites fragments of an unknown man’s DNA were found on Yara’s underwear and leggings which suggested that this person was obviously her rapist and murderer soon started an extensive drive to collect DNA samples of citizens and these samples were tested against the one found on the victim’s body While it did not initially lead to a considerable lead a close match was eventually found with a young man named Damiano Guerinoni who incidentally regularly visited the club behind which Yara’s body was found the boy’s mother used to work earlier as a nanny at the Gambirasio house but Damiano had been living abroad during the time of the murder Since Damiano’s DNA matched closely with that of the perpetrator who had been named as Suspect One by the police and media and DNA samples were taken from each of them While a cousin of Damiano also showed a close result neither of them completely matched the DNA of the perpetrator and so it was believed that the mystery lay with the only dead person in the family Giuseppe was the biological father of Suspect One even though the sons in his family did not show the same genetic structure This meant that Giuseppe had some illegitimate child who had kidnapped and killed Yara and the police searched for a connection from then on A lead was eventually found when an old scandal was unearthed in which Giuseppe was believed to have been in an affair with a married woman named Ester Arzuffi her husband introduced her to a friend of his and the latter agreed to drive her to work every morning in his personal car.  As soon as news of this scandal reached the media intense scrutiny was carried out against the woman who seemed to desperately try and bury her secret affair even though it was clear that she was hiding something suddenly found out that the man whom they knew to be their father was not even biologically related to them and that they were children of an extramarital affair their younger brother’s DNA did not match theirs or their father’s meaning that Ester had lied about his parentage as well While the police investigation led to this familial scandal which was instantly picked up by the media to sensationalize the case was analyzed and matched with that of the perpetrator When the police arrived at Massimo’s worksite to arrest the man in June of 2014 which obviously did not work out considering the large police force that was sent after him his failed attempt at escape was seen as a sign of his guilt by many Although he claimed innocence in the matter from the very beginning Massimo was imprisoned as soon as he was arrested A video of a van driving around in circles near the gymnasium on the night of Yara’s disappearance was released in the media and the description of the van matched exactly with Massimo’s personal vehicle His personal habit of getting a tan regularly and of watching adult films were also factors in his character assessment It was even stated by the prosecution that words associated with child exploitation videos were also found in the man’s internet history have claimed that he is innocent and that he has only been framed for the murder Massimo appears in the Netflix documentary as well and he claims that he wants justice for Yara for he is not the one who hurt her so terribly neither he nor his lawyers could ultimately convince the court back in 2016 when the trial finally ended with a result the Bergamo court overseeing the case found Massimo Bossetti to be guilty of the rape and murder of Yara Gamirasio and sentenced him to life imprisonment and his participation in the documentary is also from behind bars Although the court trial found Massimo Bossetti guilty of the murder of Yara Gambirasio there are still some who argue that the case has not really been solved suggesting that Massimo is not the real perpetrator The purpose of Netflix’s The Yara Gambirasio Case is to raise questions about the flaws in the investigation and to once again ask whether the real murderer is still out there living a free life The investigation led by state prosecutor Letizia Ruggeri did indeed have quite some discrepancies and irregularities the DNA collection drive that was first carried out had the authorities mistakenly compare the samples from common people to those of Yara herself instead of the DNA of the perpetrator the mitochondria cells in the DNA sample of Suspect One did not actually match those of Massimo which makes the main evidence only partially true to the prosecution’s claim There was a clear rush from the authorities to find the killer and when someone like Massimo fit the description of the perpetrator in some way The video that was circulated of him driving his van around the gym on the night of the girl’s disappearance which caused public opinion to turn against Massimo The prosecution stated that the video was actually fabricated for some TV program and did not have any connection to reality The dead body of a teenage Indian girl was also found in the area only a few weeks earlier and the fact that both these bodies had similar injuries could have suggested that a serial killer was on the loose But this angle was never seriously investigated There are also possible theories about Yara having been killed inside the gym and her body later being transferred to the field the field had been searched by the police earlier Some also believe that Yara was killed due to some professional rivalry against her father who feared for the safety of his remaining family members and did not report this the biggest question that still remains