Taranto, Don Giovanni Marraffa found lifeless: the mystery of death

Taranto, Don Giovanni Marraffa found lifeless: the mystery of death

Don Giovanni Marraffa, the 88-year-old priest of Taranto, who disappeared on Saturday 26 November 2022, was found dead. All traces of him had been lost after the priest had left his house in Tarantino, never to return. The lifeless body was found in the countryside between Manduria and Uggiano Mentefusco, in the province of Taranto, next to the charred car. The alarm was triggered after reports of a car on fire. When the police arrived at the scene, the car was already completely destroyed. There was no one inside but not far away the military personnel also found the lifeless body of the parish priest, near a deconsecrated church in the broken Pozzo district.

The carabinieri and the prosecutor of Taranto are trying to clarify and reconstruct the dynamics of the facts, for now shrouded in mystery. According to what emerged from an initial external examination of Don Giovanni’s body, conducted by the coroner, there would be no obvious signs of violence. The death would instead have occurred 24 hours before the discovery.

The discovery of the body

When he was recovered, Don Giovanni was lying on his back with his hands on his chest. He lay fully clothed and with only the waistband of his trousers undone. Greater certainties on the exact date of death and the reasons for death will come only after the autopsy already ordered by the magistrate on duty, Filomena Di Tursi. Don Giovanni Marraffa had moved to Puglia, where he was born, after having worked as a parish priest in Piedmont until 2011. Since then he no longer had his own church but in any case he was available to the diocese of Turin where he was considered a diocesan presbyter outside the diocese.