Bologna, July 18, 2026 – The preliminary hearing in the investigation into the Uno Bianca will take place on Wednesday, July 22. The Prosecutor’s Office has ordered to proceed with irreproducible examinations on the electronic devices of Pietro Gugliotta, a former policeman and member of the Savi gang that terrorized Emilia-Romagna and Marche between 1987 and 1994, leaving behind 23 dead and over 100 injured.
The death of Gugliotta and the examinations
Gugliotta died by suicide last January: he hanged himself in his home courtyard in Colle d’Arba (Pordenone), ‘officially’ for family reasons. But the Bologna Prosecutor’s Office – which learned of the suicide long after the fact – wants to get to the bottom of it and has ordered irreproducible tests: Gugliotta’s computer and cell phone will be analyzed, also to see if there are messages linking the former Savi gang member’s fears and anxieties to the Uno Bianca case: calls and messages that may have been deleted by Gugliotta before taking his own life will also be sought.
The examination will take place Wednesday morning at the Carabinieri Station on via Panzacchi. It will be conducted by personnel from the Anti-Crime Unit. It will start at 9.
Lawyers Alessandro Gamberini and Luca Moser, who assist the association of victims’ families, will appoint technical consultant for the defense Lorenzo Benedetti.
The notice of irreproducible technical examination has been served to the interested parties: the first and second families of Gugliotta (who had remarried after leaving prison).
The Carabinieri raid
In mid-May, the Carabinieri raid was launched, with officers conducting a search in the house where the former policeman lived with his Anna: about twenty officers, including some from the RIS, began the search around 1 p.m. and finished shortly before 5 p.m. Various materials taken from the home were loaded into one of the service vehicles.
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The prosecutors – the investigation is led by Lucia Russo and Andrea De Feis – besides acquiring the report on the death and speaking with the medical examiner who inspected the body, want to thoroughly analyze the former policeman’s phones and PC: they will try to reconstruct Gugliotta’s last months – released from prison in 2008 after 14 years of incarceration all served in isolation, for his protection, as a former policeman.
The last call: “I need to talk to you”
“He called me during the Christmas period, he said: ‘I need to talk to you’. But he wanted to do it in person. We didn’t have time to meet. I will forever have the doubt, the torment of not knowing what he wanted to tell me. I can’t find peace.” Lawyer Stefania Mannino, who always assisted Gugliotta, said this, recounting with a voice full of emotion and memories, the years she spent alongside her client. The former policeman was released from prison in 2008 and then rebuilt a life with Anna, his second wife, and had recently retired. His act shocked his family and the small Friulian community. He had decided to settle in Northern Italy after leaving prison. In his previous life, before the entire gang was arrested, Gugliotta lived in Vignola (Modena) with his ex-wife and two daughters.
“In the early days after prison – Mannino continues – he was terrified of never having a normal life again because, he said, ‘wherever I go everyone will always know what I did, they will recognize me’. He was very downcast. And repentant for what he had done in his ‘previous life’.”
Regarding that last call to his lawyer, “it was strange that he didn’t want to tell me what he had to over the phone, if it had been a family problem he wouldn’t have hesitated – Mannino reflected –. Instead, he insisted on meeting. Years ago, we had talked about suicide, a thought that had entered his mind during a period when he was unwell and hospitalized. He had suffered many losses in his life, starting with his father. But that was a different person. The one today was completely different. Something doesn’t add up and unfortunately I will never know what he wanted to tell me. And his act still seems completely inexplicable to me.”
The village rumors
In Colle d’Arba, after the suicide, rumors circulated: “He was afraid, he was scared also because the Savi had started to get out of prison,” someone said. Probably Gugliotta was referring to the fact that Alberto Savi, the youngest of the brothers, has for some time enjoyed semi-liberty: he can go out during the day to work and must return to prison at night.