is about the motive that Massimo could have had behind the kidnapping While the man’s mobile network was stated to have put him near the crime scene it was later revealed that the same tower signal could be tracked at his house as well meaning that it was not a serious piece of evidence The court trial also could not put any motive behind his actions and such was the misdirection in the case that an official investigation for fraud was carried out against Letizia Rugger in 2022 The former prosecutor has been indicted in the case But the ones most devastated by the incident still live in their home in Brembate di Sopra and run an association for teenagers pursuing sports and the arts.  follows the mysterious disappearance of a 13-year-old girl from Brembate di Sopra Yara Gambirasio went to the gym in the afternoon but never made it home conducts a thorough investigation to find out the girl’s whereabouts Letizia sympathetically resonates with Yara’s mother Let’s follow the tracks of her investigation The film opens with the events of February 26 when a local finds a decaying body of Yara Gambirasio in a field in Chignolo d’Isola near the Not Only Dance Night Club The 13-year-old girl disappeared 3 months ago She went to her gym class to deliver a stereo system and never made it home Prosecutor Letizia Ruggeri has been rigorously investigating the case In the 3 months since Yara’s disappearance Letizia has failed to find any significant leads or evidence and has been beating around the bush the authorities find foreign DNA on her body Forensics reports a foreign male DNA sample labelled “Unknown 1.” However due to the lack of a DNA database in Italy it becomes a laborious task to match it with a suspect Letizia decides to create her own database from the samples of every man and woman in close contact with Yara or with her family and friends for her extensive budget for collecting DNA samples she received a backlash from the ministers Letizia continues the investigation to find the murderer The forensic doctor informed Letizia that the male DNA belonged to an Indo-European man who might have light eyes the Red Cross and FEMA workers set up campaigns to collect DNA samples forensic police found a 50% match and reported that a person named Damiano Guerinoni was a direct relative of the Unknown 1 Letizia collected the DNA of Guerinoni’s siblings but didn’t find an exact match believing that Giuseppe could be the father of Unknown 1 too And Unknown 1 might be the fourth sibling born outside of wedlock Letizia interrogated Giuseppe’s wife They found a DNA sample from Giuseppe’s driving license and Crivelli concluded that Giuseppe was the father of Unknown 1 Giuseppe was a bus driver and served many towns up and down the Bergamo province Letizia decided to collect the DNA samples of every woman in the area that annoyed the people and congress further Senator Nigiotti demanded an inquiry on Letizia’s investigation and requested to replace her came to her rescue and informed Letizia about her researcher who found an allele in Unknown 1’s DNA An allele is a variant of a gene and is extremely rare It wasn’t present in Giuseppe’s DNA which concluded that he got it from his mother and the police found the mother of Unknown 1 i.e. among whom the younger one had been living abroad for several years Letizia concluded that Massimo assaulted and murdered Yara Gambirasio Massimo was a 41-year-old carpenter who lived in Mapello officials found iron particles on Yara’s clothes and lime residues in her lungs It directly linked with Massimo’s profession and Letizia believed that Massimo assaulted Yara with his carpentry tools After gathering significant evidence against Massimo Bossetti the police arrested him and charged him for the murder of Yara Gambirasio His defense lawyer tried his best to protect his client the police had enough evidence to put Massimo behind bars Even Massimo’s wife accepted that Massimo was not at home on the evening of Yara’s disappearance Massimo’s cell phone pinged to the tower near Ruggeri Street marking his presence near the area from which Yara disappeared The authorities even presented CCTV footage that highlighted a truck similar to Massimo’s vehicle Massimo’s defense refused to accept the theory cooked up by the police but he didn’t have enough evidence to save his client the Grand Jury of Bergamo declared Massimo Bossetti guilty of murdering Yara Gambirasio and sentenced him to life imprisonment Massimo appealed to the Supreme Court in October 2018 but the higher court confirmed his guilty verdict Bossetti’s defense requested access to the police findings for new evaluations the Supreme Court ordered the Assize Court to schedule a hearing for Bossetti the Assize Court rejected Bossetti’s defense request to access the findings the police never found out how Bossetti kidnapped Yara They never found out the reason why Yara sat inside Bossetti’s van Letizia theorized that because Bossetti worked on the same building site as Yara’s father and probably Bossetti persuaded or forced her to get into his van the real reasons remain unknown as Bossetti never confessed to kidnapping Yara Bossetti’s wife mentioned Bossetti’s brother-in-law in a conversation with Bossetti the film didn’t explain his involvement at all It left a lot of loose ends because probably Letizia wanted to find a closure for the case Yara is a 2021 Italian crime drama film directed by Marco Tullio Giordana It is based on a real case that revolved around the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl.