Transcript of The Gucci Murder

Then ten. Then twenty. Are we to assume that Cinderella and the prince are faultless forever? That they never wrong each other or anybody else for the rest of their lives? That they stay content? Maybe they do. Maybe they're the lucky ones. But what happens when the happy part doesn't come at the ending, but in the middle? Today we're covering one of the darkest stories from the glittering world of fashion: when a high-end princess is scorned by her charming prince and becomes the villain in her own tale.

I'm Harvey Guillen, and this is Killer Stories. Italy, 1970. We're at a debutante party for the upper class. Rich twenty-somethings dance in their designer clothing straight from Milan.

Across the room, a young woman in red locks eyes with a man. Her name is Patrizia Reggiani. At 21, she could win an Elizabeth Taylor lookalike contest, hands down. She has the same smoldering eyes, the sultry attitude. Patrizia is Petizia. She's tiny, but her personality is mighty. The man who catches her eye is Maurizio Gucci. He's a future titan of the fashion industry, but for now he's a shy do-gooder finding his place in the world.

And he's smitten. He falls for Patrizia the moment he lays eyes on her. If you've never heard the name Gucci—what? I'm sorry, I don't even know how to entertain that. Okay, you know Gucci, the brand, right? It's the one, the most famous luxury brand in the world. Iconic handbags, Italian leather loafers, the famous GG. Double G's. You know what I'm talking about. Well, Maurizio is the grandson of its founder. Guccio Gucci.

What a name. Maurizio's father, Rodolfo, now runs the company with his brother, Aldo. Rodolfo has created some of Gucci's famous looks, while Aldo has grown the brand into an international phenomenon. But Maurizio? He's studying to become a lawyer, not a fashion scion. But Patrizia doesn't care. She's charmed by him. By their second date, he feels certain he's going to marry Patrizia Reggiani.

Okay, so Patrizia also comes from money. Her dad operates a transportation company. He spoils his daughter, buying her a sports car and fur coats. She's not really a gold digger. That's kind of a misconception. Her family has a seaside villa, for crying out loud. But Maurizio's level of wealth and fame puts him on an entirely different rung of the social ladder. And she figures there's always room to move upward. Along the way, she falls for him too.

He genuinely cares for her, both when she's dolled up like Liz Taylor and when she's not. He doesn't seem turned off by her strong personality. In fact, he likes it. Things are going great until Maurizio introduces her to his dad. Rodolfo is getting older, and he's looking at his three nephews who work for Gucci, Aldo's sons, and he's like, "Oh no. I can't leave the company in the hands of these doofuses when my time comes. Maurizio has to be the one to take over."

The dad sees Patrizia as a coattail rider, not the kind of wife he envisioned for his son. And Rodolfo makes his stance: no. But Maurizio chooses love. He proposes to Patrizia. But when they tie the knot in October 1972, none of Maurizio's family members come to the wedding. Rodolfo cuts him off. But hey, time has a way of changing things. Patrizia gives birth to a daughter and names her after Maurizio's late mother.

And it's the mid-1970s. I'd say the odds are pretty good that everyone hears "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac. It's a heartbreaking ballad about facing all of life's changes that really makes you think. Whatever his reason is, Rodolfo makes amends. And he sends Maurizio to New York to work for Gucci. Now here's where Patrizia's life starts resembling a modern fairy tale for real. Suddenly Maurizio is making good money.

They've got a penthouse overlooking Fifth Avenue. They buy a yacht and have it exorcised because Patrizia thinks they might have negative spirits imprisoned on board. She's finally living the life of a Gucci. She even gives Maurizio her input on the brand, and he listens to her. She feels like she's part of the brand. She's got the designer clothes, celebrity friends, money out the tuckus, lavish parties. She becomes famous for throwing these soirées where everything has to be all one color: the food, the drinks, the attire.

Monochromatic. For Patrizia, life is a dream come true. But as we know, dreams can sometimes fade. And even while things are good in the marriage, Maurizio has to deal with a lot of drama at work. Between himself, his father, his uncle Aldo, and his three cousins, Roberto, Giorgio, and Paolo, who all own stake in the company, there can be too many Guccis in the kitchen.

