The phone rang and Venerato Sardu's 75-year-old daughter began to worry. So he called the fire brigade requesting an inspection of the apartment in via Ogliastra 21. And the firefighters, having broken down the door, found the man's lifeless body, with a deep wound on the head and his face on the floor .

The street in the Is Mirrionis district was immediately filled with carabinieri patrols and was closed. It was immediately understood that something was wrong, after midnight the certainty arrived: Venerato Sardu was killed .

Among the many testimonies of those who swore they did not know him, some have arrived that could help investigators shed light on the crime. " He owned the building where he lived and occasionally had problems with the tenants ," said a passerby. " Around 13 I was on the balcony and I heard screams from a woman who seemed to come from that direction ," said a young man next door to the victim.

THE VICTIM

Sardu had five Facebook profiles, in the past he rose to the headlines twice. In 2006 he was involved in an investigation after a complaint that signaled the trafficking of men in an apartment rented to four Colombian prostitutes. The facts were true, but he was acquitted of the charges of exploitation and aiding and abetting prostitution, managing to demonstrate that he was unaware of what was happening in the house .

A few months later a neighbor, Rosaria Bandu, set fire to the front door of her apartment . It was she herself who confessed, presenting herself at the police station: Sardu had accused her of emptying mailboxes and throwing letters on the ground, she had decided to take revenge.

All the details in Marcello Cocco's article on L'Unione Sarda on newsstands

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