 La Nazione |
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(PISA, Italia, 1 May 2003) by Federico Cortesi PISA- Not even 20 years old, a man has killed himself jumping from the fourth level of the Leaning Tower for love. It happened a little after 5:00 PM yesterday in front of the petrified eyes of hundreds of tourists who crowded Piazza dei Miracoli. After a fall of about 25 meters, the body of S.G., a student who lived in Madonna dell'Acqua, was thrown headfirst on the marble at the inside of the basin where it surrounds the Tower. The investigators have no doubts that it was suicide. In a pocket of the clothes worn by the young man, that were without documents of identity, was found a ticket on which he had written his name, the telephone number of his house and two words: "Ti amo (I love you)". According to agents of the State Police - coordinated by the inspectors Massimo La Camera and Rita Antoniello - at 5:00 PM, after have acquired the ticket, the boy, who had no company, had gotten on the Tower at the same time as 30 other tourists, 'escorted' as always at the beginning and at the end of the line by the employees of the Work of the Primaziale (while one of them is fixed on the summit of the famous monument). During the descent, unexpectedly, the young man disconnected from the party and with threatening movement stepped out on the ledge of the fourth level and then fell in the void. The first to notice the tragedy was one of the custodians that saw the body of S.G. shattering at a brief distance from where he was, and not far from other tourists. Immediately he set off the alarm, but the physician of the Hospital Misericordia was not able to doing anything except ascertain the death of the boy. Besides the local Police - just yesterday in Piazza dei Miracoli was activated a multi-purpose office in a camper of the State Police - the forensic police officers and the employees of Public Assistance have also intervened to remove the remains, as soon as the authorization was received from from the ruling magistrate, the substitute attorney of the Republic doctor Aldo Mantovani. In a sign of mourning the visits to the inside of the Leaning Tower have been suspended and they will begin again regularly tomorrow. The suicide of 20 year old S.G is the second one verified in Piazza dei Miracoli after the reopening of the Leaning Tower to the public on December 15 2001. The preceding one ocurred last December 11 when a pensioner of 61 years got away from life by throwing herself from the tallest level of the monument: for one strange and curious destiny, the poor woman also, as did the twenty year old lover, lived in Madonna dell'Acqua. And a resident of the commune of St. Giuliano Terme, also elderly, was the last person to commit suicide by jumping from the Tower, in March 1989, a few months before the closing on January 6 1990- for the work of 'messa in sicurezza' (securing the monument). |
