«Life imprisonment»: Giovanni Padovani, the 28-year-old Serie D footballer who massacred his ex-partner Alessandra Matteuzzi on 23 August 2022, was sentenced to the maximum sentence, as requested by the prosecution. Monday in the courtroom in Bologna was the reading of the sentence of the Court of Assizes presided over by judge Domenico Pasquariello, who recognized all the aggravating circumstances contested by the prosecution: premeditation, emotional relationship, stalking and futile motives.
The sister bursts into tears and hugs the mayor
Upon reading the sentence, the victim’s sister, Stefania Matteuzzi, burst into tears and hugged the mayor of Bologna Matteo Lepore, who replaced himself as a civil party in the trial. In the courtroom were friends of the victim, as well as the accused and her mother. Padovani watched the reading of the verdict impassively.
The intervention of the accused before the sentence
Before the Court met in chambers. The accused made spontaneous statements stating: “I’m no longer that man, I wasn’t thinking about it. But if you think it is normal to kill a woman, as beautiful and intelligent as Alessandra, then I deserve a life sentence.” However, added the 28-year-old claiming his inability to understand and want at the time of the crime, “if you recognize that what I did was a disorder that I had and that I have then consider everything without being influenced by public opinion”. Padovani spoke for the first time, admitting “what I did was very serious and unforgivable”, but claiming that he had done it in the throes of a schizoid delirium which, according to the defense, had already afflicted him before the crime.
Stalking and feminicide
On 23 August 2022 Padovani, a 27-year-old Serie D footballer, killed his 56-year-old ex-partner in the courtyard of his home in via dell’Arcoveggio, a suburb of Bologna. He hit her with a hammer that he had brought with her in his backpack, then with a bench taken from the courtyard, then with kicks and punches. He smashed her skull and face. To the victim’s neighbors who tried in vain to stop him he shouted “I don’t care about going to prison, I have to kill her”. Alessandra died after twenty minutes of agony. The relationship between the two had been going on for a year, with ups and downs but immediately with the manifestation of Padovani’s obsessive and persecutory behavior towards the woman. He had stolen her social media passwords, video surveillance cameras, her emails, he forced her to constantly video call him to check who and where she was with. Three weeks before the feminicide, the exasperated victim had reported it to the police. The Prosecutor’s Office had opened a case for stalking, but no precautionary measures had been taken against the man.