Murder victim Salvatore Rotiroti’s daughter is living with the man accused of killing her father
Murder victim Salvatore “Sam” Rotiroti’s daughter Maria is living with the man accused by Victoria Police of killing her father in what is just the latest twist in the 1988 cold case.
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The daughter of murdered Italian extortion victim Salvatore “Sam” Rotiroti is living with the man accused of beating her father to death in Geelong 30 years ago.
Sam Rotiroti’s son Vince yesterday said he was horrified when he recently discovered his sister Maria had moved into Vince Zangari’s North Sydney home.
Maria Rotiroti, who now uses the name Natasha Egan, also jointly owned a Double Bay property with Mr Zangari and lived there with him until they were both declared bankrupt on May 27, 2011.
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“It’s shocking that she is living with the man police suspect of committing the murder,” Vince Rotiroti told the Herald Sun.
“My father would come out of his grave if he knew that.”
Concrete company boss Sam Rotiroti had paid a $100,000 ransom to have his kidnapped son Tony released and the extortionist was trying to get more cash out of him at the time of the 1988 murder.
Vince Zangari, who is of Calabrian descent, was 21 when he was charged with the murder three weeks after the bloodied body of his uncle Sam Rotiroti was found in the driveway of the Rotiroti family home in the Geelong suburb of Manifold Heights.
The murder charge was dropped in 1989 as a result of witnesses who had implicated Mr Zangari changing or withdrawing their statements after Mr Zangari was released on bail — but he remains a suspect in the unsolved cold case.
Vince Zangari’s brother Joe told police he thought Vince was responsible for beating Sam Rotiroti, 46, to death.
Details of him implicating his older brother are contained in documents the Herald Sun has obtained from the Rotiroti coronial inquest.
According to the coronial documents, Joe Zangari claimed to homicide squad detectives that Vince rang him on the night of the 1988 Rotiroti murder and asked him to pick him up and bring a change of clothes.
Joe Zangari told detectives that when his brother Vince got into his car he said: “I’ve got to get rid of these clothes. Take me somewhere where there’s no one around. They’re all stained.”
The inquest documents also reveal Bruno Iannuzzi, who is murder victim Sam Rotiroti’s brother-in-law, told police he and his family had been harassed and that “I am scared of Vince Zangari”.
The Herald Sun has tracked down Ms Egan, who was 14 when her father Sam Rotiroti was murdered in 1988, and Vince Zangari, 51, who now calls himself Luke Conrad, to the North Sydney apartment they share.
There was no answer from ringing the doorbell, so a message was left on Ms Egan’s mobile saying if either she or Mr Zangari wanted to comment on the allegations against him that their comments would be published and that a reporter was outside their property and ready to interview them.
That resulted in a series of abusive text messages from Ms Egan in which she repeatedly told the reporter to “f--- off”, that the reporter would be hearing from their lawyer and that if the reporter didn’t go away they would go to court to get an apprehended violence order against him.
The Herald Sun is not suggesting Vince Zangari murdered his uncle, just that he remains a suspect in the unsolved cold case.
He failed to respond to a series of questions recently emailed to him.
The then head of the Victoria Police homicide squad’s cold case team, Detective Senior Sergeant Peter Trichias, told the Herald Sun in September last year that he believed some members of the Rotiroti, Zangari, and Iannuzzi families had information which could see the Rotiroti murder solved.
He said if they came forward and the killer was charged and convicted they would be eligible to claim the $1 million reward being offered to solve the case and that protection could be arranged for them if they feared for their safety.
“In this case the evidence is indicative that the answer will come from within the family,” Sen-Sgt Trichias said.
“That’s why we are making this final appeal to the family.
“Also, as a consideration for any of these family members, if they think they have issues about their safety — if they are concerned about what they want to do — we can assist with that.
“On top of that there is the $1 million reward, they can get some comfort from that and they will also be able to be protected.”
While Sen-Sgt Trichias didn’t name Mr Zangari at the press conference in September last year to announce the $1 million reward, he did say during it that the man who was charged over the murder in 1988 “remains our strongest person of interest”.
“The person of interest in relation to the matter has some sort of hold on the family,” Sen-Sgt Trichias said at the press conference.
“Whether it’s a personal hold or whether it’s out of reputation, I’m not too sure — but he’s had that hold for a number of years.”
Vince Rotiroti yesterday saidhe had severed all ties with his mother Giuseppina, younger sisters Maria and Elizabeth, younger brother Tony and older brother Joe following the murder of his father.
“When I came home that night I saw my father’s body in a pool of blood in the driveway under the carport,” he said.
“No one was sleeping and yet I was the first one to ring the police.
“I only found out in September last year — when old footage of my brother Tony was played on television during the report about the $1 million reward — that at the time Tony was interviewed in 1988 he claimed he rang police. He didn’t, I did.
“My plea to my family members today is to please come forward if they know anything about the murder of my father.
“It’s been 30 years of pain and suffering for me. It’s time to get justice for my father.
“It’s their father, their husband, they owe it to him to come forward to police.”
Anyone with information about the Rotiroti murder should phone Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report at crimestoppers.com.au
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