The murder of Elvira Orlandini, the beautiful Elvira

In short
On 5 June 1947, Corpus Christi day, 22-year-old Elvira Orlandini was found with her throat cut in a wood near the spring of Toiano, near Pisa. Her fiancé Ugo Ancillotti was arrested and tried, but in 1949 he was acquitted for lack of evidence. The killer was never found, and today Toiano is an almost abandoned village.

The murder of Elvira Orlandini shook post-war Tuscany. The “bella Elvira”, the beautiful Elvira, as she was nicknamed, was brutally killed in 1947 in her small Tuscan village. Her killer was never found.

Elvira Orlandini

It is 5 June 1947, Corpus Christi day, and in Toiano, a small village in the hills between Pisa and Volterra, in the municipality of Palaia, life goes on quietly between work in the fields and household chores.

Around two in the afternoon Elvira Orlandini, considered the prettiest girl in the village, takes a jug and goes to fetch water from the spring, not far from her house. She says goodbye to her mother and leaves.

On the way to the spring she meets a friend. Elvira asks if she wants to come along to fetch water, but the friend says no and the two part ways. Elvira sets off for the spring, but she will never come home again.

About two hours after Elvira left, not seeing her return, her mother goes out to look for her. She walks the path to the spring and, not finding her daughter, goes home worried and tells her husband, Antonio. He begins searching with his brother-in-law Giovanni, and the two follow the path Elvira should have taken.

Finding the body

Near the spring they notice a pool of blood and tracks leading into the nearby wood. It is in that wood that Antonio finds his daughter’s lifeless body, her throat cut from ear to ear. Beside her are the jug full of water and her slippers, placed neatly next to it.

Elvira’s father carries his daughter’s body out of the wood and the Carabinieri are called. Around six the marshal from the Palaia station arrives to take charge of the case.

The suspects

The first suspect, as often happens in such cases, is Elvira’s fiancé, Ugo Ancillotti. The young man is a war veteran who went back to farming in his village after the conflict. Everyone considers him a serious young man, but very jealous. In fact the whole village knows about his jealousy and his frequent rows with Elvira over it.

What’s more, traces of blood are found on his trousers and his alibi is not reliable. He says that at the time of the murder he was asleep at home. Only his parents confirm it. The marshal has no doubts and arrests Ugo 4 days after the murder.

Despite the evidence against Ugo, there is also evidence in his favour. For example, shoe prints in size 40 are found near the body, while Ugo wears a 43. Ugo had also walked Elvira home after Mass at around 13:30 and was then seen going home and having lunch. It would have been practically impossible for him to get to the spring, the scene of the murder, by 14:00, the time of the killing.

Despite the rows between the two, many in the village are convinced he is innocent.

The Swiss nobles

Elvira worked as a maid in the villa of a wealthy Swiss family, the Salts, who spent a few months a year in the villa they owned in Toiano. The Salts had a son of Elvira’s age who had courted her on several occasions even though she was engaged.

There were even rumours of a letter delivered to Ugo, warning him not to marry Elvira. But the Salt family was too powerful and nobody dared speak openly.

Meanwhile Ugo’s trial went on, with the country split between those who believed him guilty and those who believed him innocent and with huge press coverage, and on 21 July 1949 he was acquitted for lack of evidence.

The murderer of the beautiful Elvira, just 22, was never found.

The people in this story are all dead now, and all that keeps the memory of the beautiful Elvira alive is a small gravestone with her photo, in the wood of the Botro della Lupa, where the young woman lost her life.

Toiano today

Today Toiano is an almost deserted village, with a single street a few dozen metres long, and it has become a destination for people seeking out the ghost villages of Tuscany. Many visitors walk to the Botro della Lupa to leave a flower on the gravestone of the beautiful Elvira, who was due to marry that autumn.

The case is considered one of Italy’s most famous cold cases and has also been covered by TV programmes and podcasts.

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