Twenty-year-old Victoria Cafasso was born in England, but lived with her parents and younger sister in Ospedaletti, Italy, and had dual English/Italian citizenship. She spoke three languages fluently—English, Italian, and French—and planned to study law at university.
In 1995, though, she’d decided to defer her education for a little while so she could do some traveling. In the autumn, she went to England to visit her grandmother and then went on to Tasmania, Australia to stay with a cousin whom she’d only met in person a few times. She got to Launceston, Tasmania on October 6th, 1995, and was met by her cousin, who lived in Beaumaris.
Over the next few days, Victoria spent time with her cousin and a friend of his who was visiting from Sydney, as well as some other locals her cousin was friendly with. She particularly liked to go for short walks along Beaumaris Beach, a habit that would soon, sadly, lead to her gruesome end.
On the morning of October 11th, Victoria left her cousin’s residence at about nine in the morning and went down to the beach for a walk. She was seen by witnesses sunbathing at around ten a.m., and all appeared normal.
Hours later, though, at about one-thirty in the afternoon, Victoria’s body was found lying partially in the water; authorities estimated she’d been killed at some point between eleven-thirty a.m. and twelve-thirty p.m. Her clothes were in disarray, and her bikini bottoms were missing, as were her t-shirt and her towel, though some of her other belongings were discovered scattered around about one-hundred-fifty feet up the beach.
The attack had been particularly savage: the killer had bludgeoned Victoria’s face with some blunt object that broke some of her teeth and then stabbed her seventeen times. Although there clearly would have been an excessive struggle between the victim and her assailant, none of the estimated fifty people on the beach at the time of the murder seemed to have seen or heard anything unusual.
Police were later criticized for their somewhat slipshod investigation of the scene; for example, the body was moved before any forensic evidence could be gathered and was also covered with a tarp that had come from elsewhere, potentially tainting any evidence there had been. There were, additionally, no photos or videos taken of the scene, and though several of the suspect’s footprints were found, only one of them was cast in plaster.
Despite over three hundred people being considered potential suspects at some point, the case very quickly went cold. Detectives did attempt to link the crime with the 1993 disappearance of twenty-six-year-old German tourist Nancy Grunwaldt, which also occurred in the Beaumaris area, though the prospect of a serial killer has apparently been ruled out.
In 2023, a new inquiry into the murder was launched, with authorities releasing enhanced photos of a suspicious vehicle seen in the vicinity at the time of Victoria’s slaying. The car was a light-colored Subaru station wagon, driven by a slim, fit man in his twenties, who was about six feet tall and had a surfer-type appearance. This man was reportedly seen running in the area at around the time that Victoria was killed.
There is currently a $500,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the murder of Victoria Cafasso, and the investigation remains open and active as of this writing.
Crime Immemorial 