Murder mum Franzoni released to house arrest
(ANSA) - Bologna, June 26 - Annamaria Franzoni, sentenced to 16 years in prison for the 2002 murder of her toddler son in a very high-profile case that has gained continuous headlines in the Italian media for 12 years, was released to house arrest Thursday after a psychiatrist last week said she could be introduced back into society. After two hours' processing, Franzoni left Bologna prison for the village of Ripoli Santa Cristina, in the Apennines about 40 km from Bologna, where her family lives.
Judges concluded Franzoni would have enough rehabilitation support and therapy in the local community.
Franzoni's husband Stefano Lorenzi declined to comment on his wife's release. The case involved the death of three-year-old Samuele Lorenzi on January 31, 2002 who was killed by a blow to the head while sleeping in his parents' bed in the Val'Aosta mountain village of Cogne, an isolated community whose solitude allegedly preyed on Franzoni's nerves.
Franzoni always maintained that a stranger broke into the family home and killed Lorenzi.
She was initially sentenced to 30 years in prison, but the sentence was later reduced.
"I don't think she'll do any more harm," said the former chief prosecutor of Aosta, Maria Del Savio Bonaudo, who led the prosecution team in the case. "Conditions have changed; the children are grown up, she no longer has that tough life that explained a lot of things, there's no longer the solitude of Cogne, and now her family members are very supportive of her," she said. The mayor of Cogne expressed relief that Franzoni is banned from setting foot in her former hometown as a condition of her release from prison.
"I do not believe that the courts have taken our wills into consideration, but the decision to ban her return to Cogne certainly does not displease us," said Franco Allera. "For us it is a closed matter, and the sooner we forget it, the better it is," Allera added. A priest at the parish where Franzoni worked outside of prison through Thursday morning reported that "will completely change her life" and was happy about her impending transfer. "I spoke to her and she said she is content," said Father Giovanni Nicolini, parish priest of Sant'Antonio di Padova (ST Anthony of Padua) Church in the town of Dozza, about 30 km from Bologna.
"There was a positive forecast.
In recent days the climate that was breathed was one of hope," the priest told ANSA. Asked whether Franzoni would continue her work in a sewing workshop at a social cooperative, the priest said, "No, because we only accept people who are in prison". In the so-called Cogne case (known in Italian as caso Cogne) the weapon that dealt the blow to Samuele Lorenzis' head was never found.
In July 2004 an Italian court sentenced Franzoni to 30 years in prison for aggravated murder.
However, on 27 April 2007 the Corte d'Assise d'appello in Turin reduced the term to 16 years of jail for homicide.
Franzoni has consistently denied the charge, asserting that the alleged intruder killed her child in the few minutes she left home to accompany her older son Davide, then six years old, to the school bus station. The case has been dissected repeatedly on prime-time Italian TV, especially on the top-rated late-evening current affairs show Porta a Porta. Host Bruno Vespa regularly wields his iconic pointing stick to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the prosecutors' and defence cases. His verdicts were initially even-handed but later came down heavily on the side of Franzoni's guilt.
In December 2006 Franzoni wrote a short book entitled The Truth in which she once again protested her innocence, describing her family life as "incredibly" perfect and unproblematic. In the book, she presented herself as a doting mother, a happy wife and a devoted Catholic, surrounded by "cruel and jealous" neighbours.
She wrote she had no idea who the murderer could be and that she never blamed or accused anyone.
Franzoni's husband Stefano Lorenzi declined to comment on his wife's release. The case involved the death of three-year-old Samuele Lorenzi on January 31, 2002 who was killed by a blow to the head while sleeping in his parents' bed in the Val'Aosta mountain village of Cogne, an isolated community whose solitude allegedly preyed on Franzoni's nerves.
Franzoni always maintained that a stranger broke into the family home and killed Lorenzi.
She was initially sentenced to 30 years in prison, but the sentence was later reduced.
"I don't think she'll do any more harm," said the former chief prosecutor of Aosta, Maria Del Savio Bonaudo, who led the prosecution team in the case. "Conditions have changed; the children are grown up, she no longer has that tough life that explained a lot of things, there's no longer the solitude of Cogne, and now her family members are very supportive of her," she said. The mayor of Cogne expressed relief that Franzoni is banned from setting foot in her former hometown as a condition of her release from prison.
"I do not believe that the courts have taken our wills into consideration, but the decision to ban her return to Cogne certainly does not displease us," said Franco Allera. "For us it is a closed matter, and the sooner we forget it, the better it is," Allera added. A priest at the parish where Franzoni worked outside of prison through Thursday morning reported that "will completely change her life" and was happy about her impending transfer. "I spoke to her and she said she is content," said Father Giovanni Nicolini, parish priest of Sant'Antonio di Padova (ST Anthony of Padua) Church in the town of Dozza, about 30 km from Bologna.
"There was a positive forecast.
In recent days the climate that was breathed was one of hope," the priest told ANSA. Asked whether Franzoni would continue her work in a sewing workshop at a social cooperative, the priest said, "No, because we only accept people who are in prison". In the so-called Cogne case (known in Italian as caso Cogne) the weapon that dealt the blow to Samuele Lorenzis' head was never found.
In July 2004 an Italian court sentenced Franzoni to 30 years in prison for aggravated murder.
However, on 27 April 2007 the Corte d'Assise d'appello in Turin reduced the term to 16 years of jail for homicide.
Franzoni has consistently denied the charge, asserting that the alleged intruder killed her child in the few minutes she left home to accompany her older son Davide, then six years old, to the school bus station. The case has been dissected repeatedly on prime-time Italian TV, especially on the top-rated late-evening current affairs show Porta a Porta. Host Bruno Vespa regularly wields his iconic pointing stick to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the prosecutors' and defence cases. His verdicts were initially even-handed but later came down heavily on the side of Franzoni's guilt.
In December 2006 Franzoni wrote a short book entitled The Truth in which she once again protested her innocence, describing her family life as "incredibly" perfect and unproblematic. In the book, she presented herself as a doting mother, a happy wife and a devoted Catholic, surrounded by "cruel and jealous" neighbours.
She wrote she had no idea who the murderer could be and that she never blamed or accused anyone.