After We Die.

The Possession Of Maria Talarico

The case of Lurancy Vennum happened more than eighty years ago. But there have been strange people with similar histories in our own time.
Under the bridge that spans the Corace River between Siano and Catanzaro, Italy, the body of nineteen-year-old Guiseppe Veraldi was found on the morning of February 13, 1936. It was only partially clothed, most of the garments being scattered about on the river’s bank. His head rested on a large stone. The left arm was broken and doubled under his chest.

Police examined the body, ignored the evidence, and decided that “Pepe” Veraldi and his companions of the night before had drunk too much and that on his way home Pepe had brooded over a recent love affair and jumped to his death from the bridge.

Just how ridiculous this assumption was can be ascertained quickly by recognition of the fact that the bridge at that point was more than a hundred feet high. Veraldi suffered only a broken arm and possible concussion. In any case, after having fallen a hundred feet to the stony river bank, he certainly could not have undressed himself; nor would he have escaped with such comparatively minor injuries.

Even an amateur sleuth would have recognized the signs of murder in this case, but the inquest upheld the police verdict and the death of Guiseppe Veraldi was officially closed.
Officially, perhaps, but not closed as far as his friends and relatives were concerned. They knew that he had Last been seen alive in the company of four drinking companions— Toto, Damiano, Abele and Rosario. They had been playing cards in a back room at the Gioso Tavern when Veraldi had come in. He took no part in the game but stood with his back to the wall, drinking wine, and kibitzing. Around midnight, witnesses said, the quintet left the tavern and walked toward the bridge where Pepe’s body was found the next day.

The police examination of the four men who had been with Veraldi on the night of his death was perfunctory: they were asked where and when they had last seen him and if they had any idea what might have induced him to take his own life. The foursome all agreed they had left him near the bridge and none of them could ascribe any motive for suicide except that he was very drunk.

But the strange story of Pepe Veraldi did not end there, it only began. Three years after his death on the river bank under the bridge a young girl in Siano, at the other end of that same bridge, suffered from a strange ailment.

Maria Talarico was seventeen, the second of a family of six children. She had not known Veraldi or any of his family and the only time she had ever seen him was when she had gone with other youngsters and peered down from the bridge at his body, more than a hundred feet below, as police conducted their routine inspection of the scene. That had been three years before the strange abnormality struck her.

It began on January 5, 1939, when Maria and her grand mother walked across the bridge to visit Maria’s mother, who worked on one of Mussolini’s Fascist projects in Catanzaro.
Nothing unusual happened until they approached the bridge on the return trip. As they reached the spot nearest the scene of Veraldi’s death, Maria suddenly dropped to the ground. There was a terrible pain in her knees, she said. A passerby, Guiseppe Trapasso, came to the aid of the two women and with his help Granny managed to get Maria home and to bed.
Within an hour the girl was clearly out of her mind. She writhed and groaned as though she were in some sort of convulsion. Her voice, normally soft and pleasant, became deep and sharp. She screamed that she wanted to see her mother—at once! A neighbor boy ran to the project where Mrs. Talarico worked and she came home as quickly as possible.

Maria took one look at her mother and shook her head. “You’re not my mother!” she screamed. “You may be the owner of this house but you are not my mother. She lives in Catanzaro—on Barrache Street—and her name is Catterina. I am Pepe!”

Questioning brought out that Maria was claiming to be the man whose body had been found under the bridge three years before. She kept calling for her “mother” - Mrs. Catterina Veraldi. Excited villagers soon spread the word that Maria Talarico was insane - that she imagined she was a man long dead, and that her voice and thoughts had changed to those of Pepe Veraldi.

Fortunately for the records on this case, there were competent and methodical medical practioners in Catanzaro and they entered the case early.
Dr. Giovanni Scambia seems to have been the first medical authority to examine the girl. His office was in Catanzaro and he made a total of fourteen visits to the Talarico home in Siano. Most important, Dr. Scambia kept a complete record of his findings and of the testimony he and the other medics accumulated in connection with the case. Dr. Fragola, ; a psychiatrist; Dr. Peri, an oculist; Dr. Manzi Carelli, director of the School of Obstetrics at Catanzaro, and Dr. Vincenzo Catalono, also of Catanzaro, all took part in the examination and study of Maria Talarico’s strange condition.

In the early stages of her seizure, when “Pepe” kept demariding that his mother be brought to him, Mrs. Talanco told Maria that she would send a note to Mrs. Veraldi, Maria took the pencil and scribbled: “Dear Mother. If you want to see me I am still your poor son. Pepe.”
But Mrs. Veraldi never got to see the note, for by this time the Siano police had invited themselves into the strange doings in the modest little Talarico home, and the Chief of Police, Salvatore Malorgio, simply confiscated the note and put it under lock and key. (Later, Dr. Scambia and the other medics induced the Chief to let them have the note, which they compared with samples of Guiseppe Veraldi’s handwriting and with that of Maria Talarico. They agreed that it was identical to that of Veraldi. although it had been written by Miss Talarico.)

