The Maria Talarico Possession

In January 1939, in the southern Italian city of Catanzaro, a seventeen-year-old woman named Maria Talarico became possessed by the spirit of a man who had died three years earlier. The entity used Maria’s body to reveal that his death was murder rather than suicide, to identify his killers, and to write a final letter to his grieving mother.

Background

Giuseppe “Pepe” Veraldi was a young man who died in February 1936. His body was found beneath a bridge over the Fiumarella River near Catanzaro. The official verdict was suicide—Pepe had allegedly jumped from the bridge.

His mother, Catarina Veraldi, never accepted this conclusion. She knew her son and believed he would never take his own life. But without evidence, she could only grieve and wonder.

The Possession

On January 5, 1939, Maria Talarico was crossing the same bridge where Pepe had died. She had never known him and had no connection to his family. As she crossed, she suddenly collapsed.

When she awakened, she was not herself. She spoke in a deep male voice, used masculine grammar (significant in Italian), and behaved in a manner completely unlike her normal personality. The entity identified itself as Pepe Veraldi.

The Revelations

“Pepe,” speaking through Maria, revealed what had really happened three years earlier. He had not committed suicide. He had been murdered by four men—former friends with whom he had quarreled. They had beaten him, thrown him from the bridge, and arranged the scene to look like suicide.

The entity named his killers. He described the events leading to the murder. He spoke of matters that Maria could not have known, using expressions and recounting memories that witnesses confirmed were authentically Pepe’s.

The Letter

Most remarkably, the entity insisted on writing a letter to Catarina Veraldi, the mother Pepe had left behind. Maria, still possessed, wrote the letter in a handwriting that was not her own—a handwriting that witnesses who knew Pepe claimed matched his.

The letter expressed love for his mother, grief at leaving her, and anger at his murderers. It provided closure that three years of wondering had not.

Investigation

The possession attracted official attention. Local authorities investigated Maria and found her to be a simple, uneducated girl with no connection to the Veraldi family and no way to have known the details she revealed.

The case against the alleged murderers was never prosecuted. The men named by the entity denied involvement, and “spectral testimony” was not admissible evidence in Italian courts. But the community formed its own conclusions.

The Return

The possession ended as suddenly as it had begun. Maria returned to herself with no memory of what had happened. She never experienced similar phenomena again and lived a normal life afterward.

Catarina Veraldi, who had lived three years in uncertainty, found peace. Her son had spoken to her one last time. The question of suicide had been answered. Whether she believed literally in the possession or simply found comfort in the story, she had closure.

Assessment

The Maria Talarico case became famous in Italy and influenced subsequent research into possession and survival of consciousness. The case has been investigated by researchers including Ernesto Bozzano and more recently the University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies.

The details are remarkably verifiable: the handwriting can be compared, the witnesses interviewed, the information checked against what Maria could have known. Unlike many possession cases, this one claimed to reveal specific, factual information that was either true or false.

Whether Maria was genuinely possessed by Pepe Veraldi’s spirit, whether she somehow accessed information through unknown means, or whether the case involves some combination of coincidence and wishful interpretation, it remains one of the most compelling possession cases of the twentieth century.