Sergio Isidori, 5, Villa Potenza, Italy, 23 April 1979

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Sergio Isidori

Date of birth : 22/12/1973
Age: 5
Eyes color : brown
Hair color : Brown
Distinguishing features : curly hair
Disappeared from : Villa Potenza (Macerata)
Date of disappearance : 04/23/1979

Sergio Isidori was 5 years old when he disappeared, on April 23, 1979, from Villa Potenza, a town near Macerata, where he lived with his family.

At the time of the events, Sergio Isidori's father, Eraldo, was an electrician in the workshop located under the house. Giammaria Isidori, Sergio's older brother, was eight years old and their mother Silvia was three months pregnant with Giorgia Isidori.

On the morning of April 23, 1979, around 8:15-8:30, a neighbor of the Isidoris, who knew the family well, met Sergio Isidori and his mother, as they were about to go to kindergarten and noticed, after having spoken to them, that the child was wearing a hat.

That day, after going to pick up Sergio from nursery, the mother returned home with the child. In the afternoon, around 3.30pm, after playing at home and having a snack, Sergio Isidori went to play behind the house with some friends. Before going out, the child had told his mother that he would go downstairs to play with his brother Giammaria, who had come down alone around 3pm to join some friends with whom he had then played until 5pm, always remaining in the back of the House.

Sergio Isidori's mother explained that Sergio used to leave the front door alone to go and play at the side of the house, or under the house, where the family workshop was located.

At Villa Potenza, that afternoon of April 23, 1979, there were many people because the funeral of the parish priest, who had just passed away, was being celebrated. The church was packed and those who couldn't find a place inside had to sit outside or along the road.

In the hours corresponding to the funeral ceremony and the funeral procession, Sergio Isidori should have been in the open space in front of his house, where his father's workshop was. The father was not in the workshop because he was out on business that afternoon.

The manager of the petrol pump who was next to the Isidori house at the time said he had not seen little Sergio Isidori that day. Uncle Giuseppe Isidori, who worked in the family workshop, and the florist, who explained that she had seen other children, but not Sergio Isidori, on April 23, 1979, also said they had not seen the child.

Sergio Isidori's mother said that at a certain point that afternoon, she heard music coming from the street and looked out the window, from which she saw the funeral procession that was advancing from the church towards her house. her. She also saw that at a certain moment the hearse had stopped in front of the house, together with many people and the band. On that occasion she didn't see her children and thought it was normal because they were playing behind the house.

When Giammaria Isidori returned home alone, his mother immediately asked him for news of his brother, asking him if Sergio had remained outside or in the workshop, but Giammaria replied that he had never seen him.

When Sergio Isidori's father returned from work, his wife immediately informed him of the child's disappearance.

Immediately after the fact, it was thought that Sergio Isidori might have ended up in the canal that ran near his house. In the following days, the canal was dried up and the tightness of the grate that filtered the water before it poured into the river was also checked, but the searches gave no results and the hypothesis of drowning was definitively discarded.

A witness, a professional truck driver, said that on the afternoon of 23 April 1979 he had parked his large truck in front of Eraldo Isidori's workshop. The truck had been parked for a couple of hours, from 3.15-3.30pm to 5.00-5.30pm. The truck driver, who knew the Isidori brothers well, said he saw Sergio while he was playing with two or three other kids, who he didn't know, however. He added that in this small group of kids, Giammaria Isidori was not there. When the truck driver decided to leave with his truck, he noticed that Sergio Isidori was in front of the truck.

That afternoon, many people were standing near the Isidori house because they were waiting for the hearse to pass, but all these people said they had never seen the child playing in front of the house. These people may not have seen him because the large truck was blocking their view.

Another testimony emerged thanks to a friend of Sergio Isidori, who said that "Sergio was first standing in front of the square of his father's workshop, but after a few minutes, while the funeral procession was advancing, he had his back turned and was walking towards the nearby uphill road together with a person taller than him".

When, at the time of the facts, this friend of Sergio Isidori was interrogated, other details also emerged from his testimony: the boy with whom Sergio Isidori apparently left corresponds to "a child slightly older than him, with blond hair and a peaked hat". Furthermore, according to this witness, Sergio Isidori was wearing a cap.

A third testimony, recorded and given by a woman, would confirm the circumstance of Sergio Isidori's removal together with another child.

The day after Sergio Isidori's disappearance, on 24 April 1979, a lady from the town said she had received an anonymous phone call from a person who had told her: "If you want your son back, prepare 50 million, we'll talk again tomorrow". This lady, at the time, had a telephone number very similar to that of the Isidori family, since she differed only in one number.

In subsequent searches, Sergio Isidori's parents also came into contact with some criminals to look for traces of their missing son, but in vain.

The family members later received some anonymous phone calls, during which they always tried to ask to listen to the child's voice or to receive a photo of him, to have proof that he was alive. For these phone calls, which ended up in the records, some people were investigated and sent to trial for extortion.

GMCN CaseView
Chi l'ha Visto - Bambini Scomparsi - Sergio Isidori - La scheda

 

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La storia di Sergio, sparito nel nulla a cinque anni

"From that April 23rd my mother remained alive only because she was pregnant. That was her strength." Giorgia Isidori, president of the Penelope Marche association which offers assistance to the families of missing people, is today an adult woman and speaks with a decisive tone.

When her brother disappeared, she was still in their mother's belly. «During primary school my mother showed me a photo of Sergio and she explained to me that he was my brother but that no one knew where he was anymore».

It took several years for Giorgia to really understand the meaning of those words and today, thirty-nine years later, the pain and anger are as deep as the first day. "It was during my adolescence. I saw my father traveling around Italy looking for Sergio and I understood . I read the documents, then the newspaper articles and I decided to help my family."

It was a Monday afternoon when Sergio left the house, like every day, to play with some friends and his older brother at the back of the house, but that day he didn't arrive at his usual place. "Something happened outside the house" ,Giorgia explains to us, reiterating how, despite the complaint, her family was left alone in these years of desperate searches. " The investigations were fruitless and carried out in a superficial manner. At the time there wasn't the same attention towards minors as today."

Initially it was thought that Sergio might have fallen into the river, then damning testimony arrived . «That of a truck driver, Vittorio, who that day had brought his truck to my father's workshop to fix it. At that moment he had seen my brother Sergio playing with some children who, however, he had not recognised. Perhaps belonging to nomadic families, who were very present in our area at that time."

Some time later a child said he had seen Sergio walking with a stranger along the road leading to Macerata. "Then in 1991 the parish priest Don Mario Buongarzoni published the book A rose in silence in which there is a chapter dedicated to the disappearance of a child who appears to be my brother. In his story he draws a tragic ending and talks about pedophilia."

Since that "black" April 23rd, as Giorgia repeats, her family has never stopped looking for Sergio in an attempt to bring him home. To achieve this, she turned to the television program Chi l'ha visto , to the Pope and to the Italian institutions. He launched appeals and distributed photographs. "For over thirty years I have always been on the alert. I never know if in the eyes I meet there may be the answer I'm looking for. I wonder what stories the people I meet have, I never know if Sergio could be behind some of them."

 

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A sketch composite of what Sergio would look like as an adult (circa 2010)
Sergio Isidori: mistero lungo 40 anni