On the evening of January 5th, Maria rose from her bed and selected four men from the crowd in the house to play a game of cards. To humor her, they agreed and seated themselves around the table. She gave each of them names, Rosario, Toto, Abele and Damiano—the names of the four men who had been playing cards the night of Veraldi’s death. As they played cards, Maria leaned against the wall and smoked cigarettes and drank wine, things which she had never done
in her normal state.
As the game progressed, she chided the characters around the little table.
“Why don’t you put sugar and salt and poppy seeds in the wine you give me, as you did that night. What do you want to get me drunk for—so you can kill me?” It was the voice of a man and it was a taunting voice, that of someone certain of the facts.
During the course of the game, Maria drank more than two quarts of wine and presently she became ill and regurgitated. A few moments later she began to scream and thresh about as though trying to defend herself.
“Abele! Toto! Let me alone. Don’t hit me—don’t hit me!
Help ... help! ... They’re trying to kill me under the bridge!”

After this outburst she sank down in a stupor for a few minutes and then, as Maria Talarico, spent a sleepless night. The Veraldis heard of the strange case but they were un decided on whether to become involved. They finally decided to put the girl to a test, so they selected a photograph of a sister of Veraldi whom Maria had certainly never seen. Carito Giovanni, Pepe’s brother-in-law, brought the picture to Maria’s bedside while she was claiming to be Pepe.
The moment the picture was unwrapped Maria grabbed it and called the girl by name. She even recounted a little family incident in which Pepe and the sister had been involved years before and of which the brother-in-law had never heard.

On the following day, according to Dr. Scambia’s record, Maria awakened very early. She urged her family to get their house in order, for her “mother,” Mrs. Veraldi, would be there at sjven o’clock. And as the hour approached she continued to describe Mrs. Veraldi’s approach. At precisely 7 a.m. the visitor arrived.
It was a fantastic scene, of course. Maria leapt from the bed and threw her arms around Mrs. Veraldi, showering the startled woman with kisses and cries of “Mother! Mother! Mother!”
She dragged up a chair for Mrs. Veraldi and climbed on her lap.
“Mother,” she sobbed. “It’s been three years since I have seen you!”

“Pepe, how were you killed?”

Without hesitation came the reply. “We were at Gioso’s Tavern—Toto, Damiano, Abele, Rosario and me. They played cards. I drank wine. After I was drunk they began to put things in the wine. Then they took me to a place near the bridge, near the Caserma di Cappussine, by the wall with the three fountains.
“Two of them, Toto and Abele, held me and shoved me through a hole in the wall. Then Rosario came through and bit me on the head. Toto struck me in the eye. Abele came up with a stone and broke my jaw. Then they took off my clothes and carried me under the bridge and Toto struck me with a piece of iron and broke my arm at the wrist. They threw my clothes off the bridge and put a stone under my head so I would look crazy. But, mother, I was not so crazy
that I would jump off that high bridge. I could not help my- self. They were four against one and I had drunk twenty-four glasses of wine. ... Mother, did you know that one of my killers had died in the hospital?”

Mrs. Veraldi did not know it. But subsequent investigation revealed that Abele had died in September of 1938 of a heart attack.
“... and Toto, mother, he volunteered for service in East Africa and was badly wounded in the face. Another of the killers, Damiano, is on his way to this house right now.”
Again Maria was right on all counts. Toto had left the scene of Pepe’s death shortly after the funeral and had gone to East Africa (Eritrea). He never returned to Catanzaro.
Damiano had not been invited to the Talarico home but, as Maria predicted, he arrived about five minutes after she had announced his coming.
“Pepe” was ready for him. He snorted that this girl was insane, but “Pepe” began to shower him with questions about things they had done together and it was apparent that Damiano was shaken. The questions turned to the manner of Pepe’s death and Damiano could only stand and shake his head. As soon as possible, he who had come only to sneer, rushed out of the house with perspiration streaming down his face. He flatly refused to be interrogated by Dr. Scambia.
Damiano wanted no part of this weird and alarming turn of affairs.

During her periods of claiming to be the dead Pepe, Maria was confronted by a number of Pepe’s relatives and friends to see whether she could identify them. She did so without exception, although it was certain that as Maria Talarico she had not known them and probably had never seen them.

Among them were Raffaele and Giovanni Veraldi, brothers of Pepe. She recognized both of them and called them by name as they entered the room, but refused to be friendly with Giovanni, because, she said, he did not respect their mother. A check disclosed that in the preceding week Giovanni had insulted his mother during a family argument in their home. Others whom she recognized included the owner of the Gioso Tavern, a relative of Pepe’s brother-in-
law, and Fabiano Luigi, a close friend of Pepe. She asked Fabiano to go to Catanzaro and get her a bologna sandwich and a bottle of brilhiantine for her hair.
Fabiano was understandably surprised for he and Pepe had often gone to that same place for bologna sandwiches, and brilhiatine was a favorite cosmetic that Pepe had often used.
About half an hour after Fabiano had left on this errand, Maria put down a picture she was holding and said: “Fabiano has met Biondo near the Military Hospital. They are talking about me.”
When Fabiano returned, Dr. Scambia met him outside the house and questioned him about the trip. Fabiano confirmed that he had met Biondo near the hospital just as Maria had asserted, and they had talked about the peculiar activities in the Talarico house.