And he sues everyone. And that's just one of the many lawsuits flying back and forth between the Guccis. Now, on paper, Gucci is doing great. In the early '80s, it's raking in the money. But some people, like Maurizio, start to worry about the brand's reputation. He thinks they're getting too far away from his grandfather's original vision. There are too many competing voices, too many products, more accessories than they can keep track of.

Patrizia notices when her husband starts to struggle over these issues. But if you ask her, the trouble really begins when Maurizio stops listening to her advice. Which happens when he inherits his dad's stake in the company. Rodolfo Gucci dies in 1983. Up until that point, Maurizio had the fancy job, the title, all the perks. But he wasn't a shareholder like his other family members.

And suddenly he owns half of Gucci. According to Patrizia, that's when their perfect marriage comes to a screeching halt. Now, whenever she wants to talk about business, he ignores her. He only listens to business advisors and lawyers whose whole job is to help somebody run a business. The Nerve. I mean, what do they know? For Patrizia, it's a betrayal. It doesn't matter that she wasn't born a Gucci.

She regards herself as even more Gucci than the Guccis. Maurizio sees things a little differently. See, at work, his dad always ran the show. At home, Patrizia ran the show. And he did whatever his dad and his wife wanted him to do. He just didn't realize this was happening until his father died. And through his grief, he also recognized this feeling he'd never really had before.

It was freedom. All of a sudden, Patrizia's advice, which he used to welcome, felt controlling, overbearing, and no different, really, than his dad's had been. So according to Patrizia, Maurizio grows colder, more distant. Until one day in 1985, when Maurizio packs a bag and leaves her. He doesn't even say goodbye. Then he sends a family friend, a doctor, to break the news to Patrizia that her husband has left her.

And then this doctor friend presents her with the bottle of Valium. Patrizia is shocked. She knew her marriage had soured, but she never thought a man like Maurizio would leave her like this. It's somewhere between ghosting and the 1980s version of breaking up over a text. He doesn't speak to her again face to face for months. When he does, Maurizio tells her it's not like he's seen anybody else.

There is no other woman. He simply needs his freedom. Specifically from Patrizia. But the former Cinderella and Prince Charming of the fashion world don't make a clean break from each other. They now have two young children to raise, and Maurizio has a business to run. Appearances are important to both of them, at home and in public. People expect to see Patrizia on his arm.

So for a while, she continues to play the part of a happy, glamorous wife at events. And whenever he drops by to visit the children, she dresses to impress him. But at the end of every night, Maurizio leaves her all over again. It's hard. And when Patrizia needs support, she always turns to her close friend and confidante, Peanut and Peanut's tarot cards. I mean, who doesn't like that one friend who can give you free tarot readings, especially the ones who kind of fudge the results to make you feel better?

But, well, Patrizia just can't help being Patrizia. She also copes by keeping a diary where she writes down every detail of every interaction with her estranged husband. I know it's a little cringey, but you know, at least she's obsessing in style. She uses a Cartier diary with a photo of herself on the front cover. Hmm? A few months after the breakup, the whole family tries to spend Christmas together. It's like the premise of a good holiday rom-com, but it's not romantic or funny either.

And at the end of the disastrous week, Patrizia starts to see clearly. Her marriage is over. Her fairy tale ending comes to an end. It's a tough pill to swallow. But there's one fact that gives her some comfort. She might not have Maurizio anymore, but at least she still has the name Gucci. But then, according to Patrizia, he goes and messes that up too.

But everyone's arguing, fighting, and suing each other. Family, am I right? Then there's a slight hiccup in the company in 1986 when, um, Aldo goes to prison for tax fraud. Whoopsie. And it gets even more dramatic because people blame Paolo for putting his own dad behind bars. Yeah, turns out that one of Paolo's lawsuits kicked off the investigation into Aldo's finances.

And so before Aldo goes to prison, he gives the rest of his shares to his two sons, who did not send him to prison. Sorry, Paolo. Now, Aldo may be out of the picture as a shareholder, but Maurizio still has to deal with his three cousins, whom he calls the Pizza Brothers, which sounds like a cool nickname, but he means it in a derogatory way. Very bad. The Pizza Brothers. Bottom line is Maurizio still doesn't have control.

