Of
Simone Innocenti
A technician confirmed the lack of maintenance. The victims' cell phones were found and seized
When the firefighters went to look for documentation relating to the boiler they could not find it. But they discovered that in the villa in San Felice a Ema (Florence) – where 49-year-old Matteo Racheli, his 11-year-old son Elio and his partner Margarida Alcione, 46-year-old of South American origin were found dead last Thursday around 3.30pm – that boiler had been placed in the laundry rooms in 2019. The firefighters would have found the declaration of conformity of the heating system – from which the carbon monoxide that killed three people and reduced the couple's 6-year-old daughter to death is suspected to have come from – but they would not have found any revision, which is mandatory by law.
In the investigation by prosecutor Silvia Zannini, who ordered the seizure of the villa and the autopsy tests, it will be essential to understand whether those documents which – until yesterday morning would not have been found – will come out somewhere else. In fact, during the first police intervention, a boilermaker, who was at the scene of the tragedy, said that that boiler would never have had any maintenance. Certainly the pellet stove – located in the living room of the villa, where the three victims and the only surviving child were lying – would not have been used for some time because it was out of order.
This is also why yesterday morning the firefighters went to check the chimney of the house: they want to understand if there has been any blockage in the villa's ventilation system, given that – when the police and emergency services arrived – the concentration of carbon monoxide was so high that it took some time for the environment to be considered safe.
The alarm was raised by his ex-wife who told Corriere Fiorentino: “I spoke to my son last Wednesday evening and he told me he had a bad headache.” If – as autopsies could establish – this fact could have something to do with the causes of death, then it means that the boiler – starting at least last Wednesday – may have lost a significant quantity of monoxide.
It is no coincidence that what a neighbor said – if this whole hypothetical picture held up to the test of further investigations – would take on even more importance. In fact, the woman allegedly explained that, in recent days, one of her cats had vomited for no reason.
During the inspection last Thursday, the police found and seized the cell phones of the victims of this tragedy. To begin with, the investigators could understand if, by chance, last Thursday someone, for example, called a doctor for the child's headache. Or if other calls have been made. And to whom.
«They were a special family – says Gemma, who acted as a babysitter for 4 years — I helped Matteo and Margarida a few times a month: I have a special relationship with Elio and his little sister. I still don't believe it. They were fantastic people: when they had a party they called their neighbors. Sometimes I stayed to sleep in the villa. I still don't believe it.”
Matteo Racheli was the son of the former owner of the Mec-Gar company based in Gardone Val Trompia and Gussago, Edoardo Racheli, a company producing pistol magazines acquired by a new entrepreneurial reality made up of the Bonomi (Rubinetterie Bresciane Bonomi) and Gnutti families. Matteo had not followed in his father's footsteps and had chosen to move to Florencewhere she initially opened an ice cream shop in Campi Bisenzio while «Margarida had apartments that she rented, I think also in the center of Florence», concludes Gemma, still incredulous in the face of this tragedy that the investigators are now reconstructing.
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December 21, 2024
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