Maria, as Pepe, also promptly identified the picture of a dead sister of Mancuso Salvatore, a friend of Pepe. And when still another of Pepe’s friends visited the Talarico home, Maria not only identified him immediately as Dell’ Apa Antonio but reminded him of the time they had worked together at the Catanzaro railroad station during the flood of 1935, a statement which Antonio told investigators was correct.

Dr. Scambia and the other medics had ample evidence that Maria Talarico had access to the memories and knowledge of the late Pepe Veraldi, while at the same time she knew nothing whatever of Maria Taladco.
Certainly one of the most puzzling aspects of the case was that involving a former Brigadier in the Italian army, Gugliemo Sita, whose testimony was set down by Dr. Scambia. Sita, a Customs Office official at the time of the Verakli death, had known Veraldi but did not know and had never seen Maria Talarico until he walked into her home on January 6, 1939, to test her alleged transition into Pepe Veraldi.
As the Brigadier entered the house Maria said: “Let him come in. It’s the Brigadier.”

She then proceeded to remind him that on the night of Veraldi’s death Pepe had seen him smoking his pipe in the window. This was true and Sita asked where Pepe had gone after passing Sita’s house.
Maria seemed embarrassed. She got a piece of paper and passed a scribbled message to Sita. It read: “Lillina’s house.” Sita knew the answer—and there it was on the slip of paper. Sita knew that Veraldi had been seeing Lillina Delia, the pretty wife of a violently jealous neighbor of Sita. He also knew that after passing his home that fateful night, Veraldi had slipped into Lillina’s, just as Maria had refused to say in the presence of others, but as she had written on the note she handed to him. The Brigadier told Dr. Scambia that he had gone to the Talarico home a complete skeptic, but had come away badly shaken by his experience.

The bizarre case of Maria Talarico came to its end in a surprising manner. “Pepe” told Mrs. Talarico that he had a pain in his leg and must be taken at once to the bridge to get his clothes. It was explained that the clothing had been taken away by the police. Nevertheless, said “Pepe,” he had to go to the bridge. After selecting four men to go with him, ‘Pepe” headed for the bridge with a small crowd following. When she reached the end of the bridge, Maria never paused but began to descend the almost perpendicular bank -a dangerous feat for an experienced person and doubly dangerous for a girl who knew nothing of such feats. The four men followed her cautiously. Maria’s mother, on the bridge, screamed at the men to stop her before she killed
herself, but they were too preoccupied with their own risky descent to heed her cries.

Maria climbed down to the rocky river bed without difficulty. She began removing her clothing and threw the garments about her. Making her way over the stones to the exact spot where Pepe Veraldi’s body bad lain, she fell back ward as though she had been struck with a club, her head on the same stone on which his had rested. Her right foot was bare, as his had been. She was unconscious.
The men who had followed her were understandably confused by this unexpected turn of events. They threw a coat over the girl and backed away to a respectable distance.
She lay on the cold stones for about ten minutes before she groaned and got up, evidently amazed at finding herself partially undressed in such an isolated spot with a crowd of people staring at her. Hastily putting on her garments, she was helped across the stream to an easier point of ascent and had to be assisted up the bank to the bridge level.

There, for the first time in weeks, she recognized her own mother and family. “Pepe Veraldi” was gone; she was Maria Talarico once more and as such she has remained.
When Maria learned that for more than two weeks she had been reliving the life of a man she had never known, she became ashamed and refused to leave the house. She did not recognize Dr. Scambia, who had been treating her daily during her strange experience. Later, however, she issued a statement at his request to bring an end to the gossip that still centered around her. It said:
“Of what has recently occurred, I remember nothing. You may not take my picture, for my boy friend has forbidden it. I have never even dreamed of the young fellow who was found dead under the bridge. I never talked to him or knew him. I am seventeen years old and my health has always been good. Signed, Maria Talarico, February 9, 1939.”

Drs. Scambia, Fragola, Peri, Catalono and Carelli had the rare opportunity to be present at this strange case, which took place virtually at their doorsteps. Their accounts are especially reliable since many of the individuals involved were known to them as friends and as patients. A rather lengthy account is published in La Riserca Psichica for June, 1939, published at 6 Via Spiga, Milan, Italy.

The case of Maria Talarico demonstrates once again how little we understand of what goes on around us, within us ... and sometimes through us.

Luke 23:39 ¶ And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.
42 And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.

Luke 16: 19 ¶ There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
26 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
27 Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:
28 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
30 And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.