Pier Paolo Pasolini is a well-known filmmaker who is best-known for the controversial 1975 movie ‘Salo’. In addition to being a filmmaker, he was a talented poet and an intellectual who identified as homosexual, Marxist and Catholic.
Just before the release of ‘Salo’ in Paris, his mutilated corpse was found in Ostia on the beach. The date was November 2, 1975. Just a few hours before Pasolini’s body was found, the police had arrested Pelo Pelosi, a teenage prostitute aged just 17 years old. He was speeding in an Alfa Romeo and the police accused him of stealing the car. When the car was identified as Pasolini’s, Pelosi confessed to his murder.
Pelosi told the police that Pasolini had picked him up on the previous night from a train station before taking him first to a restaurant and then to the beach. Pasolini had asked Pelosi to sodomize him with a wooden stick but the young man had refused and the older man had turned on him and struck him. To defend himself, Pelosi grabbed the stick and beat Pasolini to death before fleeing in the car and hitting what he thought was a bump.
Initially, the police convicted Pelosi along with ‘unknown others’. However, the authorities later came to the conclusion that he had acted alone. Unfortunately, Pasolini’s family disagreed with this and the forensic report supported this view as it stated he had died as the result of an attack by more than one person. Another reason they doubted the authorities’ conclusion was that the statement given by Pelosi contradicted the information found at the scene of the crime. For example, another car and several motorcycles were seen following Pelosi prior to his arrest. Also, there was a green sweater discovered on the back seat of the car that belonged to neither Pasolini or Pelosi.
Fast forward to 2005 and Pelosi changed his story claiming that he was an innocent man. In a television interview, he claimed that Pasolini was actually murdered by a trio of neo-fascists who had targeted him for his sexuality and political beliefs.
A friend of Pasolini, Sergio Citti, decided to launch his own investigation into the events that led to his friend’s death. The conclusion of that investigation was that Pasolini was murdered when he got into an argument with a group of thieves that had stolen some spools of film of ‘Salo’. It was argued he was possibly killed by members of the notorious Magliana gang. Others still believe that it was Pasolini’s fondness for young boys and fetishes that led to his untimely death.
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