Monster draws Dateline to Florence

A special episode of Dateline, NBCs popular television program, will be broadcast in November. The show, filmed on location in Florence last week, will spotlight the story of the Monster of Florence, emphasizing the scandalous episode that kept me in prison for 23 days last spring and saw writer Doug Preston accused of bearing false witness.To tell the story, NBC landed in Florence with two crews led by producer Joe Demonico and the shows flagship anchorman, Stone Phil-lips. The two were later joined by Doug Preston himself, on a visit that was kept top secret for fear of the Italian police authorities. The filming, in fact, was not exempt from a sense of thrill. Doug accompanied the NBC crew and Stone Phillips to the I Bibbiani Villa, near Montelupo, where he and I had supposedly attempted to set police investigations off track, according to commissioner Giuttari. While they were driving around, one of the Villas custodians yelled that he had called the police. The group, who had done nothing illegal, decided it would be best to leave and made a real escape from the Italian police. Everything turned out all right in the end. Doug caught the plane back to the United States the next day, fearing he would be stopped at the airport. But that night, I received a call from his wife, Christine, who laughingly cried, E tornato! Hes back!