He would have caused the death of an 80-year-old great-aunt, Maria Basso, by making her ingest spaghetti that the woman should not have eaten, having to eat only chopped food, in order to attribute the death to natural causes and be able to benefit from her inheritance.
This is the accusation contested by the Catania Prosecutor's Office against a 58-year-old great-granddaughter of the victim, who was arrested by the carabinieri of the Aci Castello station and placed under house arrest, with the use of an electronic bracelet, for circumvention of an incompetent person and aggravated murder.
A reconstruction contested by the suspect who, defended by the lawyers Carmelo Peluso and Lino Rovetta, professes her innocence and indeed, she claims, would have given her "the care she needed" and fed only "chopped food, as was administered to her in the Retirement home where she was housed."
The investigation, which also resulted in a murder charge, was started for circumvention of an incompetent person by the Vicenza Prosecutor's Office in December 2022 after the complaint from a first cousin of the 80-year-old, the engineer Mario Basso, who assisted by Lawyer Stefano Rigoni Stern had filed a complaint after the 'disappearance' of his relative from Asiago, where he lived.
After the initiation of urgent proceedings, the file was passed, for jurisdiction, to the magistrates of Catania who, after the death of the 80-year-old, a rich pensioner, former employee of the Farnesina, accused her great-granddaughter of "the implementation of a criminal project" which it would have been achieved "by first having the elderly woman sign a general power of attorney and a public will with which, having revoked any previous provision that provided for the bequest to charities, establishing her as the sole universal heir".
The victim, who was not self-sufficient, died on 16 December 2022 in a nursing home in Aci Castello, where he had been residing for approximately 15 days.
Her death, reconstructs the Catania Prosecutor's Office, would be linked "to the ingestion of solid foods which occurred 5 days earlier, which were highly harmful to her due to the pathologies she was suffering from, which allowed her to nourish herself only with homogenised foods".
The motive, according to the prosecution, is Maria Basso's inheritance, estimated at around 500 thousand euros, including money and jewels.
Kept in the bank in Asiago where the great-granddaughter went to ask for access, but received a negative response and a report to the prosecutor's office from the credit institution.
The story began on 4 September 2022, with what the Catania Prosecutor's Office defines as the 'strange and sudden' presence of the great-granddaughter at the victim's eightieth birthday party in Asiago which had aroused the suspicion of Maria Basso's relatives.
Over the course of two months, "the suspect took advantage of the victim's affection and state of strong vulnerability, immediately showing a very strong interest in her assets" and on "2 December 2022, after making her spend her night in an accommodation facility in Asiago, would have forced the elderly woman to face the arduous journey by car to Aci Castello without stopping".
The Carabinieri of the local station started investigations after the investigation opened in Vicenza and followed the events of the 80-year-old.
And "fundamental - explains Captain Domenico Rana, commander of the Acirele Carabinieri company - were the woman's statements, acquired the day before her death. They allowed us to reconstruct that she had been taken out for lunch by her great-granddaughter and had eaten a plate of spaghetti and a dessert, which would later cause his death".
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