The 52-year-old man appeared to be a tourist who had lost his bearing and was wandering in the St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. He pretended to have no idea about his identity and looked confused. The police presumed that he had suffered a loss of memory. However, an investigation revealed that he was an Italian from Pisa and had faked his amnesia to escape from his nagging mother-in-law.

Daily Mail UK reports that the man Salvatore Mannino admitted to the police that he had escaped from Pisa and traveled to Scotland in mid-September. Before he landed up in Scotland, he had gone to the Tuscan town of Prato.

There he worked in a local supermarket in Chinatown. From there, he moved to Scotland giving the impression that he was trying to hoodwink the Chinese mafia.

Facts of the case

The man of the house does not like to be ignored or belittled and when it comes from the mother-in-law, it is difficult for him to swallow. That is what troubled Salvatore Mannino. He planned his ‘escape’ from the nagging woman and the purpose was to regain his position as a husband and father. In his opinion, his mother-in-law had snatched all those from him.

Daily Mail UK goes on to add that he had prepared his ‘disappearance’ meticulously and had accessed the internet to lay hands on information relevant to his plan. He wanted to put on an act of a man who had lost his memory and had taken pains to ensure that it would pass scrutiny. However, the tattoos on his body gave him away.

It is human psychology

The Sun UK has elaborated on this unique case of human psychology. In this, a middle-aged man, Salvatore Mannino, decided to play a prank on his family, especially his mother-in-law. He left his home in Pisa and landed up in Edinburgh pretending to have lost his memory. However, when the Italian police began investigating his disappearance, they came across clues that led them to believe that he had planned his activities to the minutest detail and was moving accordingly.

They checked his computer and discovered that the searches were significant. They were on “how to disappear” and “how to fake memory loss”.

Simultaneously, the Scottish police identified him by his tattoos and brought his wife Francesca and kids to Britain to confirm but Salvatore kept up the pretense. They moved him to Italy for medical advice and the docs gave him a clean chit. He finally cracked and admitted - “I did it to get away from my nagging mother-in-law.” The Italian police have now charged him with abandonment. The moral for in-laws is to maintain a safe distance so that relationships do not sour.
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