Woman found dead in swimming pool at Erba, ex-husband arrested for murder
Patrizia Monteleone, 64, was found dead in the swimming pool at her home in Erba on 27 September. Her ex-husband Carmine Civitillo, 76, was arrested on 31 October on suspicion of aggravated voluntary murder.
Murder at Erba, discovery in swimming pool
According to virgilio.it, Patrizia Monteleone, 64, was killed in her residence in Erba, in the province of Como. The woman, disabled and confined to a wheelchair, was found dead on 27 September in the swimming pool at her home. Carabinieri from the Como provincial command arrested her ex-husband Carmine Civitillo, 76, for murder on the evening of 31 October.
The order for preventive detention in prison was executed in the province of Benevento, where the man had moved a few days earlier after the small villa had been placed under seizure. Civitillo is being investigated for aggravated voluntary murder.
The sequence of events reconstructed by investigators
According to the prosecution, Civitillo allegedly suffocated his ex-wife by forcefully compressing her mouth, pushed her wheelchair towards the edge of the swimming pool, and then threw her into the water in an attempt to simulate an accident. The autopsy allegedly revealed lacerations around the mouth consistent with suffocation.
The ex-husband's initial account did not convince investigators: Civitillo had stated that he had left the house in the morning and returned late in the morning, finding the wheelchair beside the swimming pool and his ex-wife in the water. From the outset of the investigation, detectives considered it unlikely that the woman, unable to move independently, could have reached the swimming pool on her own and fallen into the water.
The investigation and findings
The Como public prosecutor's office ordered a series of technical and scientific examinations, forensic medical examinations, telephone interceptions, and analysis of surveillance camera systems. The examinations supported the theory of voluntary murder.
The couple had separated several years earlier. Monteleone had been left semi-paralysed following a stroke and had moved back into the ex-husband's villa a few months before, living there with her daughter and her daughter's partner, while awaiting alternative accommodation.
Source: Google News IT — Crime (it)