Fashion’s own ‘black widow’: the true story of the house of Gucci murder

As film starring Lady Gaga enters cinemas, a former police officer recounts the moment he arrested Patrizia Reggiani

Even when she was being escorted to prison, Patrizia Reggiani was determined to go in style, wearing dark sunglasses and a fur coat. I told her: Look, you're going to prison and this fur coat is hugely expensive'," said the former police officer Carmine Gallo. And so we left the coat with her mother and I lent her my green jacket, which she promised to give back."

Gallo never saw his jacket again, but he does not hold a grudge. He was the police officer who called at Reggiani's opulent central Milan home at about 5am on a frosty morning in January 1997 to arrest her on suspicion of orchestrating the murder of her ex-husband and fashion house heir, Maurizio Gucci. Gucci was gunned down outside his office on Via Palestro almost two years earlier, aged 46. The case captivated Italy, and now the story is being retold in Ridley Scott's film about the fashion dynasty, House of Gucci.