[1] The finding of her lifeless body on a public beach near Torvajanica, on Rome's littoral, led to prolonged investigations involving sensational allegations of drug and sex orgies in Roman society.

She was considered to be very beautiful and longed to enter the world of cinema and show business at Rome's Cinecittà film studios (she made an uncredited appearance in Prison, Ergastolo, 1952).

The young woman was partially dressed and the clothes were soaked with water: she was no longer wearing her shoes, skirt, stockings, and garter belt, and her handbag was missing.

From a reconstruction of Montesi's final hours, it emerged that the young woman had not returned home for dinner on the evening of 9 April, contrary to her habits.

Her mother, along with her other daughter, Wanda, had spent the afternoon at the cinema watching Renoir's The Golden Coach and stated that Wilma had declined to join them because she was not keen in films featuring Anna Magnani, adding that she would probably go out for a walk.

The body was brought to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Rome, where an autopsy was conducted: the doctors claimed that the probable cause of death was a "syncope due to a foot bath," claiming that, most likely, Montesi took the chance of the trip to the beach to eat ice cream (remains were found in her stomach) and made a foot bath in the sea to relieve a nagging irritation at the heels of which she suffered for some time.

On 24 May 1953, an article by Marco Cesarini Sforza, published in the communist magazine Vie Nuove, had much resonance: one of the characters appearing in the investigation and allegedly linked to politics, so far known as "the blond", was identified as Piero Piccioni.

In early May, Il merlo giallo published a cartoon satire in which a garter belt, held in the beak of a pigeon ("Piccione" in Italian), was brought to the police station, a clear reference to the politician and crime.

The Italian Communist Party (PCI), the owner of the newspaper and sole "political" beneficiary of the scandal, refused to recognize the work of the journalist, who was accused of "sensationalism" and threatened with dismissal.

Even the journalist's father, a professor of philosophy at Sapienza University of Rome, suggested to his son to recant, as well as the lawyer Francesco Carnelutti, who had taken the side of the plaintiff on behalf of Piccioni.