Alessandra Sandri, 11, Bologna, Italy, 7 April 1975

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Age: 11 (at the time of disappearance)
Height: 158cm
Eyes: blue
Hair: brown
Clothing: White, green and red striped t-shirt, black trousers, gray herringbone coat and boots
Disappeared from: Bologna
Date of disappearance: 7 April 1975

Circumstances of disappearance :

On the morning of Monday, 7 April 1975, a mother said goodbye to her eleven-year-old daughter in via Farini, at the usual time and at the usual bus stop, along the daily route that took her from home (via Carissimi) to school. That afternoon the little girl didn't return. The only certainty is that Sandra had been the subject of attention and harassment by adult men and in particular the victim of sexual violence, perpetrated inside a farmhouse in the Ponticella area.

There are several twists in this whole shady story. From the discovery that two men who frequented the bar near the little girl's home (via Carissimi) had been reported for harassment to that audio recording found about a month after the disappearance in which the little girl (who is talking to her neighbor Ignazio Parentela ) talks about meetings with some men, giving their names and surnames.

In 2013, the case of Alessandra was reopened by the Bologna Prosecutor's Office following an anonymous letter which also revealed the name of a man, Remo Soravia Gnocco. Traces of him were lost in February 1979 near the Savena river, four years after the disappearance of the 11-year-old. The case, at the time, was dismissed as a suicide. From this moment, however, there are reasons to also hypothesize the possibility of a murder for easily imaginable reasons. The two bodies would be close, according to what was written in the anonymous letter.

In 2015, a new witness appeared.The witness reportedly reported the precise place where the little girl's body was hidden: in 2013 it emerged that a friend of Sandra's had declared that she had learned from the girl herself that a man was taking her by car from via Murri towards Pianoro, passing via Nazionale to Rastignano. It also emerged that the suspected men also frequented a farmhouse in the Ponticella area. The witness, declared reliable, was a woman in her sixties.

Chi l'ha Visto - Scomparsi - Alessandra Sandri - La scheda
Gialli bolognesi, l'11enne scomparsa nel nulla e quel losco giro di pedofili che si trovavano al bar

 

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Il giallo di Sandra Sandri, una vita spezzata dai pedofili. “Nessuno ha pagato”

On April 7, 1975 it rained heavily. Sandra and her mother left the house early in the morning and took the bus in Via della Battaglia, the eastern outskirts of the city, to go to the centre. The woman went to work, her daughter went to school, at the San Domenico middle school in Piazza Calderini. They got on the 13 and arrived in via Farini: Sandra got out and greeted her mother, who remained on the bus and saw her for the last time in front of the Cassa di Risparmio, wrapped in her red coat. The school was no more than 50 meters away. But Sandra never got there. She literally disappeared into thin air. She said to a friend: "Go ahead, I'm coming . " No one ever saw her again, swallowed up by the rain. The investigations started slowly and took the wrong direction: runaway. Mum and dad's appeals and protests were of no use. There were misleading phone calls, false sightings. The case slowly ended up forgotten.

Above all thanks to Chi la visto? , which talked about Sandra on several occasions and, in the 1990s, aired a chilling tape dating back to shortly before her disappearance in which the 'interrogation' of the little girl by a neighbor was recorded. In a brusque and pressing manner, the man forced the little girl, as if she were the one to blame, to tell him how and when two men took her to their home and abused her, promising her that one of the two would marry her. Those two men are Franco Mascagni and Giorgio Fragili. Two names that have had a decisive weight in this story. Two names well known to the police. In fact, in 1982 they were tried and convicted for the sexual abuse of Sandra, after the complaint from her mother Marisa. Three years in prison. But thanks to the pardon they didn't spend even a day in cell. Incredibly, no one connected the two facts: the abuse (with the conviction) and the disappearance. The police didn't see or didn't want to see.

The investigations were reopened at the end of the 1990s, this time seriously. The picture, although late, becomes clearer. Poor Sandra had ended up in a pedophile ring whose base was a seedy bar in Via Carissimi, near her house. The Flying Squad puts its heart and soul into finding the culprits many years later. The witnesses were heard again, amidst a thousand silences and reticence. We searched for the little girl's remains with a ground penetrating radar in the courtyard of a farmhouse in Ponticella , not far from Via Carissimi, but nothing was found. The turning point came in 2010: an acquaintance of Mascagni, in a dramatic deposition, confessed that her man many years before her threatened her like this: "I'll make you end up like Sandra Sandri." The woman had never spoken out of fear. The killer finally had a name. However, Mascagni died in 1990. Now he can no longer pay.

The accomplice to the abuse, Fragili, is alive and well. But there is no evidence against him. He is perceived as a person informed on the facts. According to the police, he is reticent, but he cannot be charged. One certainty and a thousand questions remain: Mascagni is the murderer, but who are the accomplices? Was there anyone with him on April 7, '75? Did someone help hide his body? Who covered him with his silence? There are surely people still alive who know. Men who frequented the infamous bar and knew what Mascagni had done. It's time for these men to speak out. The time has come to break the pact of silence. A mother is still waiting to find her little girl.