The new investigation by the Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit in recent months has also addressed the chapter of an alleged misdirection against Alberto Stasi, definitively convicted for the murder of Chiara Poggi, listening to former RIS investigators, including the then general Luciano Garofano, Giorgio Portera - a geneticist with a past in the Scientific Investigations Department of Parma - and, indeed, Alberto Marino, who would have physically dealt with the investigations relating to the Garlasco crime. Marino was heard as a witness in the new investigations by the Prosecutor's Office on the two negative DNA data on the pedals of Alberto Stasi's bicycle detected on 20 September 19 years ago, after a first match with Chiara Poggi's genetic profile the previous day. Data which, however, was not filed in the file against the then student.
When asked last September 10th, by the Pavia prosecutors who asked him "why on September 20th 2007 he had carried out "the analyzes on the same sample" again, given "the clear double results of September 19th", Marino replied: "To want to investigate further". And again: "After the null result, what did you do?". Marino: "I don't have any specific memories. If there is no data, we stopped. I can't rule out having also shown the two negative runs to Fabbri or Avato (consultants at the time of the Stasi defence, ed.).". And he replied "I presume so" when asked if he had spoken about it with the then general of the RIS Luciano Garofano. Initially Marino had said that the date of those analyzes could have been "wrong" and had spoken of a "bug" in a "sequencer", but the prosecutors pointed out to him that it was technically an impossible explanation and the colonel agreed with them, confirming those two counter-analyses of September 20th.
From the documents acquired by the Pavia Prosecutor's Office in the new investigation into the Garlasco case, it emerges that, in a report dated 24 September 2007, Marino explained to the then Vigevano prosecutor Rosa Muscio how, after having obtained Chiara Poggi's genetic profile from a DNA sample, the pedals of Alberto Stasi's bike were "dismantled and inspected in detail under a stereo-microscope" and "at least three extremely small traces" emerged on both pedals. Traces that were "tested" with the Combur test "to test their blood nature", which gave a "positive" result. While the Obti test, a more specific test for blood, was not carried out because "the traces in question were too small" and the kits were not "sufficiently sensitive for the analyzes in question". Every trace "useful to confirm the result" of 19 September 2007 "was therefore preserved for DNA analysis". Marino explained in conclusion that, given the "quality" of the profile obtained, i.e. that match with the victim's DNA, and also the "subsequent inspection on the pedals" which had detected those "reddish traces positive to the Combur test", "it appears more than reasonable to believe that the profile obtained from the 'bu_p' sample can only be traced back to biological traces of a blood nature".
But at the beginning of October 2026 a note emerged dated 20 September 2007, the day on which Marino obtained the two negative traces on the pedals of Alberto Stasi's Umberto Dei bike, in total contradiction with the result of the day before. The note, referable to Marino, claims the opposite of what he reported to the prosecutor, i.e. that an Obti test was then done and it was negative. A circumstance which, however, does not appear in the documents of the trial that convicted Alberto Stasi. "The men's bike pedals have been disassembled. The one with the right-handed screw - read the 10 lines of the note - has at least 2 brown comb. marks (+) in the former terminal part (see photo)". So the combur test, the preliminary examination for traces of blood, is positive. "The one with the left-handed screw - continues the text - has at least one brown trace on a notch of the knurling (see photo) comb. (+)". But it is the last sentence that raises doubts: "The latter is taken for OBTI (-)". The Obti test, the specific one for the presence of blood material, is negative, meaning there is no blood, as demonstrated by the circled dash on the note.
The investigations of the Pavia prosecutors also focused on a "three-hour" interval, from 3.34pm to 6.37pm on 19 September 2007, in which the analyzes on the genetic profile found on the pedals of Alberto Stasi's bike went from indicating "a partial profile", not attributable, to providing the match with Chiara Poggi's DNA, which was then contrasting, with the two negative results of the following day never made available to the parties. As can be seen from the questions of 10 September by the deputy Stefano Civardi, the hypothesis is that the investigators of the time started "from the assumption that Chiara's DNA was on the pedals" and that a series of irregularities returned precisely that data. Among these alleged irregularities, the exchange of test tubes with the DNA of the victim's breakfast spoon. Shortly after 3pm on September 19th the first tests on the "bu_p" sample returned a "partial trace". The "term 'evaporated'" referring to that profile was noted in the comments of the file. Marino explained that that route, however, "needed" to be "in-depth". So three hours later came what Deputy Civardi calls "the turning point", which still needs to be clarified: the profile of the victim was obtained which "no geneticist" would have questioned again. That data, however, the prosecutors insist, was not uploaded by Marino, like the previous one, but by the operator with the acronym "Port". The former captain said, among many "I don't remember", that the "re-amplification" of the sample, to "improve" it, presumably was done by him, while "the loading at this point I presume by Portera", also a former Ris.
And it is in this phase that, according to the investigators, there may have been a "sampling exchange" with the DNA of Chiara Poggi's breakfast spoon, which recorded the "same quantification in hundredths of nanograms per microlitres". Civardi pointed out in the report: "It's the same date. We tried to understand how it was possible (...) we add the other doubt that once you upload it nothing comes out. Well, in short... Following the scientific method of doubt, perhaps some doubts arise". Last September 10th the magistrates of Pavia also asked Marino this, why the teaspoon found in the house was used to obtain Chiara Poggi's DNA and the one taken from the body was not used instead. Essentially, Marino already had the victim's DNA. The officer replied that "maybe they didn't send it to us", "there was no comparison sample". But in a report dated 4 September 2007, signed by Marino himself, there is mention of the victim's blood being taken as a sample. Another contradiction being examined by investigators.
The figure of Alberto Marino therefore remains of interest to those who investigate, for various reasons. Among these was the question of to whom and when Marino communicated the profile match on the pedals. "There is a document which, if I'm not mistaken, is the first communication we make to Doctor Muscio", said the former captain. "That one is from 5 days later, it's the 24th", replied Deputy Civardi. In between, the two negative results that were never recorded. Then the fact that "on 25 September (while Stasi is still in prison awaiting validation) Matteo Fabbri, defense consultant, requests on record that 'a specific diagnosis be carried out, such as Obti test, on the traces found on the pedals'". Captain Marino (who signs the document) "takes note" but writes that he will not carry out that analysis and will proceed to search for DNA on a new trace taken from the pedals in the meantime (this will also be negative in the genetic test). While two years later, when Stasi was on trial (he was acquitted), Marino again "advised" the Court's expert, Carlo Robino, not to proceed with the "immunological test", such as the OBTI, because the sample was small". Facts or coincidences which are now read in a different light, "especially after the confirmation that it was Marino who had given the order to destroy the Garlasco finds preserved at the RIS in September 2016, as soon as he was appointed commander of the Biology section. Commander Donghi wrote to the Pavia prosecutor's office that they were intermediate samples and that they could not be preserved forever (the judges ordered their destruction 6 years later). But in an internal report (now found by prosecutors), Donghi had instead reported that that order had arrived independently from Marino".
