Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Patrizia Gucci would do anything

to exact revenge on her husband, Maurizio.

PHILIPS: Patrizia was very enamored by black magic.

When Maurizio started to erase Patrizia from his life

and from the Gucci name, she completely loses it.

She would create curses against him.

She has her servants prepare spells.

And so it's all this, sort of, chaos.

NARRATOR: But it would take more than magic to kill Maurizio.

AZARI: After he moves out,

Maurizio meets a woman named Paola Franchi.

He fell in love with her.

Patrizia is extremely upset because she sees

this woman is coming in to take her place

as Lady Gucci.

NARRATOR: Patrizia was furious.

She built a family

and an entire life with Maurizio,

only to be discarded.

- In the fall of 1991, Maurizio asks for a divorce.

AZARI: Patrizia and Maurizio's divorce

was replete with legal battles.

PHILIPS: Patrizia was awarded 1.6 million in annual alimony,

but that wasn't even enough for her.

NARRATOR: What Patrizia really wanted

was a piece of Gucci.

But Maurizio was slowly driving the family business

into the ground.

By 1993, Maurizio had ousted his relatives

from the family business in a hostile takeover,

and was the target of multiple lawsuits.

INTERVIEWER: Did you participate in the forged signing

of a document?

- Absolutely not.

NARRATOR: All the while, Maurizio was living lavishly

on the company dime,

accumulating a debt of over $40 million.

For the first time in its history,

Gucci was running in the red.

- After a lot of bad business dealings,

Maurizio realizes that he's going to have to sell

his stake in the company.

NARRATOR: On September 27, 1993,

Maurizio sold his 50% stake

to a Bahrain-based investment group

for a reported $170 million.

REPORTER: What was once the most prestigious family firm

in the world no longer has a Gucci on the board.

PHILIPS: He lost the company.

That was, I think, the biggest blow to Patrizia.

This was her identity.

That's when Patrizia

really loses it.

She goes a little cray cray.

AZARI: Patrizia starts

literally running a murder campaign.

- Patrizia tells her housekeeper,

"If it's the last thing I do,

I want to see him dead."

AZARI: She asks the household staff

if they could help her plan a hit job on her ex-husband.

She even makes an appointment with a lawyer

and asks him, "What would happen to me

if I killed my husband?"

And the lawyer says,

"Lady, you really shouldn't be talking like this."

- If you're planning a murder,

generally don't want to talk about it.

- Patrizia's urgency

to kill Maurizio heightened once she found out

that Maurizio had proposed to Paola.

AZARI: Patrizia's

annual alimony would be cut in half.

NARRATOR: Desperate and determined,

Patrizia returned to the supernatural.

PHILIPS: She goes to her best friend.

DWYER: Pina Auriemma, who was also her personal astrologer.

AZARI: She was known as the black witch in Milan.

And the two of 'em start trying all kinds of witchcraft,

channeling to try to get rid of Maurizio.

Pina tells Patrizia, "Listen,

I'm gonna try to put this together for you."

PHILIPS: It's 8:30 in the morning on March 27, 1995.

Maurizio shows up to his offices in Milan early.

He wants to get some work done before some morning meetings.

This becomes the day that Maurizio Gucci is murdered.

On that day that Maurizio dies...

...Patrizia writes in her diary,

"paradeisos."

Which is

Greek for "paradise."

[ominous music plays]

REPORTER: The 46-year-old businessman,

the heir to the Gucci fashion empire, was gunned down.

The case is already marked by infighting,

lawsuits and financial troubles.

- Police arrive

and find Maurizio

curled over on his marble floor,

a pool of red blood around him,

bullet wounds to his shoulder, his back and his temple.

NARRATOR: The public was stunned.

Maurizio Gucci was dead,

and the police had no idea who killed him.

- April 3, 1995 was Maurizio's funeral.

AZARI: Patrizia stands completely

stone-faced, just stern.

When the media came up to her she said,

"Some people die in their bed, some people die on the street,

and some people have the privilege

of being killed."

NARRATOR: But would Lady Gucci

have the privilege

of getting away with it?