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The original was posted on /r/unresolvedmysteries by /u/Far_Hope_6349 on 2024-01-05 11:37:54+00:00.
On December 20, 2023, an old suspect, the victim’s boss, and the mother of the latter were formally charged (it was asked that they be sent to trial) by Genoa prosecutors for involvement in the murder of Nada Cella. The trial will probably start in late 2024. Specifically, only one woman has been charged with the murder itself. Skip to the end of the post if you want to read about the evidence against the suspects.
Who was Nada
Nada Cella had been working as a secretary at the office of accountant M. S., on the second floor of the building at via Marsala 14 in Chiavari (northwestern Italy), since September 1991. With a first name in vogue at the time because of the success of the Italian singer Nada, the child grew up in a quiet and serene family: her father Bruno was a carpenter, while her mother Silvana was a janitor. She also had an older sister, Daniela. Nada’s life revolved around her job, her family, and her friends – a few close ones with whom, almost every week, she used to go dancing at a disco in Santo Stefano. She had enrolled in an English course to expand her skills. She dreamed of exploring the world, of traveling. Nada also liked going to the gym, listening to foreign music, and taking photographs; she attended church assiduously, too.
The day of the murder
May 6, 1996, 6:20 am: Nada wakes up to accompany her mother to work; they leave the house a few minutes after 7. She then returns home, parks the car under the house, makes the beds, sets the kitchen table for lunch. She goes out again straddling the bicycle with which she will reach her workplace.
7:30: she stops along the way to buy a focaccia. After paying, however, she forgets it on the counter. The sales clerk calls her back, she apologizes and takes it.
7:45: Nada gets to her workplace.
7:51: although she habitually arrives at the office shortly before 9 am, on May 6 she turns on her computer at this time. The doorway, down below, is open because the cleaners are finishing washing the stairs – a hypothetical murderer coming from outside would therefore neither need to ring the intercom nor have the keys to the door.
8:50: someone prints a two-page document using Nada’s computer.
8:45-9:00: three clients call S.’s office. It is Monday and perhaps there is some work urgency accumulated over the weekend. Nada, however, doesn’t answer. The customer who calls around 9 claims to have spoken to a woman, who tells them somewhat rudely that they have the wrong number. So they double-check the number and dial it again. The elderly woman’s voice answers again and repeats to them that is not the accountant’s office. The customer will call again and S. will answer saying that there has been an attack.
9:00-9:01: the downstairs neighbor hears banging coming from the apartment above hers.
9:05: prompted by his mother, S. goes to the office located two floors from his own (he lives in the same building). He finds Nada lying on the floor.
9:20: so says the stretcher-bearer who rescues Nada: “As soon as we entered, we saw a girl loaded supine, with her head facing the wall and her feet directed toward the desk, surrounded by a lake of blood.”
10: Nada is readily taken to the operating room in such serious condition that the doctors operating on her have to ask for help from another surgeon.
11:30: Nada is taken to the intensive care unit, and intubated because she is in a coma.
12:30: doctors ascertain that she is in a very serious condition and try to revive her, but are unsuccessful.
14:10: Nada dies.
The investigation
From the start, the investigation focused on Nada’s work environment. It turned out from reading her diary that Nada was dissatisfied with working with S. – the job was monotonous and boring and Nada was looking for another occupation. She had written in her diary: “I hate that jerk I have to put up with, I want to leave, but I don’t know what to do with myself”. Apparently, there was nothing much else problematic about her life. It looked like she wanted to escape the closed environment of Chiavari and do something different, but in her diaries and her friends’ testimonies there were no concrete clues about who could have killed her.
The autopsy stated that there were injuries to her abdomen, thighs, and left iliac wing. No defensive wounds were found. The killer raged by kicking and punching Nada while she was helpless on the ground. Bending over her body, the murderer then either grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face multiple times on the floor, or they hit her with a blunt instrument. In any case, the blows she received resulted in a large hematoma and cranial injuries. These conclusions are supported by the projection of hematic traces on the wall, and the hair stuck to it and smeared with blood.
