This podcast details true crime cases. It contains adult themes and may contain descriptions of violence.

It is not intended for children. Listener discretion is advised.

Thank you for joining me for today's episode of Once Upon a Crime. We're in the series,

Murder in Paradise, where I take

you to some fabulous locales to talk about what else, murder. One of my most favorite cities in the

whole world is Florence Italy. Italy in general is just gorgeous, but Florence holds a special place

in my heart. It's the birthplace of the Renaissance, and I've long been fascinated

by how many artists, poets, writers, and philosophers could originate at the same time and

in the same place like they did in Florence beginning in the 14th century. Everything in Florence

and in the surrounding Tuscan countryside is just a wonder to behold, from sculptures

like Michelangelo's David, to paintings like

Botticelli's birth of Venus, to the architecture of Brunelleschi's Duomo, the list goes on and on.

It's no wonder with beauty like this that the Italians are a passionate people.

But between 1974 and 1985, seven of these passionate couples met a very tragic fate while meeting for Trists outside of Florence in the beautiful Tuscan countryside.

There was a serial killer preying on young couples who would claim at least 14 victims.

While news of this killer rocked Italy, Germany, and was even reported in the British media, it remained largely unknown in America.

The story is fascinating, complex, and horrifying in nature.

This is Chapter 2, The Monster of Florence.

June 6, 1981, an engaged couple, Giovanni Fouji, age 30, and Carmela Danuccio, age 21, had gone on a date to a disco in town.

Afterwards, they took a drive up a hill in the Tuscan countryside near the town of Scandici. Young lovers often took to the

hills and secluded roads outside of town to carry out their amorous activities. Many Florentines

were raised in religious Roman Catholic homes, where premarital sex was considered a sin. This, combined

...