Murder Pedrini, Renato Vecchia speaks: “Every day I regret, I was not in me”

San Benigno, the man killed his mother with 27 stab wounds. He had been out of a psychiatric facility for three days

SAN BENIGNO CANAVESE. “Every day I regret what I did, but at that moment I was not myself. That’s all”. He replies with a few essential words to the questions of the prosecutor Alessandro Gallo, Renato Vecchia, 46, from San Benigno, defended by lawyers Silvia Di Nunno and Calogero Piccadaci, who killed his mother Ermanna Pedrini with 27 stab wounds on 15 October 2020. He fully confirms the reconstruction of the Ivrea prosecutor’s office, even in the parts concerning the abuse of crack and cocaine before and after the murder.

On the triggering cause of the discussion with the mother, the darkness remains. “It was a quarrel about my separation and about money,” he explains to the prosecutor, then adds, urged on by the president of the Assize Court Vincenzo Bevilacqua: “I don’t remember if there was a specific triggering cause. It was too intense a fight, it was worse than usual, I don’t remember. ”

The dynamics of the murder, which took place during dinner, had been told shortly before him by the medical examiner of the ASL / To4 Mario Apostol. For the 27 injuries he must have used “a good knife and a lot of energy”, because the blade “was capable of breaking ribs and shoulder blade.” All blows inflicted with the intent of killing, therefore, also because the aggression starts from the neck, the jaw and finally hits the back with trauma to the marrow. “She died on the tip of the table – Old Woman will tell -, then she fell on the sofa.” In fact, Apostol dwells for a long time on the bloodstain found right next to the sofa at home. “From there we understand – says the coroner – that her body was sitting on the sofa, with her hands gathered in her lap”. Shortly thereafter he dragged the body from his legs, finally turned it over to the supine position. “I don’t know why I did it – replies Old Woman -, I was not in me”.

After the murder, Vecchia immediately joined his friend Paolo D’Angelo in Pont Canavese, with whom he consumed crack. “I had bought drugs in Turin – explains Vecchia -, on the 13th, 15th, then on the 16th morning, when I first stopped to pick up in San Giusto Canavese”. Vecchia had left Ville Turina, the psychiatric nursing home of San Maurizio Canavese on 12 October, after having entered it on 7 September. According to one of the psychologists who wrote the latest report on his mental state, “he was cooperative, motivated, but seemed to have a hard time questioning what he believed.”

The doctor who had welcomed him, Gianfranco Brunetti, explained that when he entered he was a bit delusional. He had a broken hand and claimed he got hurt helping his cop friend in an undercover operation.

A few months earlier, in June-July 2020, the lawyer who assisted him in the separation from his wife, Maria Luisa Margaria, also reports on delusional episodes. “Sometimes he would call me twice to tell me the same thing, when I told him he seemed to fall from the clouds – she explained -. Until July 23, he sent me 3 messages between 3.25 and 3.34 in which he expressed his intention to commit suicide. “In any case I have come to the end – he said -, don’t do itI do an autopsy because I committed suicide, do not waste time. Don’t bury me next to my father, because I don’t deserve it ”. Actually, then he attempted suicide, we went to get him with his mother ». According to Dr. Bosco del Fatebenefratelli of San Maurizio Canavese, where Vecchia is being held, among the contributing causes of the depressive episodes were the death of his father, separation from his wife and the loss of his job, all in the space of a few months. “The use of cocaine started at 42 is rather anomalous – he underlines -, for him it meant self-medication”. Now, however, Vecchia’s conditions would improve. “During the short marine stay – he explains – authorized by the court, everything went well”. At the words “short marine stay”, Ermanna Pedrini’s sister and niece, sitting behind the lawyer Marco Stabile, startled.