How Patrizia Reggiani Plotted to Kill Her Ex-Husband Maurizio Gucci

On March 27, 1995, there was only one phrase in Patrizia Reggiani’s diary: “Paradeisos.”

However that single entry — which means paradise in Greek — held a lot weight to it. In any case, that was the date that her ex-husband Maurizio Gucci, grandson of Guccio Gucci, the founding father of the Gucci trend empire, was killed in chilly blood. In 1998, Reggiani was convicted and sentenced to 29 years in jail for ordering his homicide. Although she denied duty for the crime all through the whole trial, she admitted she was behind it not lengthy after being launched in 2014.

It was the type of scandal that performed out like a melodramatic cleaning soap opera, full with rich heirs, secret affairs and a fashionista with a aptitude for phrases and a penchant for carrying a parrot on her shoulder.

They had been the last word jet-setting couple

Reggiani was born outdoors Milan to a waitress mom and trucking businessman father, rising up fairly wealthy and operating round in elite circles, the place she first met Maurizio. “I didn’t assume a lot of him at first,” she informed The Guardian in 2016. “He was simply the quiet boy whose tooth crossed over on the entrance.”

However finally they fell in love and married after they had been each 24, in 1972. Collectively, they lived lavishly. “We had been a good looking couple and we had a good looking life, in fact,” she informed The Guardian, which reported that they’d a Manhattan luxurious penthouse and a chauffeured automotive with the license place “Mauizia” — their couple title combining Maurizio and Patrizia — and schmoozed with the likes of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Quickly, they’d two daughters, Alessandra and Allegra, in addition to a Saint Moritz ski chalet, Acapulco vacation home and Connecticut farm. Reggiani reveled within the luxe way of life, as soon as saying, based on The New York Occasions, “I might quite weep in a Rolls-Royce than be pleased on a bicycle.”

When Maurizio’s father died, every little thing modified

However the charmed life quickly got here to an finish when Maurizio’s father, Roldofo Gucci, died in 1983, leaving his solely little one together with his 50 p.c stake within the Gucci fortune. “Maurizio received loopy,” Reggiani informed The Guardian of the time. “Till then, I used to be his chief adviser about all Gucci issues. However he wished to be the most effective, and he stopped listening to me.”

The impossibly profitable trend model had hit a stumbling block when it was “shedding status from over-licensing its famed double-G brand and from mass manufacturing of canvas baggage.” Maurizio was working arduous to deliver again the model’s good popularity, and combating off his uncle and cousins who owned the opposite 50 p.c. Finally, he purchased them out.

However life at dwelling was deteriorating. And in a surprising transfer, Maurizio packed a bag one night time and left — by no means returning dwelling.

Reggiani had been upset about the best way he was dealing with the enterprise selections, and it turned out her hunch was proper since he finally needed to promote out his whole share of the corporate for $120 million in 1993. In some unspecified time in the future, Maurizio had additionally reconnected with an outdated pal from the European social gathering circuit, Paola Franchi, and each of them had been in troubled marriages. “We fell in love instantly,” Franchi informed The Guardian over tears. “Maurizio used to inform me that we had been two halves of the identical apple.”

There was clearly rather a lot to fireplace up Reggiani. “I used to be offended with Maurizio about many, many issues at the moment,” she mentioned. “However above all, this. Dropping the household enterprise. It was silly. It was a failure. I used to be full of rage, however there was nothing I might do. He shouldn’t have completed that to me.”

Maurizio was shot quite a few occasions

That fateful day of the crime began as a “pretty spring morning,” based on Giuseppe Onorato, the doorman for the constructing at By way of Palestro 20, the place Maurizio’s workplace was situated. Onorato was sweeping leaves when Maurizio arrived holding just a few magazines.

“Then I noticed a hand,” Onorato informed The Guardian. “It was a good looking, clear hand, and it was pointing a gun.”

