Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, known as Pippa Bacca, was 33 when she decided to cross Europe to Israel by hitchhiking. Dressed as a bride. With no money, no fixed route, trusting that every driver who picked her up would be further proof that the world was better than the news said.
She left Milan on March 8, 2008, with her friend Silvia Moro. The project was called “Brides on Tour” and aimed to cross territories marked by recent wars: Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey. Everything went according to plan until, once in Turkish territory, the two temporarily separated in Istanbul.
On March 31, in the city of Gebze, Pippa got into the wrong vehicle. Murat Karataş, a 38-year-old itinerant worker with a record for theft, raped and strangled her. Her body was found eleven days later under some bushes. An absurd detail gave him away: he used Pippa’s phone to take photos at his niece’s wedding, hours after the crime.
