Catanzaro is an unremarkable town in the highlands of Italy. At least it was until several of its inhabitants were drawn into a mystical story, over the explanation of which several generations have been racking their brains unsuccessfully.
In 1936, the body of handsome Giuseppe (or "Pepe" as everyone called him) Veraldi was discovered under a bridge in Catanzaro. No traces of a violent death were found, so the townspeople came to the general conclusion that Pepe committed suicide. Everyone except the family - they couldn't even imagine any reason why Pepe would have thought of throwing himself off the bridge.
Three years later, a teenage girl named Maria Talarico passed through the place under the bridge where poor Pepe was found, and … fainted. For no reason. They picked her up, took her home and soon the girl came to her senses, but …
Maria's voice became noticeably lower, and now looked more like a man's. Someone guessed to ask her name and, to the amazement of those around her, she replied: "Pepe Veraldi."
After that, the girl expressed a desire to talk to the mother of the late Pepe. While they were running after her, Maria demanded to bring wine, cigarettes, playing cards and began to persuade the dumbfounded relatives and friends to play a party or two with her. She spoke to her neighbors as if she were old friends, although she had not even met some of them before this incident.
Then Mrs. Veraldi arrived and was shocked to hear the voice of her son coming from the young girl. Maria / Pepe said that he was killed and even gave the names of the guys who did it.
Having told about the crime, the girl jumped out of the house and ran headlong back - under the bridge. Mrs. Veraldi and other witnesses of this strange reincarnation followed her. Having reached, Maria lay down exactly in the place where she lost consciousness. After a while, the girl came to her senses. This time she was herself and did not remember anything about her reincarnation in Pepe.
Another nine years passed, and Mrs. Veraldi received a letter from one of her son's former friends, Luigi (Toto) Marchete, who soon after Pepe's death moved from Italy to Argentina. The letter contained a confession that he and three friends had killed Pepe because of a woman. The names coincided with those that Maria called during her mysterious "trance".
Promotional video:
One of the murderers was already dead by that time, Luigi himself lived in a country that did not betray criminals, so he was completely safe. The two remaining were arrested and responded to the fullest extent of the law.
It remains to add that Maria Talarico never knew the murdered Pepe, and the secret of her temporary "obsession" remained unsolved.
Sveta Gogol
