Sassari

Gianni Pes, a medical doctor from the University of Sassari, presented the findings at a demography conference in Montpellier in 1999—to the bemusement of many in the audience.

Ms Meloni is due to testify before a court in the Sardinian city of Sassari on 2 July.

In the summer, he signed his first professional contract with Dinamo Sassari, going on to compete in the top division of Italian basketball.

There, in the Sassari cemetery, I looked at the grave with only her name — no date or place of birth or year of death, as if only a place marker of her journey in Sardinia.

Her death, ultimately, could have taken place in another era; the Sassari police abandoned any investigation.