Page 30 of The Villa

KALI:[laughs] Who did not come home from fifth grade to find their mom crying in the den, I ask you?

BEX:[laughs] Well, now that we’ve made things sufficiently dark, let’s continue with the official breakdown, shall we? [clears throat] Here we go, the formal bit. “In the nearly fifty years since the so-called ‘Villa Rosato Horror’”—

KALI:Jesus Christ, did people really call it that?

BEX:They did! Everyone was, like, extremely extra in the seventies, I guess. Anyway! “In the nearly fifty years since the so-called ‘Villa Rosato Horror,’ there have been other, more shocking crimes involving famous people, enough so that the events of July 29, 1974, are almost forgotten. There were no splashy prestige TV miniseries about it or true-crime classics written detailing what happened outside of Orvieto that summer.

MAYBEit’s because the murder itself was so grubby and unglamorous, or maybe it’s because the people involved all went on to much bigger things. Mari Godwick wroteLilith Rising, one of the most famous horror novels of all time”—

KALI:Scary as shit.

BEX:And Lara Larchmont’sAestasis a folk-rock classic on par withTapestry.

KALI:Sad as shit, as established.

BEX:[laughs] And of course Noel Gordon, despite being dead for decades, is still one of the most recognizable rock stars in the world.

KALI:Hot as shit.

BEX:Facts.

KALI:No printers, just fax.

BEX:[laughs, clears throat again] “But the Villa Rosato Horror, or, as some insist it should be called, the Villa Rosato Tragedy, is worth revisiting. The major players all agreed they could barely remember that night, and the accused murderer swore he was innocent. There were lurid tales of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll mixed in with darker rumors of the occult.”

KALI:Oh yeah, people in the seventies and eighties fuckinglovedto think the devil was involved.

BEX:Loved! It! Could not get enough of that devil guy.

KALI:And Mari wrote a devil book.

BEX:Oh my god, you are stepping on me again, we’re gonna get to that!

KALI:I prematurely deviled, and I’m sorry.

BEX:You should be! Okay, let me finish with my big line and thesis of today’s episode: “With all that tension, all that drama in one house, is it really so far-fetched to think that maybe the Italian courts didn’t get this one right?”

KALI:Ooooh.

BEX:I know! I’m making big claims right up front!

KALI:I am intrigued by your thesis, and wish to know more.

BEX:And so you shall. So, as always, let’s start with the victim and the ten-second backstory. Victim! One Pierce Sheldon, age twenty-three, musician, apparently really talented, but something of a douche.

KALI:What level of Summer’s Eve are we on here?

BEX:Extra strength, for sure. In 1971, he’s married, he’s already got a kid, and then he meets Mari Godwick because he… I don’t fucking know, he just meets her, and, like, he issprung. Just immediately sprung, totally crazy about her, and she feels the same way about him because she issixteen fucking years old.

KALI:Ew.

BEX:I mean, I, too, would have run off with a married man when I was sixteen provided that married man was, like, on a fucking CW show or something. Tenth-grade me, absolutely risking it all for Jensen Ackles, so I get it for Mari, but still, Pierce, ya gross.

KALI:I kind of like this actually. It’ll be less sad when he dies at least? Won’t bum out our listeners too much?

BEX:Exactly. Also, not only did he leave his wife and, like, abscond to Europe with a literal child, he also took her stepsister with them! Who wasalsosixteen! Pierce! What the fuck!

KALI:I get that we can’t exactly endorse murder on this show, but I’m not gonna lie, hearing about this dude makes me feel… a little murder-y?

---