Garlasco probe: Sempio says he fears an error as RIS DNA sample questions mount

Andrea Sempio, under investigation in the new Pavia prosecutors' inquiry into the murder of Chiara Poggi, spoke to Bruno Vespa for Porta a Porta, an interview broadcast on 8 October. Alberto Stasi was convicted in a final judgment and sentenced to 16 years, and the Pavia probe now questions elements of that case. The murder took place on the morning of 13 August 2007 in Garlasco.

Sempio's account

Sempio said he sees no errors in the 2016 investigations that led to his archiving. He said that if one of the elements now pointed against him were not considered explainable, that would be an error in his view. He called the prosecutors' final account far-fetched and argued that their evidence, though it appears to fit together, does not produce a convincing result. On the risk of error in general, he said:

The fear of being the victim of an error is absolutely there.

He added that if there are doubts, redoing the investigation and checking it is the right course.

The teaspoon and the DNA

The disputed question is which DNA sample was used to compare with genetic material found on Stasi's bicycle pedals. According to Fanpage, RIS Parma took Chiara Poggi's DNA from a teaspoon found in the house on the day of the murder. A RIS record dated 4 September 2007, shown by Tg1, indicates the DNA had already been taken from the victim's blood. Alberto Marino, then a captain who ran the comparison tests as a consultant appointed by the Vigevano prosecutors, told Pavia magistrates on 10 September that he did not recall that sample being transferred to the RIS. Asked why blood was not used, he said:

We considered the teaspoon more appropriately a comparison sample than the traces at the crime scene. The genetic profile is the same, obviously.

Deputy prosecutor Civardi challenged that reasoning, asking why investigators would look for Chiara Poggi's DNA on an item without certainty she had put it in her mouth.

Garofano's requests

Luciano Garofano, then commander of the RIS in Parma, asked to attend two inspections of the Garlasco villa as an 'observer'. His first request, dated 3 September 2007, said the defences consulted had no objection, but the Vigevano prosecutor rejected it. A second request on 8 September sought to attend the inspections scheduled for 12 September as 'comandante del reparto' and 'ufficiale di pg'. Prosecutor Rosa Muscio refused both, and a reply signed on 9 September 2007 with prosecutor Alfonso Lauro argued that the operations were irreproducible technical assessments open only to the parties' lawyers and consultants. Stasi's lawyers, Giovanni and Eleonora Lucido, had formally opposed attendance by anyone other than appointed consultants.

The soap dispenser

Stasi's defence has asked prosecutors to re-examine the soap dispenser in the Poggi bathroom, one of seven clues on which Stasi was convicted. In a memo filed in August 2025, lawyers Bocellari and De Rensis requested specific checks on the fingerprints. Until 2017, the defence believed only two fingerprints, both attributed by the RIS to Stasi, were on the dispenser, because the final report listed nothing else. The memo says other fragmentary prints were only described generically, were never listed and had no photographs available, and that first-instance expert reports found no blood on the siphon, sink, tap or dispenser itself.

What remains open

The closing papers filed in September included folders recovered from the RIS headquarters in Parma that had never been part of the case file, a practice described as unusual and irregular. Those files concern the RIS work in 2007. They could give rise to new secondary strands of the investigation.