Almost nothing significant was recovered from which to start the investigation, also because of some mistakes made by the stretcher-bearers (such as moving the desk to take Nada out of the office) and the police (no appropriate cordoning was arranged despite the possibility of curious observers polluting the crime scene). There were no bloody footprints nor the murder weapon could be found. The entrance to the office was not forced and no one took anything away. No object was missing, suggesting that the weapon had been introduced into the office from the outside and that therefore the murder was to some extent premeditated. Only a button with a five-pointed star, a circle, and the inscription “Great seal of the State of Oklahoma 1907” was found.
There were eyewitnesses outside the building, however. A witness put on record the presence of a woman between 23 and 29 years old, with wavy black hair disheveled above the shoulders, 170 cm tall, who “held up her own right hand, visibly bloodstained on her palm, looking around continuously.” Also, at 12:45 on May 6, someone phoned the police saying they saw a black moped fleeing from via Marsala around 9 or 9:30.hat she didn’t clean up the blood traces in the office and in the hallway in front of it, and this seems to be corroborated by what the investigators found.
There were eyewitnesses outside the building, however. A witness put on record the presence of a woman between 23 and 29 years old, with wavy black hair disheveled above the shoulders, 170 cm tall, who “held up her right hand, visibly bloodstained on her palm, looking around continuously.” Also, at 12:45 on May 6, someone phoned the police saying they saw a black moped fleeing from via Marsala around 9 or 9:30.
Besides S., another suspect watched closely by the investigators was A. C. It is known about her that she was 27 years old at the time, that she grew up in an orphanage, and that she had a romantic interest in the accountant, to the point of asking him to marry her. C. owned a series of buttons that were similar to the Oklahoma one found near Nada’s body. She also had a moped, but inexplicably it was not seized and analyzed by forensics back in 1996. C. moved to Lombardy shortly after Nada’s murder and built a family there.
Later developments
Although there were several suspects, in the aftermath of the murder no one except S. was officially investigated or brought to trial. But in 2005 the file was reopened, starting with Nada’s diaries. In 2006 the Genoa prosecutor’s office investigated two bricklayers, involved in an investigation into a prostitution racket, for the crime. In 2011 yet another attempt to solve the case was made with three hairs that, it will later be explained, did not belong to the victim.
In 2021, also thanks to criminologist Antonella Pesce Delfino who presented an analysis of this case for her thesis, the case was reopened another time, in virtue of the presence of new elements of guiltiness against a suspect, namely C. The latest developments are the following:
- C.’s moped was recovered and analyzed by the forensic police with negative results.
- Some phone calls have been circulated in which for the prosecutors C. attempts to convince an ex-boyfriend that they were still together in 1996 (maybe to ward off suspicions of her possible motive).
- In another phone call between an unidentified woman and Nada’s mother, the former says, “But we talked to a few girls among us, though, and we said, she [C.] has the audacity [to kill Nada] because when she says, ‘I’m going to split her head in two…’”
- A beggar has also come out and recounted seeing a woman in bloody clothes coming out of the via Marsala building after 9 am.
- According to Nada’s mother, a few weeks before the murder, the girl had received a bouquet at home with an anonymous note: “For an upcoming or possible dinner invitation.” On that occasion, Nada had confided her suspicions that the gift came from the S.’s aunt. This would be compatible with C.’s motive – she knew that the secretary was a possible rival in love.
- C. repeatedly threatened by telephone the criminologist who caused the case to be reopened: “Why did you come here to make sure I only had one dog? I don’t have only that one, I also have another one that if you come back here, he’ll blow you up alive, do you understand?”
- Finally, and most importantly, according to a geneticist appointed by the prosecutor’s office, there are DNA traces on Nada’s clothes that are compatible with the killer being a woman with a light complexion.
On December 20, 2023, the prosecutors formalized the c...
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