The cousins can and often do vote against him. It's a stalemate. And Maurizio feels like the time to resuscitate this brand is running out. If he's going to turn this Gucci ship around, Maurizio thinks it should have only one captain: him. So he decides it's time for some shareholder restructuring, which means it's time for a lesson on hostile takeovers. Okay, so here's how the company's divided. Maurizio has 50%.

His cousins Roberto and Giorgio each have 23.3%. And Paolo, over here, he has 3.3%. Maurizio wants 100% of the company. The only way to do that is to buy them out, which he does not have the money to do. So Maurizio goes to an investment banker. Now this banker goes to a third-party invest corp. And at the time, they're an up-and-coming investment company with an eye on luxury brands. They jump at the chance to work with Gucci.

Invest corp comes up with the money and makes the offer through that investment banker. They have to be stealthy about Maurizio's involvement, otherwise his cousins might refuse to sell. They can't know he's behind this little coup. Maurizio instructs him to go after Paolo first. He's going to be the easiest target. And Maurizio knows his weakness. Paolo feels like he's treated unfairly. So when the banker offers to pay him the same amount, they're going to pay his brothers, even though his brothers own way more shares.

Paolo says yes. Once Paolo sells, his brothers decide they might as well sell too. Without Paolo's shares, they can vote in a block. They'll never win against whoever is buying up the company. By the end of the '80s, Maurizio and Invest Corp own the brand. And they're totally on board with Maurizio's vision. And that's how he steps forward as the singular head of Gucci. Okay, thanks for sticking with me. So now Maurizio is in control of Gucci.

Got that? All right. So he wastes no time and spares no expense trying to get the brand back to its former glory. I don't know if he's ever heard the phrase you got to spend money to make money, but he definitely embodies that phrase. He opens a new headquarters in Milan. He woos a bunch of new talent to work on his team. He hires a young designer by the name of Tom Ford. There's no doubt that Maurizio's vision is elegant and refined.

The question becomes, can he manage the money side of the business? With all of these changes he's making, Gucci is bleeding money. At the same time, he cuts production on a lot of the products that don't align with his vision, except those products were a major part of the company's annual revenue. Pretty soon, Gucci goes from being super profitable to not being able to cover payroll. Maurizio racks up a bunch of debt, both for Gucci and for himself.

And if somebody tries to talk sense into him, say, by suggesting he hire a CEO, he won't listen. He is certain his vision is going to turn everything around. And you know what? He's actually right. Gucci bounces back, just like Maurizio believed it would. It just takes a while. And by then, Maurizio is out at Gucci. By 1993, Maurizio owes the bank something like $40 million.

And that's just for personal loans. Gucci is fighting for survival at that point, so he can't pay. And he's forced to sell his shares to Invest Corp. Maurizio feels like he gave it everything he had. And now, for the first time ever, Gucci is no longer owned by the Gucci family. He spends the next few months in a daze. He feels like he's been betrayed. And he's not the only one.

When Patrizia hears that Maurizio has sold off the family company, she doesn't laugh, doesn't rebel in his failure. She is enraged. Patrizia still feels like being a Gucci is a huge part of her identity. So what if Maurizio finally asked for a divorce in 1991? On top of that, since they broke up, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She expected him to show up to support her when she had surgery, but he didn't come.

And who could forget such classics as, "Maurizio, the inferno for you is yet to come." Patrizia claims she's going to the press and telling them what a monster she thinks he is. And then she makes good on her promise. In one interview, she contends that Maurizio blamed her for the breakup because she fancied herself the president of Gucci. Oh, and when he doesn't show up at her daughter's debutante party, she casually asked her divorce attorney, what would happen if she had Maurizio killed?

At which point, I assume the lawyer choked on his Negroni. If you think that's going a little too far, well, just you wait. By her own admission, Patrizia starts to float the idea of killing Maurizio in front of other people too. She asks randos around town, including the butcher, if they are brave enough to kill her ex-husband. So I would say Patrizia is straight-up advertising her distaste for her ex.

