A shocking scandal has erupted in Italy after a Red Cross ambulance driver, 27-year-old Luca Spada, was arrested on charges of intentionally and premeditatedly killing six elderly people while transporting them by ambulance in the Forlì area in 2025.
According to the investigation, Spada was wiretapped by authorities while talking on the phone with his girlfriend and the owners of a funeral agency. In the recorded conversations, he spoke without remorse about the victims.
“Those old people were suffering a lot, it’s right they should go before God,” he is heard saying in one of the intercepts. At another point he adds: “I liked it, I’ll do it again.”
Spada was arrested by the Carabinieri in Forli and by the special health unit (NAS) in the house where he lived with his girlfriend and their son just over one year old.
The investigation took a turn after the autopsy of Deanna Mambelli, 85, who felt unwell during transport and died on November 25. The forensic examination showed that death was caused by an air injection into a vein, which provokes a gas embolism.
On March 18, RIS experts analyzed needles, syringes and catheters found in the ambulance for traces of Spada's DNA. Investigators are also trying to understand the motive for the crimes: whether he considered himself a kind of "angel of death" who ended the suffering of patients, or whether this was an act of pure cruelty.
In the small town of Meldola, where he lived, residents are in shock. Some say Spada had an unusual interest in dead bodies and had occasionally collaborated with a funeral agency, helping prepare bodies for burial.
