The second search at the Riccia liceo

Five officers from the Squadra Mobile and the Sco entered the Liceo Scientifico in Riccia at 9:20 on Wednesday, 14 October, and left at 14:15, after about five hours inside the building. Pulling the data from the school server took only one hour, because a technician who runs the school's IT system had to arrive first. The search is part of the investigation into the deaths of a 50-year-old woman and her 15-year-old daughter, who died in late December 2025 after ricin poisoning in Pietracatella, in Molise.

What investigators are looking for

Investigators want to know whether anyone used the computers or Wi-Fi networks of these schools to search for ricin, or for substances used to extract the toxin from castor seeds. The keywords include ricina, veleno, ricino, semi di ricino and olio di ricino, along with more technical terms such as esano, ammonium sulphate and sodium sulphate. Beyond ordinary browsing histories, the checks cover visited pages, downloads, files and deleted data, as well as anonymous browsing tools, Tor Browser and dark web access. Forum posts that mention ricina have also been placed under review, including one user who, posing as a novelist, asked which poison could be used without leaving a trace. That question would date from the days of the killings. Tgcom24 reports that police are analysing nearly 200 computers across the schools of the Campobasso province.

Schedule of the searches

The Larino prosecutor's office ordered four searches in total, and the first took place on Tuesday, 13 October, at the Istituto Agrario in Riccia, where the husband of a mathematics teacher works as a laboratory technician. At the liceo, where 20 computers are in use, investigators took the data from the central server that handles the activity of all the machines instead of examining each computer. The schedule that follows is shown below.

The next search is set for Thursday, 15 October, at the Liceo Classico Mario Pagano in Campobasso, which the two daughters attended until last year. ANSA places the last search on Friday, 16 October, at a liceo of human sciences in Casacalenda, where a relative of the husband teaches. Investigators have worked for months on specific people and relationships, and the teacher from the Riccia liceo has been heard several times as a witness. She was absent from work on 14 October.

Lines of inquiry and what remains open

The prosecutors are working on a passion-driven motive, a theory that Il Giornale attributes to the Procura. Investigators say the most credited track points to hidden relationships that led the 50-year-old woman to ask for a separation, a conclusion that came from analysing messages on her phone. A second track looks at the husband and father of the victims, who may himself have been a target of the poisoning, since he is the only one of the family who did not take the toxin. Other theories put forward by the press include the idea that the 15-year-old's death was a mistake, and that the surviving 18-year-old daughter, who was out for dinner on 24 December, was spared by chance. None of these theories has been confirmed by investigators.

No one is yet entered in the register of suspects. Il Fatto Quotidiano reports that the first entries are expected once prosecutors receive analyses from Germany of items seized weeks earlier at the family home in Pietracatella. Investigators have also seized the phone of the surviving daughter, according to Rai. The searches on Thursday and Friday will determine whether any ricin-related searches were carried out on school equipment, and when.