Joe Bevilacqua’s admission of guilt

March 27, 2025 (Last edit – May 21)

The videos on the journalistic investigation are coming soon. If you want to watch them in Italian, here they are.

In the summer of 2017, Joe Bevilacqua († 2022) and I have interviews focused on his life and the Monster of Florence and Zodiac cases.

Seven of them will be ascertained in six days between May 29 and August 10, 2017, in an analysis of the phone cells by the ROS Carabinieri.

On June 30, we sign a pro forma for the drafting of his biography. This agreement allows me to have a reason to see him again. I have made a commitment to discretion, while he accept not hide anything from me.

To go directly to the admission, click here.

I am not a police officer but a journalist.
In the first meetings I discarded the idea of ​​secretly recording the Italian-American witness of the Pacciani trial for fear of being discovered (I did well, I will discover that he is a former military investigator who worked undercover) now I cannot do it out of respect for professional ethics.
For this reason, I will not record the admission. When Bevilacqua decides not to turn himself in, I will start reporting what I learned to the competent authorities, also making a statement and being interviewed at the Lecco Carabinieri station on March 1, 2018.

Here is an article explaining why the murder investigation that resulted from my denunciation will be closed in 2021 (without informing the offended parties, in violation of the law), after a seriously flawed investigation.

The Bevilacqua case will be reopened in 2024, after I personally transmitted the genetic profile to the Napa County Sheriff’s Department and the Vallejo and San Francisco Police Departments.

There is currently (March 26, 2025) an ongoing investigation in conjunction with the Florence District Attorney’s Office.

In the meantime, on December 23, 2022, 87-year-old Bevilacqua passed away in Sesto Fiorentino where he had lived since 2010.

The following excerpt is taken from the article “Zodiac – Monster of Florence. The journalistic investigation on Joe Bevilacqua.”

The “confession” of Joe Bevilacqua

The “admission phone call” dates back to September 12, not 11, unlike what I will accidentally tell the Carabinieri and report in the first articles of the investigation. These are three consecutive calls present in the complete phone records, as also confirmed by an expert report requested by me. Contacts that will “escape” the Carabinieri by mistake (perhaps because I use my home number and not my cell phone?).

I do not secretly record the conversation, even if Italian law allows it. The reason is ethical-professional.
I have made a commitment not to disclose information received from Bevilacqua without his consent.

After a quick exchange about where I’ve been on vacation, I inform him that I want to discuss the Zodiac’s namer cipher.

“We don’t talk about these things on the phone,” he replies.

I ignore him by telling him that his name is in the solution. I read it to him.

"They knew!" Bevilacqua says, frightened.
"Who?"
"D'Addario and Colombo. They knew because..."

The American leaves the sentence hanging. He has done so other times when speaking about the Monster. From the tone of his voice I deduce that it is just a suspicion. Besides, between ’75 and ’79, when Colombo was again in Livorno, the “Monster” did not sign any crime. Perhaps he feared being discovered? The apparent return of the serial killer dates back to ’81.

Bevilacqua also mentions the “CIA of Maryland” (the National Security Agency?). He believes they “know” too.

I tale a step back to clarify if there was a misunderstanding.

"Maybe they framed you?" I ask doubtfully.
"For fifty years?" he replies.

Yes, he is admitting that he is Zodiac.

"Why didn't you turn yourself in?" I ask.
"So I don't get others in trouble," he says in a lower voice.
"Your family?"
"Yes."

I invite him to turn himself in. He has to go to the Carabinieri.

"Do you know how much time passed?" he says.
"Murder does not have a limitation period," I reply.
We have a brief discussion.
"Talk to a priest."
"You know. The only priest I spoke to told me I was the 'devil incarnate'."
During our conversations he told me about a Baptist chaplain who had accused him of a criminal "matter" in Vietnam.
At a certain point, he seems to be convinced.
"What should I bring? The gun?" he asks, referring implicitly to the Monster's Beretta.
"Do I have to bring the gun?" he repeats.

I distinctly hear a lament in the background. It is his wife Meri. In fact, shortly thereafter she intervenes to help her husband, whom he can no longer hear due to a strange interference (are we being wiretapped?).
Mrs. Torelli writes down the number of attorney Francesco Moramarco, a criminal lawyer I know who works for a firm that Tempi uses.
I ask Moramarco, whom I previously informed of my journalistic investigation, to help Bevilacqua in the practical act of turning himself in. For this reason, I tell him about the admission and that he will call him shortly.

A year later, the lawyer Moramarco will tell the Carabinieri that he was contacted only once on September 12, 2017, by an “alleged” Bevilacqua, but that he only gave him the address of his office. And that he never heard from him again.
Colonel Colizzi will report that the Milanese lawyer, without having it put in writing, questioned the reliability of my journalistic investigation.
As for the contacts between Moramarco and Bevilacqua, the records partially contradict the lawyer. The phone calls between him and the American that day, in fact, appear to be two, not one.