Pietro Maso –he massacred his parents for the inheritance

Pietro Maso is an Italian criminal guilty of killing his parents, with the help of some friends, to get his hands on their inheritance.

Biography

Pietro Maso was born in San Bonifacio, in the province of Verona, on July 16, 1971, the third child and only son of Antonio Maso, a farmer, and Maria Rosa Tessari, a housewife. The family lived in Montecchia di Crosara and was well-off. His two sisters, Laura and Nadia, married around twenty and moved away.

Pietro’s childhood was not easy: as a little boy he fell ill with severe meningitis that nearly killed him, so much so that he was given the last rites. After recovering he was sent to the seminary in Vicenza, but was sent away for poor results. He then enrolled at the agricultural school in Cologna Veneta, which he left in his third year, and was declared unfit for military service.

Village life was no longer enough for him; he was more and more attracted by money and the good life. With a group of friends he began going to bars, clubs and the Venice Casino, spending a fortune.

In the last months before the crime his parents were worried: Pietro had quit his job as a supermarket clerk and his work with a car dealership was only occasional. But money was never enough and he made a drastic decision: kill his parents to collect the inheritance.

The first attempts

Pietro began planning the murder with some friends: Giorgio Carbognin and Paolo Cavazza, both 18, and Damiano Burato, 17. Together they came up with several plans, which failed one after another.

In early March 1991 Carbognin suggested finding a hitman to kill the parents for them. The boys went looking for one in the worst parts of Vicenza, but realized it was pointless. They then bought sleeping pills and rat poison to poison the Masos’ food, but feared the couple would notice the smell and threw everything away.

The gas cylinders

On March 3, 1991 Pietro placed two gas cylinders in the cellar of the house. Next to them he put the control unit of some sound-activated disco lights and an alarm clock set a few minutes later. He stuffed cushions and blankets into the unlit fireplace to block it.

The plan was to fill the room with gas and wait for the alarm to trigger the lights, whose spark would blow up the house. The blankets in the fireplace were meant to keep the air from escaping, making the explosion even more powerful.

But Pietro made a mistake: he removed the safety catches from the cylinders but forgot to open the valves. His mother found everything just before the alarm went off and asked him for an explanation. He said it was all for a party. Years later, in his book, he said instead that he had lost his nerve.

The meat tenderizer

A few days before the crime his mother found about 2 million lire in her son’s trouser pocket. Pietro was no longer working, so how could he have all that money? He said it was his last commission from the car dealership and, to reassure her, offered to drive her there to check.

In fact Giorgio Carbognin was in the car with them and, as agreed with Pietro, was supposed to hit Rosa on the head with a meat tenderizer.

But Giorgio lost his nerve and Pietro had to come up with another lie: he told his mother he had found out an acquaintance was involved in a computer racket and had paid him to keep quiet. Rosa chose to believe him, but grew more and more worried.

A last attempt required Giorgio to attack Pietro’s parents in the garage when they came home. Once again, though, the young man could not bring himself to act.

The murder

Those 2 million came from a 24-million loan Carbognin had taken out to buy a used Lancia Delta Integrale. When his family opposed the purchase, instead of paying the money back he had squandered it with Pietro in restaurants, clubs, bars and jewelry shops.

To help his friend repay the debt, Pietro had written a 25-million cheque from his mother’s account, forging her signature. He had to kill his parents before she discovered the missing money.

The plan also included splitting the inheritance: 200 million each for Cavazza and Burato, the rest divided between Pietro and Carbognin. On April 17, 1991 the Masos attended a Neocatechumenal meeting at the San Daniele convent in Lonigo. That evening Pietro and his accomplices met to go over the final details, then went together to the house to wait for his parents. A fifth friend was with them, who went along as far as the house still convinced it was a joke, and then left.

Antonio and Rosa came home around 11 pm. Antonio tried to switch on the light, but Pietro had unscrewed the bulb. Thinking it was an electrical fault, he went up to the first floor to check the meter. There, his son was hiding, waiting for him.

As soon as his father entered the kitchen, Pietro hit him with an iron pipe and Damiano with a pot. Antonio did not fall right away and the two kept hitting him, kicking him in the head too, until he was dead.

Shortly after, Rosa, alarmed, came upstairs and met the same fate. She did not die immediately, and the boys suffocated her by stuffing cotton down her throat. Antonio was 55, Rosa 48.

After the murder they ransacked the house to fake a robbery and took off their bloodstained overalls. Cavazza and Burato went home, while Pietro and Carbognin went to a nightclub to build an alibi. A few hours later Pietro returned and staged the discovery: he told the neighbors he had seen his parents’ legs on the floor, and one of them went in and found the bodies.

The investigation

At first it was thought to be a robbery gone wrong, but investigators soon realized the burglary was staged. His sisters Laura and Nadia also grew suspicious when they discovered the 25 million missing from their mother’s account.

Pietro’s strange behavior after the crime, and the fact that his own friends had started talking about it around town, led investigators straight to him.

Pietro was arrested on April 19, 1991 and confessed shortly after. His accomplices were arrested after him.

The trial

The case caused a huge media reaction and the trial was followed by the whole press. The charge was premeditated double murder, aggravated by cruelty, futile motives and, for Pietro, kinship. The psychiatric assessment was entrusted to the famous Veronese psychiatrist Vittorino Andreoli, who found all the defendants fully capable of understanding and intent: for Pietro he spoke of narcissistic personality disorder, which is not, however, a form of mental illness.

For months Pietro claimed his share of the inheritance, but his lawyer advised him to give it up if he did not want to risk a life sentence.

The prosecutor asked for life imprisonment, but on February 29, 1992 the Verona Court of Assizes sentenced Pietro to 30 years, recognizing diminished responsibility. Cavazza and Carbognin got 26 years each, while Burato, a minor, was sentenced to 13 years by the Venice juvenile court. The sentences were upheld on appeal and by the Court of Cassation.

Pietro Maso today

In Opera prison Pietro studied, took part in rehabilitation programs and a theater course, and said he had returned to his faith. In 2007 he told La Repubblica that many young people wrote to him saying they wanted to do what he had done, and that he urged them to stop. Not everyone believed in his repentance, though: writer Cinzia Tani claimed that in prison he cared mostly about his appearance and received letters from thousands of fans.

From 2008 he was granted day release and worked at a computer company. With a pardon the end of his sentence was brought forward to 2015, but on April 15, 2013 Pietro Maso was released, after 22 years in prison. That same month the book Il male ero io was published, written with journalist Raffaella Regoli.

In January 2016 he was investigated for attempted extortion: his sisters, whom he had threatened, were placed under police protection. In March he was admitted to a psychiatric clinic for mental health problems and cocaine addiction.

Later he worked as a gardener and with a non-profit on a social reintegration program. In 2019 he was the subject of the documentary Pietro Maso – Io ho ucciso on the Nove channel, and in 2021 he sued rapper Fedez for defamation for mentioning him in a song; the case was dismissed in 2024. His story also inspired the film I pavoni (1994) and an episode of Stefano Nazzi’s podcast Indagini.

Sources

• Omicidio dei coniugi Maso – Wikipedia (Italian)