Sanremo Music Festival's suspicious death that's still unresolved
- aussievision
- 5 minutes ago
- 4 min read
The suspicious death of one of the Festival’s competing artists in 1967 still casts a shadow today.
The Sanremo Music Festival is an Italian institution.
Starting in 1951, it pre-dates Eurovision and has often been used to select Italy’s artist or song for the Contest.
Each February, Eurovision fans enjoy (or endure) five-hour-long shows across an entire week to choose a winner.
But behind the glamour of the Festival lies a dark secret that goes back decades.
The suspicious death of one of its competitors in 1967.
The singer and victim: Luigi Tenco
Luigi Tenco was a musician born in 1938 in Cassine, northern Italy, and raised in Genoa.
He played guitar, clarinet and saxophone, performing in local jazz and rock groups before turning to songwriting.
By the early 1960s, he had joined Italy’s new wave of cantautori.
Although it literally means “singer-songwriter,” the term refers to a generation of poetic, politically aware artists who were Italy’s answer to Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen.
His debut album Ballate e canzoni in 1962 courted controversy for its frank and unconventional lyrics.
One track, Cara maestra (Dear Teacher), was banned from radio and led to Luigi being suspended from RAI for two years.
Censors later targeted more of his songs, including Io sì (I Would), considered too sexually explicit, and Una brava ragazza (A Good Girl), which celebrated the spirit of a so-called 1960s “bad girl.”
The scene: Sanremo 1967
In 1967, Luigi entered Sanremo with French-Italian singer Dalida.
Although some say they were lovers, others claim their partnership was a publicity arrangement and that Luigi had a fiancée at home.
Their entry, Ciao amore, ciao, told the story of a man leaving his home in search of a better life, only to lose hope along the way.
Sadly, Luigi did too. He was eliminated before the final.
Some reports say his performance was off-tempo and out of tune, possibly because he had taken sedatives with alcohol before going on stage to calm his nerves.
Luigi was devastated.
He called the result a “betrayal of real music” and spent the night drinking with Dalida and friends before returning alone to his hotel room.
Hours later, he was dead.
The death
In the early hours of 27 January 1967, Dalida entered his hotel room and found him dead from a gunshot wound to the head.
A signed farewell note was found on the bedside table.
It read, in part:
“I cared for the Italian public and I dedicated in vain five years of my life to it. I do this not because I am weary of life (quite the contrary) but as a gesture of protest against a public that sends Io, tu e le rose to the final and a commission that selects La rivoluzione. I hope this may clarify someone’s ideas. Ciao, Luigi.”
His death was officially ruled a suicide.
But many reports and later investigations revealed serious irregularities that cast doubt on that conclusion.
The unanswered questions
There were many inconsistencies in the handling of the death.
After his elimination, Luigi made several phone calls saying he planned a press conference to expose the “games” or corruption behind Sanremo’s voting system.
The lead investigator, Arrigo Molinari, declared it a suicide to the press before forensics had begun.
The alleged suicide note was not listed in the first police report and only reached investigators later through Dalida’s entourage.
No autopsy or gunpowder tests were done, and the scene may have been disturbed before proper examination.
Ballistic details remain inconsistent, with questions about the gun, the bullet trajectory, and whether the shell casing matched.
Witnesses described bruises on Luigi’s face, a wound to the back of his head, and sand in his hair, suggesting he might have been moved.
No one in nearby rooms reported hearing a gunshot that night.
Molinari later claimed in a 2004 television interview on Domenica In that he no longer believed Luigi had died by suicide.
He described the case instead as a “collective murder” and said his original investigation had been deliberately blocked.
Just a year later, in September 2005, Molinari himself was murdered, stabbed to death in a hotel in the Italian town of Andora.
The coincidence only deepened the mystery surrounding Luigi’s death.
The alternative theories
Because of these irregularities, several theories have circulated for decades.
One suggests a robbery gone wrong, as Luigi had reportedly won three million lire at a casino earlier that day and the money was never found.
Another points to jealousy. Dalida’s ex-husband Lucien Morisse was with her when they discovered the body. He was said to be possessive and may have held a grudge.
Dalida herself struggled deeply after the tragedy, attempting suicide weeks later and ultimately dying by suicide in 1987.
A third theory claims Luigi was silenced before he could expose corruption or betting scandals linked to Sanremo’s voting system, with some pointing to possible Mafia involvement.
The new investigations
Public interest in the death never faded, and by the early 2000s pressure from journalists and fans led prosecutors to reopen the case.
In late 2005, authorities ordered Luigi’s body to be exhumed for new forensic tests.
Specialists performed a full autopsy and ballistic analysis, re-examining the skull wound, the bullet path, and the Walther PPK pistol linked to him.
The results, released in February 2006, described the findings as “compatible with suicide.”
Tests detected gunshot residue on his hand, and handwriting experts confirmed the farewell note as authentic.
In 2009, the case was officially closed again with the same conclusion.
Still, questions remained.
In 2013, journalists Pasquale Ragone and Nicola Guarneri published Le ombre del silenzio (The Shadows of Silence), challenging the forensic logic and highlighting inconsistencies in the bullet evidence and chain of custody.
Despite continued speculation, no further judicial action has been taken.
Officially, Luigi’s death remains classified as suicide, but for many, the mystery feels far from solved.
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