But Patrizia maintains that she does not mean to incite Maurizio's murder. Not really. Which brings us to the morning of March 27th, 1995. Maurizio wakes up next to his live-in girlfriend, Paola, and their old friends who reconnected and have been going strong for about five years. Their day starts as it always does. They wake up together in their gorgeous apartment in the heart of Milan. They eat breakfast together.

And then Maurizio heads off to work. After making $120 million on the sale of his Gucci shares, Maurizio has taken an office near his apartment. He's been tinkering with some new business ventures, anything but fashion, he hopes. As he reaches his office building, he skips up to the front stairs with his usual burst of energy. A doorman Giuseppe welcomes him. But before Maurizio can disappear inside, a man walks up, brandishes a gun, and fires six times.

Two bullets strike Giuseppe in the arm. Another hits Maurizio in the head. And he collapses. It's 8:30 a.m., broad daylight, so the police are notified immediately. And yet, in the chaos, the gunman escapes in a getaway car. Giuseppe, who will survive, pulls himself over to Maurizio and holds him until he's gone. Investigators know right away that this was a hit.

But the gunman also didn't seem like a true professional. And police informants say they didn't hear about any hit going down. Not to mention, Maurizio doesn't have any major outstanding debts. He paid everything off, which means the murder wasn't business. It was personal. When police interview Paola, she tries to help. She tells them Maurizio heard some troubling news last year. Somebody was talking about having him killed: Patrizia Reggiani.

Naturally, the detectives working Maurizio's murder case want to speak to Patrizia. She's his ex-wife, and credible sources claim she talked openly about having him killed. But Patrizia scoffs at the idea that she would actually order his murder. As she later puts it, "What wife has never said I'd kill that guy?" Um, I think a lot of wives never say that. To be clear, a lot of wives haven't and would never say that. But what do I know, right?

But what she's saying is, she was just venting. Doesn't mean she's guilty. And detectives can't find a shred of evidence tying her to the murder. They can't locate the gunman or the getaway car. And they can't arrest a scorned woman for hating her ex. So the investigation stalls. And the case goes cold for nearly two years. Until one day, when a lead investigator gets a strange phone call.

It's January, 1997, when a man comes forward with a tip. He says he's a good friend of this hotel doorman. His name is Ivano. And one day, Ivano confessed to him that he was involved in the murder of Maurizio Gucci. He says Ivano isn't a bad man, but he has a large family and a lot of debt. He's always in need of money. So when he was offered the equivalent of $375,000 to orchestrate a hit, well, he mulled it over and, uh, yeah, he accepted.

The person who offered him that money was an old pal of Ivano's, some lady named Pina, the best friend of Patrizia Reggiani. The tipster adds two other people were involved in the murder. Ivano didn't want to carry out the hit himself, so he hired another friend, the getaway driver. And he involved a neighbor of his, the gunman. It's a shocking story, and the pieces seem to fit.

But it's hearsay. So the tipster agrees to wear a wire and talk to Ivano and his accomplices. Meanwhile, police tap everybody's phone, including Patrizia's. She's too smart to say anything obvious on the phone, but her accomplices? Not so much. Police get plenty of audio from the hit team talking about carrying out the hit. They implicate themselves, each other, and Patrizia. They actually get pretty fired up because right now they're thinking about blackmailing Patrizia for more money.

Here they are, taking all the risk while she sits around in a fancy apartment living it up. They even hire a guy to scare Patrizia into paying them, not realizing that the scary guy they hire is actually an undercover cop. On January 31st, 1998, Patrizia is jolted awake by visitors before 5:00 a.m. She now lives in the Milan home once shared by Maurizio and Paola. She had actually filed papers to have Paola kicked out just hours after the murder took place.

Actually, you can't. You can't wear your own clothes in prison. I know because when I went, my lawyer says to not bring that up. The point is, her mother, who's witnessing all of this, talks her into changing into a more sensible outfit. The trial lasts months. In terms of sheer media coverage, it is the Italian equivalent of the O.J. Simpson trial. The press dubs Patrizia the Black Widow, and Pina the Black Witch. Pina confesses to her role in the murder, but places the blame on Patrizia.

