Forestry worker and CISL trade unionist. But also passionate about gun sports. However, without any reports of violence within the family. The life of Roberto Gleboni, 52, has always been normal. Until yesterday. In Nuoro, with his 7.65 caliber pistol, inherited and regularly held for sporting purposes, he killed his wife Maria Giuseppina Massetti, 43, and his daughter Martina, 25, his son Francesco, 10, his neighbor Paolo Sanna (69). And he wounded his other 14-year-old son and his mother Maria Esterina Riccardi, 84. Then he committed suicide by shooting himself in the temple in the kitchen. Gleboni had a clean criminal record. Deputy prosecutors Riccardo Belfiori and Sandra Piccicuto are investigating the massacre. The forensic doctor is Roberto Demontis.
The dynamics of the massacre
The massacre began at 7 am at number 17 via Ichnusa in the Monte Gurtei district. The Forestas employee took the gun and started shooting. He killed his wife and daughter. Then, going down the stairs, he met the neighbor Sanna, the owner of the house, and shot her too. And finally the two sons. Then he took his car and headed towards via Gonario Pinna. The mother lived on the third floor. He pointed his gun at her and opened fire. Then he went to the kitchen and shot himself. It was only when the massacre took place in the capital Barbagia, around 7:30 am, that the ambulance sirens arrived and two state police helicopters flew over the city. The police and carabinieri of the provincial command of Nuoro arrived at the two buildings where the massacre took place. The results of the autopsy are now awaited.
The motive
Apparently, the husband and wife, who lived together, were on the verge of separating. The couple's first daughter was born when Giusi Massetti was still a minor. Because of this relationship, relations with his family were strained, despite the years that had passed. Especially those with his father-in-law, whom Gleboni did not shoot. “Roberto was a very calm person, very helpful. A few days ago my car was stolen and he wanted to lend me his, knowing that I needed it,” says neighbor Armando Lodi. “A calm person, available to others and a lover of animals. He was a forestry worker, he drove the vehicles.” But there are those who say something else: “He often shouted. Sometimes he seemed authoritarian and almost excited,” he says. Mail a person close to the family.
Possessive and control freak
According to this testimony, Gleboni “was possessive and had an excessive desire for control, especially over his wife and children.” Although he and his dependents had no criminal record, there had never been any complaints or reports of violent behavior within the family. Indeed, their daughter Martina dedicated her diploma to her parents: “To my mother, who believed in it before me.” To my father, the greatest love of my life.” “I never heard anything, an argument is a problem,” explains an elderly man who lives on the first floor of a building adjacent to the one where the massacre took place. “Roberto was the most sociable, he stopped to talk to us. Two days ago I saw them together, Roberto and his wife, when they were coming back from the supermarket where they had done their shopping. This morning there was thunder and I didn't hear the gunshots, we understood what had happened thanks to the ambulance sirens.”
The investigation
In an attempt to clarify what happened in the horror apartment, the couple's relatives, friends and neighbours will be questioned again, but investigators are also waiting for the survivors' stories. And new evidence could come from the autopsies of the bodies of the victims and the murderer. “They seemed like a close-knit couple, my daughter who lives upstairs has never felt any family discord in this family. The wife was very kind: last Saturday she went up to my daughter's apartment who had had health problems to take her blood pressure. There is no justification for what happened, there is only pain,” says another neighbour.
Shoot to kill
What is certain is that the forester, when he fired his 7.65 semi-automatic, hit all the victims in the head, as if there was a desire to exterminate the entire family. With the same force, he hit his neighbor. Anna Oliverio Ferraris, a psychologist and psychotherapist at the Sapienza University of Rome, tells The press that “The family often hides and underestimates the signals. But we must always keep in mind that each case is different and we must understand the situation of this man. He may have been depressed, and when depression is very severe, it can even come to that. Not to harm, but to save loved ones. The depressed person may think that life is not worth living and that his family members could not survive or feel good without him.”
Depression and psychotic break
According to the professor, “a very depressed person can see death as a liberation. You can have a fragmented vision of reality, in which emotions are not linked to values and experiences.” And then there is emulation: “These stories are told a lot in the media and bounce on social networks. A person suffering from emotional or mental fragility may think that it can be done.” An illness that can also be ignored: “We are not used to taking care of our loved ones, but noticing and reporting the illness of a friend or relative can certainly save lives.”