Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia is the last heir to the throne of Italy. He and his family were exiled in 1946 and could not return for the next 56 years. He has been the centre of many ... unpleasantnesses. The most recent were the charges of criminal association, racketeering, exploitation of prostitution and sundry other delights, of which he was later acquitted. But, in Netflix’s latest contribution to the swelling ranks of true crime documentaries, The King Who Never Was, the makers concentrate on the scandal that really made his name: his arrest in 1978 for the killing of 19-year-old Dirk Hamer and the subsequent 38-year campaign by Hamer’s sister Birgit to get some answers.
In the summer of 1978, Birgit and her brother joined a group of glamorous young Italian friends on a trip to Cavallo – a French island near Corsica and the playground of the Savoy family. “We were neither few nor quiet,” says one of the friends now, still glamorous in middle age and still incredulous at how the fateful night unfolded. The Savoy family could, she feels, legitimately have found them annoying. They also “borrowed” the dinghy tied to Emanuele’s boat in the bay where their own three vessels were moored, to get them to a restaurant and back in the evening. Late that night, Emanuele set off to get it back. He took his rifle. “Because in Corsica, danger is always round the corner,” he says now. Two shots were fired. One travelled through the cabin walls of the nearby boat Dirk was asleep on and hit him in the stomach. Emanuele was arrested and a few days later signed a letter admitting civil liability for what would turn out to be a mortal injury. Months later, after 19 surgeries, Dirk died. The day before he did so, Emanuele was bailed and left Corsica for Switzerland.
