The end of bandit Basilocco

     On February 15, 1904 a confidant of “Carabinieri” (a special police corp of Italian Army) went to Chiusdino to tell the lieutenant Arturo Pometti that someone had seen  the bandit Magrini (also called BASILOCCO) entering the Serratina farmhouse belonging to the estate of the Peruzzo, property of Cav.Marrucchi in the village Roccatederighi, municipality of Roccastrada. In the farmhouse the family lived with the foreman Gildo Pecorini, which probably the bandit had requested for food and hospitality.

      Lieutenant Pometti immediately alerted Major Lombardi, commander of the special service, and the two officers left Chiusdino and moved, under the rage of a storm of rain, towards Roccatederighi. In the meantime Brigadier  Malevolti Luigi, with four men (the police Gori, Tudini, Romanin, Coppola) and sergeant Paoletti, commander of the squadron's mobile of  Chiusdino, moved from there, while from another area also Lieutenant Casini from Grosseto with three policemen on horseback moved. Several soldiers were in fact converging toward the bandit  refuge reported by the informer, but the first to arrive at Serratina were of course the police station in nearby Roccatederighi, which, moving with the utmost circumspection to avoid alarming the host of the farmhouse, surrounded  the building, however, to avoid the robber’s escape. The brigadiers Malevolti and Paoletti, and Gori lurked on the north side where the door was, while the police Tudini, Coppola and Romanin, hid on the midday’s side  to which the windows opened. "About half past eight - we read from “La Nazione" on 19 February that gave details of the event - Ulysses Pecorini, brother of Gildo Pecorini, foreman of the farm family of Serratina Officer, had the opportunity to exit the house to feed cattle. Exiting left the door ajar, which allowed the police in ambush to see the fugitive staying astride a bench next to the kitchen table, intent to play cards with the foreman Gildo Pecorini, and to hear that the fugitive expressed the intention to leave, because he said of having the next morning to go in location far away enough to collect a large sum, and then going in the evening to a dancing party... ... "

     Magrini loved  playing cards, one of the little amusements which country people allowed when, at dusk and darkness, was working day virtually over. That was his last game cards, and also the last game played with patrols looking for him for so long. The soldiers who had surrounded the house heard, in fact, that the robber would not have spent the night in the farmhouse, but that he would leave at the end of the game. They therefore decided to act. "It was then that the police believed appropriate an immediate action, and certainly rushed into the house, falling  upon the fugitive who, felt the presence of police, drew his revolver and blew three shots gone to empty because the brigadier Malevolti  was ready to grasp the bandit’s hand, diverting the direction so that the bullets went to pierce the beams of the ceiling. Meanwhile, the robber tried to pull the dagger with his left hand to stab the sergeant Malevolti who, to face such a  zealous resistance, readily  exploded two revolver shots on the face of the robber, who was simultaneously hit by Brigadier Paoletti with a shot of rifle load ball well as on the face, and a musket charged as machine gun from policeman Gori. The robber fell to the ground by pouring a large amount of blood ... ".

     The newspaper also said other details: the robber was well dressed, was armed with a military gun with black cord, a knife with nickel-plated horn handle, of a double-barrel rifle, 73 pistol cartridges and 34 cartridges of rifle . He also owned a telescope, three portfolios containing a total of three hundred pounds, a few portraits of women and various documents. Another columnist wrote: "The robber left arm is tattooed with the letters MDCT, and a figure of a robber with a gun on them, and tattooed in the belly with wreaths of flowers ... "we are not masters of the blood". So was the robber Antonio Magrini called "THE BASILOCCO” killed at the farm of the Estate of Serratina Peruzzo, aged just 28 years,  the last Maremma bandit of the end of the nineteenth century, who had murdered and pillaged terrorizing the inhabitants of various villages of Maremma.