Elena Del Pozzo killed by her mother: what are the dark points of the infanticide

Catania, June 14, 2022 – A long interrogation followed by the confession of the crime. Martina Patti, 23, killed her 5-year-old daughter Elena. She hit her several times with a kitchen knife and then put her little body in some black sacks, before hiding it underground. The prosecutor hypothesizes a form of jealousy towards the current partner of the ex-partner, Alessandro Del Pozzo, Elena’s father. But in the background poisons emerge in the family, between accusations and lies. The paternal grandfather: “Whoever did it must pay”. Her wife adds to her dose: “she was authoritarian and domineering, she obsessed my son. She beat Elena and we often had to take it out of her hands.” On the other hand, the answer is not long in coming. “They left Martina alone, to be a mother when she was eighteen, a girl who dreamed of being a doctor and instead found herself raising a creature by herself”, the girl’s parents retort. The Catania prosecutor, Carmelo Zuccaro, orders Martina to be arrested on charges of multiple murder and body concealment. The investigators speak of a “sad family picture with two former cohabitants who, regardless of the apparently serene management of their daughter Elena, had established new ties and did not appear respectful to each other”. “There had been jealousies and violence and one of the possible reasons that led Martina Patti to make the gesture may be jealousy”. In the meantime, there is still some light to be shed on several points. The first concerns the dynamics of infanticide. Did she kill her just inside her house, returning from kindergarten, or instead, as it seems, did she chat for a long time with her daughter before killing her with some blows? Did Martina do it all by herself? She says yes, but it is quite complicated to think that the mother-Medea put her body in some black bags, if she loaded them …