The astonishing hypothesis (01)

 

Today’s blog post is not for our dreamers, but more for our masterminds. In short, this is a crime case. A death that happened in 1982. On sight, an unfortunately successful suicide attempt, but is it?

This is the case of Roberto Calvi, an Italian banker who was dubbed as ‘God’s banker’ by the people. He was the chairman of Banco Ambrosiano of Italy and shortly before his death, had had gone into major debt of 1.4 billion USD that caused him to go bankrupt.

On June 17^th 1982, Calvi’s body was found suspended off the Blackfriars bridge. He had travelled to the UK with a fake passport a few days prior to his death. The first inquest of his death suggested a suicide, but Calvi’s family were adamant that the court was incorrect, and thus started a second inquest. After a deep forensics and pathology research, the hired team had some questions that seemingly did not have any answers.

Pathology research revealed that there was no sign of drug usage or struggle at first glance. His body was weighed down using bricks and cobbled stones taken from the side of the bridge, and the main two routes he could’ve used to reach the scaffolding were tested out by the team using stuntmen who had similar build to Calvi. The team then realized that Calvi’s shoes did not have paint flakes on them like they should’ve been, and the tide of the water against his body suggests that his body had been suspended from the bridge somewhere in between 1.50am to 2.35am.

The most possible explanation of how the body got there was that it had been lifted from a boat up to someone who was on the scaffolding ready to receive the body, with all evidence being washed away with the tide through the night. There is no evidence of Calvi leaving his hotel room in London to buy ropes, and no residue of rope was found in any of his suitcases.

This leads us to some important questions.

1.      Why ropes and bricks? Why not use a place more convenient and easier to access?

2.      Where did Calvi get the rope from?

3.      Why were there no paint flakes from the scaffolding embedded in his shoes?

Hypothesis suggests that Roberto Calvi’s was not a suicide, but a murder. This hypothesis was later confirmed as the new verdict by the Italian court.

But what is unbelievable about this case is that even though a murder has been confirmed, the question of who actually murdered Calvi is still a mystery to forensic scientists of the world. 40 years after his death, his case is still unresolved without any sufficient proof and evidence.

CASE STATUS: CLOSED

VERDICT: MUDER CHARGE. NO CONVICTION.

 

If you enjoyed the story, let me know in the comments! Do you think the world-famous case of Roberto Calvi was a suicide or a well-planned murder?