“Being accused of being the perpetrator is something that will hardly ever leave me.” This is one of many statements released by Marco Poggi in an exclusive interview with Quarto Grado, which aired last night on Rete 4. 19 years after his sister’s murder, Chiara Poggi – killed on August 13, 2007, in the villa on via Pascoli in Garlasco – Marco chose to break his silence to respond to those who have pointed the finger, also, at him and to clarify the dynamics of his long-standing friendship with Andrea Sempio, the only suspect in Chiara’s death in the second investigation into the Garlasco crime. “Enough with the mudslinging against me, the investigations are over,” Marco Poggi stated.
Below is the main part of Marco Poggi’s exclusive interview with “Quarto Grado,” hosted by Gianluigi Nuzzi with Alessandra Viero.
Why are you breaking your silence after 19 years?
“I have never tolerated and perhaps not even accepted all this media exposure of what unfortunately happened to Chiara. Since this last year, since this reopening, my figure has been much more involved and has been talked about a bit more.”
What accusation hurt you the most?
“Obviously, being accused of being involved in Chiara’s murder, even being accused of being a perpetrator, is the thing that will hardly ever leave me. I’ve learned to live with it.”
Is there any truth to the latest version that emerged from some audio recordings suggesting you, Andrea Sempio, and Stefania Cappa were involved in a drug ring that Chiara allegedly discovered?
“Yes, I heard about that too, but everything has been said this year, every possible reconstruction has been made.”
Have you ever had drug problems? Cocaine use?
“No, I’ve never even tried it, so we’re in the realm of fantasy that couldn’t be more fantastical.”
Those who accuse you are surely watching. Is there anything you want to say?
“To reach an end to all of this. Now the investigations are over, I think all the mudslinging we’ve endured will never slide off us. But I believe it can stop now.”
What do you mean by “enough”? To stop a potential inquiry?
“Absolutely not. This must go on, it’s right that it goes on, it’s right that there are trials and that the press reports on how the investigations will proceed. Everything else is not right, and I hope that can end.”
You discovered you had been wiretapped after the investigations were closed. How did you react?
“We were a bit upset. I can understand the wiretaps in my case; I would have found the opposite stranger. It’s a shame that my family was involved; they could have been spared. In general, with this investigation, it saddened us to always be kept aside, almost as if we didn’t exist. Even the secret DNA collection, from the trash or in strange ways as in my case, is not something that pleases you, because Chiara’s death is something of ours. We understand the investigation’s issues, but being kept so much in the dark saddened us.”
You have been strongly criticized, as if you don’t accept the alternative hypothesis that Andrea Sempio might be Chiara’s killer. Where does this conviction come from that Alberto Stasi is the culprit instead? As if you don’t want to change your mind.
“No, it’s not about not wanting to change our minds. The conviction comes from having followed all the trials and courtroom discussions.”
Were you at all the hearings?
“Yes, I think I might have missed only one. All the evidence, even the new ones, that were discussed in the various proceedings, the contradictory expert opinions, and the sentences that were issued, convinced us definitively. In early 2007, we did not believe in Alberto Stasi’s guilt. We defended him very much, and even when he was incarcerated, I personally was convinced he was innocent, convinced they were wrong. When the news of his release came out, I was happy because I was convinced he had nothing to do with it. He was truly the last person we wanted it to be, because Chiara, at that time, had him as the closest person who gave her the most affection. Reading the reasons for his release, I started to wonder why so many lies, so many things that didn’t add up. There were passages about the explanation of Chiara’s DNA found on the pedals that left me a bit bewildered.”
The elements presented to you didn’t convince you? Is that why you’re not changing your mind? Is there no evidence against Andrea Sempio?
“They didn’t convince me. I’ve also read some of the various memos and reports, I haven’t changed my mind. Obviously, we’ll see. We’ve never hidden, we are convinced that Alberto Stasi is guilty, and convinced that the latest verdicts reached in the trials are the truth.”
Have you ever received a letter or a private request for help from Alberto Stasi, who is fighting his absolutely legitimate battle to prove his innocence?
“No, we have never had any contact with him, he has never written to us.”
And how did you explain this to yourself? Did you ask yourself questions?
“I did ask myself, but I’m keeping what I might have thought and what I think to myself. Because right now, the tones are so high, the fan bases so polarized, and opinions so divided that I don’t want to fuel them. I would like the tones to calm down a bit.”
According to the Pavia Public Prosecutor’s Office, Chiara was harassed by phone by Andrea Sempio. Given the relationship you had, do you think she would have ever sought you out to talk about it?
“I think so, yes. If a friend of mine was involved, I don’t see why she wouldn’t have called me to say: ‘Look, this is really bothering me, it’s a problem for me, try talking to him yourself.’ I would have expected that, just as I would have expected her to tell someone she saw those days, like Alberto Stasi or my cousin. If someone had really bothered her, someone else should have known.”
Do you remember if Andrea Sempio and Chiara were ever in your house at the same time?
“No, honestly, I don’t recall them ever crossing paths.”
Could Andrea Sempio have been alone in Chiara’s room?
“I can’t rule out that I sometimes went to the bathroom, went to get a drink, or let the cat out, and therefore left him there for a few minutes.”
Why did you frequent Chiara’s room?
“To play video games on the computer. It was a family computer, not just Chiara’s; we all used it.”
Have you ever seen your sister’s alleged intimate videos?
“No, I’ve never seen them. I only knew of their alleged existence from an MSN chat I had read years before, but I never saw them and I never mentioned this to my friends or anyone else”.
Topics of interest for investigators, when they interviewed you the three times you were summoned in the last year and a half, were Andrea Sempio’s soliloquies, but also the famous footprint 33. A footprint that investigators attribute to Sempio, found on the wall of the staircase leading to the cellar where Chiara was found.
“In this last interrogation, they asked me to describe, in addition to the main places where we spent time, which were the living room, the TV, and Chiara’s bedroom, what other rooms my friends might have seen or passed through. And among these, they also asked me about the cellar. And yes, I somewhat remember that we went down there with friends a few times.”
Why did you go down there? What could have been the reason?
“The cellar was a kind of storage room, and there were old consoles, video game magazines, and other things there. I remember that we went down there sometimes. I truly can’t say who was there or who wasn’t, because so much time has passed that I don’t know.”
When you talked about the locations, had the footprint already been shown to you?
“No, it was shown to me afterwards.”
So you spontaneously speak for the first time, in 2025, about the fact that you also frequented the stairs and the cellar, before knowing that there might be a footprint of interest to investigators there?
“Yes, it’s the first time they’ve asked me to describe all the other rooms or parts of the house where, perhaps, my friends might have been, even just passing through.”
Did you already know anything about the existence of footprint 33?
“No, I honestly hadn’t connected it or given it importance.”
Have you ever forced a memory that could exonerate Sempio?
“Absolutely not. They first asked me about the rooms and then showed me this now famous footprint 33.”
When you saw it, what did you think? What did they show you? A photograph, a video?
“They showed me a photo. That famous photo that was then released in the media the same day.”
And when they showed it to you, did they tell you it could be or that it was Andrea Sempio’s?
“That it was Andrea Sempio’s. They showed it to me and it was red, and I remember leaving that interrogation thinking it was blood. Obviously, it was a bit of a shock because of how they presented it and because they considered it Andrea Sempio’s. I no longer understood if they had told me it was blood or not. I processed it better later, when I got home.”
You later understood that the red was the ninhydrin reagent. Would a bloody footprint on the stairs change the scenario?
“Yes.”
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