Alex Marangon, a bartender from a small town north of Venice, participated in a ritual with hallucinogenic tea from a South American plant during the night of June 29 to 30. The plant can cause hallucinations and is therefore also banned in Italy. That did not stop the organizers from using the tea in this shamanic ceremony.
Marangon disappeared around 3 a.m. Two people who were there claimed to have seen Alex walking barefoot into the wooded garden. The young man was not reported missing until three hours later when he did not return to his room. Many of Marangon’s belongings, including his phone, were still in that room.
On July 2, his body was found on the edge of the Piave River, just a few kilometers from where the ritual had taken place. An autopsy showed that there was no water in his lungs, so he could not have drowned. However, there were wounds on his body, which could indicate that he had been struck with a blunt object. He also suffered a fractured skull and broken ribs. Finally, a blow to the head proved fatal.
Suicide
Ever since the body was found, investigators have been doing everything they can to find out what happened in those three hours. The Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened a murder investigation. Meanwhile, the case is also getting a lot of media attention in Italy.
Marangon’s family had already had the chance to speak with the organizer of the ritual, Andrea Zuin. He stated that the 25-year-old Italian had thrown himself from the balcony and then walked several kilometers further towards the Piave river, where he finally laid himself down and died. He described it as “a kind of suicide.”
According to the autopsy, that would be highly unlikely. Investigators are fairly certain that it was a deliberate murder. However, Zuin insists that “there was no harm done to Alex, either before or after the encounter.”
Suspicious slip of the tongue
What makes the whole thing even more mysterious is a recent TV appearance by Zuin. In a detective program that was broadcast on Italian television, an audio fragment can be heard of a conversation between Marangon’s older sister and Zuin. The fragment was recorded on June 30, when the 25-year-old Italian was still wanted.
“Make sure we get a phone call and find him, please,” the older sister said in the clip. To which Zuin answers briefly and firmly: “I will definitely do it, but that is not a possibility. I will explain why. Since… since this happened,” he immediately corrects himself. “We have been looking for him everywhere.” It is not clear what the man wanted to say exactly, but it is assumed that he had to correct himself because otherwise he would have given too many details about Marangon’s death.
“I will definitely do it, but that possibility does not exist. I will explain why. Since…since this happened, we have been looking for him everywhere”
changed Zui
Organizer ritual
Although investigators assume that it was a deliberate killing, additional scenarios will be examined in the coming days. “We cannot discard any evidence at this point,” prosecutor Marco Martani told Italian media. “Not even the one that Alex died as a result of a tragic flight, perhaps while under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen.” The Public Prosecutor’s Office is not ruling out anything, not even an accident.
Apart from the fact that all avenues are still being kept open, there are still a few other suspicious cases. A total of twenty people were present at the ritual, of which Marangon even took three of them personally by car on the way to the ritual. None of them have come forward as witnesses. A second inexplicable case is a theft from a bag of Alex. That bag was confiscated shortly after the murder, but at that time 500 euros in cash, earrings and bracelets had disappeared from it. According to Marangon’s mother, he was so attached to them that he would never get rid of them.