And Patrizia's bank statements confirm Pina's story. Two large withdrawals match the first and second payments that finance the hit. Police also confiscate Patrizia's diary, the Cartier one with her photo on it, where she wrote about every interaction with Maurizio. And on the day of his death, her entry was one single word. It's Greek, and it translates to paradise. But Patrizia has an explanation for everything.

She says, "Oh, that was simply a neat word she came across that day. She liked it and wanted to remember it because, um, well, she happens to be writing a book." And this is true. A somewhat fictionalized account of her relationship with Maurizio. As for Pina's story, Patrizia says that it's all a lie. She claims Pina moved in with her in 1994 to help her write that book. And maybe Patrizia talked about hiring a hitman, but she didn't mean it.

She insists that she had nothing to do with Pina going off and planning the hit. And then, once it was done, Pina blackmailed Patrizia into paying the money by threatening her daughters' lives. Patrizia admits she was relieved when she heard Maurizio died, but she maintains she had nothing to do with the murder. Although she also tells the court that his death was worth every lira.

So the messaging isn't totally consistent here. At trial, all of the defendants are found guilty of playing a role in Maurizio Gucci's murder. Pina is sentenced to 25 years. The getaway driver gets 29, Ivano gets 26, and the gunman receives life in prison. And Patrizia gets 29 years originally. Later, she's sentenced to 26. In 2011, she's offered early release, which she turns down because one of the stipulations is that she has to get a job.

Reportedly, she tells her lawyer, "I've never worked in my life, and I don't intend to start now." Eventually, Patrizia leaves prison in 2016 after serving 18 years. For a while, she gets a job working for a maker of costume jewelry. Now in her 60s, she seems content to be back among the shinier things in life. And the press seems happy to have her back too. They photograph her celebrating her freedom with a shopping trip in Milan's fashion district.

And the things Patrizia says in the press are sometimes funny too. I mean, when one reporter keeps asking her why she had Maurizio killed by a hitman, she flippantly answers, "Oh, my eyesight is not so good. I didn't want to miss." But while she was a larger-than-life character, Maurizio was killed. He was only 46 years old. His daughters lost a father, and Paola lost the man she loved.

Now, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Lady Gaga aspect of the story. She famously plays Patrizia in the film House of Gucci. And Patrizia notoriously was upset that she wasn't involved in the project. But as Gaga has said in interviews, "Club, bus, another club." Wait, that's not the ones you're talking about. Sorry. But as Gaga said in interviews, she needed to find her own way into the character.

She had to become Patrizia on her own. And at the end of filming, she was out on her balcony one day in full Patrizia mode, singing with a cigarette hanging from her mouth when a cloud of flies swarmed her. They wouldn't leave her alone. Gaga thought it was somehow 100% possible that Patrizia had sent them. Maybe Lady Gaga was onto something with the swarming flies because you look at Patrizia Reggiani's life today, and it's like looking at a fractured mirror of a Disney classic.

She's the bizarre Cinderella, the one who got the palace and then lost the prince. Even in prison, she insisted on her royal perks. She called the San Vittore Penitentiary her Victor residence. And like any good princess, she had her animal helpers, specifically a pet ferret named Bambi. Her lawyers actually negotiated for that ferret to live in her cell. But in a twist that's more Brothers Grimm than Walt Disney, the story of Bambi ended when another inmate accidentally sat on him.

It's dark. It's absurd. It's peak Patrizia. Today, if you walk through Milan's fashion district, you might still see her. She's in her late 70s now, often decked out in gold and oversized shades. But the glass slipper has been replaced by something much louder: a massive pet macaw named Bo, who hitches a ride on her shoulder as she goes window shopping at the boutiques that used to bear her name.

Patrizia Reggiani wanted the fairy tale at any cost. She got the name, she got the residence, and she still has her birds and her beast. But the prince is gone. The family is fractured. And the kingdom has moved on without her. She remains the Black Widow of Milan, a woman who proved that sometimes, when the clock strikes midnight, you don't lose your carriage, you just lose your soul.