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Flowers on a grave
Flowers on a grave. Roseto resident Ciro Fattore has ensured that the mystery man's final resting place has a bunch of fresh flowers every week. Photograph: PC Jones ecclesiastical / Alamy/Alamy
Flowers on a grave. Roseto resident Ciro Fattore has ensured that the mystery man's final resting place has a bunch of fresh flowers every week. Photograph: PC Jones ecclesiastical / Alamy/Alamy

Italian town remembers man with no name

This article is more than 11 years old
Mystery man died on the tracks near Roseto degli Abruzzi 15 years ago, but his memory is kept alive by a local pensioner

He had curly black hair and wore size 42 shoes. He was of medium build and was wearing a green checked jacket when a train slammed into him at about 2pm on a Sunday, ending his life on a rainy autumn day in 1997.

That much – and no more – is known for certain about a man who died near the town of Roseto degli Abruzzi on the line that runs from Ancona to Pescara down Italy's Adriatic coast. Yet, 15 years later – thanks to a local man's benevolent obsession – the man with no name is still being remembered.

Last Friday, on the anniversary of his death, a mass was held with prayers for his soul in a church in Roseto. And in the days leading up to the service, posters – paid for by a local firm – were put up around the town inviting people to attend.

"It was our way of remembering him and of making him feel less alone," 68-year-old Ciro Fattore, a retired motorway catering worker, told the Guardian.

To this day, no one knows whether the dead man – police thought he was in his mid-30s – was killed by accident or committed suicide. The daily Corriere della Sera reported that all they found in his wallet was a comb and a medallion of Our Lady of Loreto.

"They did everything possible to find out who he was – both the railway police and prosecutors' office," said Giuseppe Neri, the cemetery warden who was on duty when they brought in the body.

For a while it was thought he might be a man who had gone missing from his home in Pescara. But when relatives saw the body they knew it had to be that of someone else.

So eventually the man who died on the tracks was placed in a niche in a corner of the cemetery as anonymous as he was. Which is when he came to the attention of Fattore.

"I used to go to the cemetery with a neighbour who had been widowed," he said. Distressed by the thought that there was no one to look after the unknown man's tomb, Fattore and Neri set about changing matters.

"Ciro had a plaque made," Neri said. "I found the marble. He supplied a vase. Then we put in a light and a cross."

Ever since, Fattore has made it his business to see that the niche has a bunch of fresh flowers.

"I take them along myself, every week," he said.

A theory did the rounds that the dead man was an immigrant and vagrant. But, Neri said, there was nothing to support it: his clothes were of good quality and they were not particularly worn.

Who he was may never be known. But, though he may never get a name, he has unquestionably acquired an identity – as material evidence of what Fattore had inscribed on the plaque: "There is always a benefactor thinking of you".

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