Liliana Resinovich, a 63-year-old woman from the maritime city of Trieste, Italy, had previously worked as a government worker for the Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, but, as of late 2021, she was retired. She was married to Sebastiano Visintin, and their relationship spanned at least 30 years, although recently it had been tested and had probably reached the end of the line—Liliana, in fact, had fallen in love with another man, Claudio Sterpin.

Sterpin himself was the last person to communicate with Liliana, who informed him that she would be late for their appointment, scheduled for 10 a.m. on December 14, 2021, because she had to go to a Wind phone store.

At 8:45 a.m., shortly after this phone call, Liliana was spotted by a clerk at a fruit and vegetable store near her home. At 9:30 a.m., her brother Sergio wrote her a message, but she did not respond. At 10:45 a.m., alarmed by her lateness, Sterpin phoned Liliana, to no avail.

In the afternoon, Sterpin tried to reach his partner one more time, but the phone line dropped immediately, causing him to become extremely worried. (Based on the investigation, it appears that estranged husband Visintin was actually in possession Liliana’s phone at that time.)

Around 10 p.m. of the same day—urged by friends of the couple—Visintin went to the Trieste Carabinieri station to report his wife missing. In the missing person report, the man stated:

“When I returned home, my wife was not at home, but I noticed that she had left her cell phone on a coffee table in the living room. I was not surprised either that she had forgotten it, because she had already done so, or that she had left without warning me, because it often happens that we fail to warn each other as we are very independent. However, I can assert with certainty that she did not take away any clothing or the money we keep hidden in the house, but she did take away her purse.”

Starting on the evening of December 14, the search for Liliana Resinovich began in the area surrounding Trieste.

For more than two weeks, there were no sightings, until the afternoon of January 5, 2022, when a man made a horrifying discovery in a wooded area within the grounds of the city’s former psychiatric hospital: Liliana’s body was wrapped in two black plastic bags—one covering her from above and one from below—and she had a nylon bag tightened with a string around her head.

The man immediately contacted the Carabinieri, who arrived on the scene and began the investigation.

Inconclusive Investigation

Forensic pathologist Fulvio Costantinides was called to the crime scene, arriving around 6 p.m. He carefully checked for cadaveric rigidity, body temperature, and the presence of hypostasis. One of the first things he noticed was that the body’s condition was good, as if Liliana had been there for a short time; her clothes were clean and not torn.

In his autopsy report, Costantinides concluded that the time of death was between 48 and 60 hours before the body was found, and that the cause of Liliana’s demise was “acute heart failure.”

This led investigators to ponder the first major mystery concerning Liliana’s death: How was it possible that she died up to two weeks after her disappearance? Could it be that the forensic pathologist made a mistake in determining the time of death? This doesn’t seem likely, because the body was in the resolving phase of rigor mortis, suggesting that death occurred relatively recently, likely within a few days before its discovery.

Additional investigations were conducted by the forensic pathologist, including CT scans, which confirmed the absence of putrefactive gases and fracture trauma to the head. The presence of foreign bodies like blades and bullets was also ruled out. Toxicology examinations yielded negative results for substances such as drugs and medications, leading Costaninides to believe that Liliana was not altered nor unconscious at the time of death.

The Trieste prosecutor’s office asked that the matter be dismissed, having concluded that it was suicide:

“Nothing was overlooked of what could reasonably be undertaken to arrive at a full description of the circumstances of the disappearance and for the identification of the possible crimes committed against [Liliana].”

The possible motive that may have driven Liliana to suicide, as hypothesized by the prosecutors, was her desire to start a new life with Sterpin and the impossibility of fulfilling this desire.

The motion to dismiss was opposed by Liliana’s family members, who requested the continuation of the investigation to clarify the marks found on the woman’s face and hands, particularly a wound on her lip that appeared to date back to a time close to her death.

Presenting the writ was her brother Sergio, assisted by attorney Nicodemo Gentile (formerly Rudy Guede’s lawyer in the murder of Meredith Kercher), along with Visintin, who Alice and Paolo Bevilacqua assisted.

Surprising Verdict

On June 13, 2023, the preliminary hearing judge Luigi Dainotti rejected the motion to dismiss and upheld the 25 points raised by Gentile and the Bevilacquas; the investigation was to continue in order to clarify the aspects of the case that still remained unclear, focusing on several key areas:

• A new autopsy, requiring the exhumation of the corpse
• In-depth analysis of computer devices and cell phones used by Liliana
• Verification of phone cells around the area where her body was found
• Analysis of DNA found on a small bottle present next to Liliana’s body and on her slips

On January 3, 2024, the Trieste prosecutor’s office ordered the exhumation of the body; the new autopsy was to be conducted by Cristina Cattaneo, Italy’s foremost expert in forensic anthropology. In April 2024, Cattaneo carried out her investigation; results are pending.

More recently, Luciano Garofalo—former head of the RIS, the forensic department of the Carabinieri, and now a consultant for Sebastiano Visintin—proposed that an experimental method, never before used in any legal system globally but seemingly validated in scientific literature, be employed to determine the time of death.

To date, the investigation into Liliana’s death is still open and continuing, although there is really no indictment in the air. The account embraced by the prosecutor’s office, in any case, raises more questions than it answers:

• How did Liliana survive for more than two weeks?
• How did she manage to place herself inside garbage bags and tie the nylon bag over her face?
• How come no one noticed her body for all that time?

On the other hand, the hypotheses put forward by the opposing faction turn out to be even more far-fetched—for example, they suggest that Liliana was killed on December 14 and then frozen in order to “halt” the biological processes in her body.

One thing is certain, though—in this case, which has captivated hundreds of thousands of Italians and has undoubtedly become one of the most frustrating mysteries of recent years, everything could change at any moment. Let’s only hope it will be solved soon.