On December 25, 1947, a man named Giuseppe Capocci stabbed the Italian ambassador Alberto Bellardi Ricci to death during a Christmas reception at Oakhill.
This story began seven years before that tragic Christmas Day. 38 years old Giuseppe Capocci worked as a musician and balloon seller and lived with his wife and two children in Södermalm. One day after a serious quarrel with the Italian neighbours he was forcibly sent to Långbro Hospital (
https://reveal.world/story/1393). Capocci was placed in the so-called “Storm” block (
https://reveal.world/story/1397), and later transferred to the regular ward.
Giuseppe suffered from acute schizophrenia but considered himself completely healthy. In his mind, what happened to him was all part of a conspiracy plan and arranged by the Italian legation in Stockholm. He suspected that it was Mussolini himself who had him locked up, and started planning his revenge directed at Mussolinin’s alleged accomplice in Stockholm, namely the Italian ambassador.
After seven years at the hospital, he was granted his first leave for 12 hours to celebrate Christmas with his wife and children. The chief physician at Långbro, Erik Goldkuhl, believed that the patient’s condition was satisfactory but during an individual conversation with Capocci’s wife Maria he asked her to keep an eye on her husband.
On Christmas morning Maria picked up Giuseppe at the hospital and they went to their home in Södermalm (
https://reveal.world/story/1470) where the two children had been waiting. They had lunch together. Suddenly Giuseppe said that he wanted to go out for a walk, alone. Despite his wife's attempts to stop him, he left home. She decided to follow him secretly. At Skeppsbron he took the tram towards Djurgården but after a few stations he got off and continued on foot. By that time, Maria guessed where he was heading and decided to reveal herself and accompany her husband to the embassy.
That afternoon the ambassador was hosting a Christmas lunch. The reception had just started when he received a note saying something about Mussolini. The secretary told him that he had an unexpected visitor who wanted to show him something. The ambassador went out into the waiting room where he met Capocci and his wife. They spoke. Capocci tried to challenge the ambassador to a duel. Suddenly he took scissors out of his pocket and stabbed the ambassador several times.
The staff managed to disarm Capocci, and called for an ambulance and the police. The ambassador was seriously injured and died on the way to the hospital. Capocci was arrested. During the police interrogations that followed he praised himself for "effective and successful cuts". He found the whole incident at the embassy "very comical". Unsurprisingly, the media coverage was extensive and the Swedish newspapers were full of articles about the responsibility of psychiatric care.
Capocci was convicted in Sweden for the murder and deported to Italy, where he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He died there several years later.
Photo: Stockholms stadsarkiv
SE/SSA/0140/04/03, Stockholms Rådhusrätts avdelning 3 i brottmål, Inneliggande handlingar EI, volym 43, år 1947
