The "lies" and "deceptions" of Alessandro Impagnatiello, who on May 27 killed his seven-month pregnant partner Giulia Tramontano with 37 stab wounds, have all been brought before the Assize Court of Milan.
It was the Italian-English girl with whom the former barman had a parallel relationship who retraced those months of lies, in the room crowded with journalists and onlookers.
Initially behind a screen so as not to let her meet his gaze, then removed, by her choice, halfway through the deposition, the 23-year-old, increasingly determined, told their story until the meeting with Giulia, the same day of the crime , to confront him about his lies.
"Please save yourself as soon as you can.
Now I want and must save you and your baby", she had written to Tramontano a few hours before seeing her.
She was also expecting a child from the 30-year-old and had chosen to have an abortion.
She who that May 27th, when Giulia had already died at home in Senago, decided not to open the door to him and perhaps thus she saved herself.
"Not knowing how to handle the situation, I wanted to help Giulia - she explained her testimony through tears, answering the questions of the prosecutor Alessia Menegazzo and the deputy Letizia Mannella - to make her understand what was happening".
There was a shock in the courtroom when a video shot on May 20, a week before her murder, was shown, when the man was having dinner with the 23-year-old for her birthday.
"In September I hope to be officially engaged to her", he said, looking at the girl in a joking tone.
That evening, she had told Giulia that she was at a barbecue.
"To come to your birthday she made me receive the furniture for the child's bedroom alone," the 29-year-old said in an audio sent to the other, heard at the hearing.
"She told me she was going to a barbecue. What a piece of s...".
The 23-year-old also spoke about that false DNA test that he had shown her to convince her that the little Thiago that Giulia Tramontano was carrying in her womb was not hers.
"When I went on a trip in May, he lent me his tablet and there I found the DNA test file - she explained -. I saw his search history and found the images to create the document" .
Then, her decision not to tell him anything so as to gather "more evidence" and not allow him to continue lying to her.
Impagnatiello, sitting in the cage, only looked up when a video of the baby shower celebrations, filmed with Giulia a year ago, was shown.
After the first seconds of the video, he burst into tears and lowered his eyes again.
Loredana Femiano, Giulia's mother, was later heard from and retraced the days following the discovery of her pregnancy, during which Impagnatiello apparently changed his mind several times about whether or not he wanted a child.
When Giulia disappeared, she said, "he certainly wasn't like me, I was desperate. I didn't see any desperation in him".
Responding to a question from civil party lawyer Giovanni Cacciapuoti, the 29-year-old's mother spoke of her pain: "I no longer have a life, I lost a daughter and a grandson, but my children also lost a mother. I I'm not a mother anymore."
In the afternoon, Impagnatiello's mother and brother were heard.
"I wanted to die. I lost my nephew Thiago and my son Alessandro", said his mother Sabrina Paulis, sobbing.
On May 27, "this girl", he said, referring to the 23-year-old, "sent Giulia messages of what he wrote to her, showed her photos of their house and videos together. I told her 'Giulia, just look'" .
The comments outside the Impagnatiello defense courtroom are online.
"Despite the fact that she knew that she had been her lover for about a month, she decided to collect the evidence and then have this confrontation with Giulia", observed the defender Giulia Geradini.
And again: "She played a role in the affair and certainly the meeting with Giulia was the spark of everything, because if there hadn't been that confrontation we wouldn't be here today."
Meanwhile, the Tramontano family, including his sister Chiara, continues to resolutely ask for "only one condition: life imprisonment".
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