4 pictures had been fired — three at Maurizio’s again and a fourth at his head. After which when the shooter noticed Onorato, he shot twice extra, hitting the doorman within the arm.

Nonetheless, one way or the other Onorato made it over to Maurizio. “I used to be cradling Mr. Gucci’s head,” he continued. “He died in my arms.”

It took practically two years for Reggiani and 4 accomplices to be charged

With a close-range, point-blank homicide, it will appear to be a straightforward case to unravel. But the Gucci household was wrapped up in a lot drama over the empire’s fortune that the cops thought the assassin is likely to be amongst Maurizio’s blood family members, or maybe from his on line casino ties.

It wasn’t till practically two years later in 1997 that an nameless tip pointed to Ivano Savioni, a resort porter, who had been contacted by Reggiani’s private psychic Guiseppina Auriemma to assist her rent hitman Benedetto Ceraulo and getaway automotive driver Orazio Cicala. And Reggiani was additionally charged as one of many co-conspirators, incomes her the nickname Vedova Nera, which means Black Widow.

There was loads of damning proof towards Reggiani. She had shared with mates and reporters that she wished Maurizio had been useless. Even so, through the trial, she maintained her innocence, together with her legal professionals telling the courtroom that the “threats had been the ramblings of a mentally disturbed lady,” The New York Occasions reported. However a psychiatric panel got here to the conclusion that she was “mentally competent” on the time of the trial.

She as a substitute tried to level fingers at her psychic, saying that Auriemma was behind every little thing and tried to blackmail Reggiani. “By no means let even a pleasant fox into the rooster coop,” Reggiani mentioned to the jurors about Auriemma. “Ultimately it might get hungry.” But she contradicted herself at trial through the cross-examination when Reggiani mentioned she paid Auriemma $365,000, commenting, “It was price each penny.”

In the long run, Reggiani and Cicala had been sentenced to 29 years in jail, Savioni to 26 years, Auriemma to 25 years and the gunman Ceraulo was given a life sentence.

Reggiani admitted to the crime years later

After spending 18 years in jail — which she refers to as “my keep at Vittore Residence” the place she was capable of preserve a pet ferret named Bambi — a digital camera crew confirmed up with out warning on the jewellery firm Bozart, the place Reggiani was working. The reporter requested, “Patrizia, why did you rent a hitman to kill Maurizio Gucci? Why didn’t you shoot him your self?”

As if she couldn’t assist herself, she answered, “My eyesight will not be so good—I didn’t need to miss,” The Guardian reported.

It’s clear that Reggiani lives in her personal bubble, usually seen roaming round Milan with a parrot on her shoulder and telling La Repubblica in 2014 that she hoped to return to work with Gucci, saying, “They want me…I nonetheless really feel like a Gucci—in actual fact, essentially the most Gucci of all of them.”

Reggiani had warned Maurizio of the ‘inferno’

Given her eccentric existence now, the main points of the best way she plotted her ex-husband’s loss of life are each tough, but oddly simple, to consider. Through the trial, it got here out that Reggiani had reportedly put stress on the 4 accomplices to hurry up the homicide plans to ensure it was taken care of earlier than Maurizio might marry Franchi. A part of it was apparently out of concern that her daughters would lose a few of their inheritance if they’d youngsters, however Auriemma testified through the trial that Reggiani couldn’t stand the considered being changed.

“Patrizia was stalking us,” Franchi informed The Guardian. “She nonetheless had spies in Maurizio’s circle, and he or she knew all about our plans, his enterprise dealings, every little thing. She referred to as many occasions, abusing him and threatening to kill him.”

When Maurizio refused to take her calls, she would ship him tape recordings calling him a “monster” for not taking good care of their daughters and warning, “the inferno for you is but to return.”

Certainly that inferno got here — but one way or the other Reggiani, even after admitting her personal guilt within the plot-to-kill, continues to roam the streets, doing issues her manner.