Five years ago, a mother in Italy was devastated when her daughter was brutally murdered. The mother wore a t-shirt with a photo from her daughter’s autopsy to an appeal hearing for her daughter’s killer.
Innocent Oseghale was a 32-year-old Nigerian asylum seeker. He was convicted of murdering, raping, and destroying Pamela Mastropietro’s body. Alessandra Verni, the victim’s mother, was there to support her son. The front of her daughter’s mutilated corpse was visible on her t-shirt.
“Look what they did to her,” Verni stated.
“Have you seen what they did to her?” she continued. “That man who raped and tortured her should rot in jail!”
Oseghale did, indeed, torture Mastropietro before horrifically murdering her in January 2018. Hours before her death, Mastropietro had left a drug rehabilitation facility in Macerata — about an hour from Perugia — where she had been receiving treatment. She then walked to Macerata to look for drugs and there met Oseghale, a local drug dealer.
Two suitcases were found in a nearby ditch by a passerby the next day. Mastropietro was found inside the suitcases. Oseghale’s 2019 evidence indicated that he had sliced her into pieces while she was still alive. However, the coroner discovered that she died of multiple stab wounds.
Verni wore a shirt that showed Mastropietro’s body parts on a table to the appeal hearing. But, news outlets have pixilated the shirt so that these details can’t be confirmed. Verni was found with her blood-stained clothes at the home of the drug dealer. He claimed she had died from a heroin overdose.
Oseghale was confronted by Verni in the appeal proceedings. Oseghale shouted at Verni, “Tell me!” After the murderer and his mother had been separated, Oseghale shouted at Verni, “Tell me!” ”
Oseghale was found guilty of murder, rape, and destruction of the body. Oseghale has been sentenced to life imprisonment and 18 months of solitary confinement. