Bologna, July 13, 2026 – “Yes, I knew Roberto and Gianna. They were really two calm people.” Giorgia lives on the fifth floor of the building where, on Saturday morning, Roberto Rizzioli killed his wife with two gunshots before turning the weapon on himself and taking his own life. “It was dawn, it must have been around 6 – she recounts –. There was a bang, a loud noise, it could have been a piece of furniture falling or thunder, I was half asleep, I didn’t realize and I could never have imagined it was gunshots. My dog woke me up because he was so scared that he scratched the floor.”
Read more Homicide-suicide in Bologna, 3 fatal gunshots at home. Roberto and Gianna: life ended together
“I never heard them argue”
Giorgia, like most of the tenants in the building on via Shakespeare, knew that retired couple well: “I never heard them argue, never a raised voice from either of them. They were very close: a life in symbiosis,” the young woman explains. She recounts: “Once we were downstairs and the lady fell backwards. He ran to help her and was very worried, he was very scared. He kept asking her if she was okay, repeating that he would take her to the emergency room. It’s a small episode, but it gives an idea of the relationship they had: they seemed to live for each other. At least that’s the impression they gave from the outside.”
And when the news of what had happened spread on Saturday, when ambulances and police arrived at the building, she couldn’t believe it either: “I never would have expected something like this. I could never have imagined it. Because, precisely, there had never been arguments, never any signs that something was wrong between them. We were shocked, we told the police”.
Roberto was always active for the condominium
Everyone in the building knew Roberto, “because he was always active. At most he grumbled a little because he was very attentive to the upkeep of the condominium, he took care of the plants and many other small things.”
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Outside the couple’s apartment, where the prosecutor’s seal is displayed on the closed gate, there is a doormat with a little dog drawn on it: “They both loved animals – the neighbor continues –. When Roberto met me walking the dog, he always stopped to pet him. His name is Cooper, but Roberto would rename him every time with a different name. Just to joke a little. They didn’t have pets at home though.”
“I want to think that Roberto and Gianna decided it together”
And it’s incredible, from the description Giorgia and the other neighbors give of such a kind elderly man, to imagine that the same man was capable of the horror that, on Saturday, the neighbors found at home: “I don’t know if Gianna was ill. She was an elderly lady, a few years older than him, but she was also quite well for her age. That’s why I want to think that Roberto and Gianna decided it together – the neighbor concludes –: they chose to leave together after a life spent just the two of them. Maybe it’s just a romantic thought, maybe the truth is different. But let me hope that it really went that way.”
