My Dear Killer

My Dear Killer is a 1972 Italian-Spanish giallo film directed by Tonino Valerii and starring George Hilton, Marilù Tolo, Patty Shepard, Helga Line, Salvo Randone and William Berger. Some critics considered it "one of the best films in the thriller genre" and as "one of the best, most vibrant and well designed products of Italian giallo." Synopsis Police Commissioner Luca Peretti is assigned to investigate a seemingly isolated murder case—a private investigator for an insurance company decapitated by an excavator at a rural swamp area. Soon after, the worker who operated the excavator is found hanged. Peretti discovers a clue at the scene indicating the driver of the excavator did not commit suicide, but was in fact murdered. He also discovers that the murdered investigator was working on a cold case involving the kidnapping and murder of Stefania Moroni, the young daughter of a wealthy industrialist; when her father attempted to pay the ransom, he too was kidnapped, and both of them were left to die. The investigator had evidently discovered a lead, and was trying to sell the information to the victims' relatives. Peretti proceeds to question other people connected with the Moroni case, including Stefania's traumatized mother, her uncle Oliviero—who lost one of his hands during the war—along with his wife, other relatives, and the family's servants. However, additional murders begin to occur. The investigator's wife is strangled to death at a public transport station, Stefania's kindergarten teacher is mutilated with a circular saw, and Mattia, a destitute man who lived in a small shack near the site of the investigator's murder, is bludgeoned to death with a statue. Arriving at the shack where Stefania and her father were left to die, Peretti realizes that Stefania had left a clue to her kidnapper's identity before dying, evidently on the back of a mirror. That night, the murderer tries to kill an elderly lady who unknowingly came into possession of the mirror, but Peretti arrives at the scene just in time, forcing him to flee. Upon recovering the mirror, Peretti examines the back of it and realizes that it perfectly implicates the killer.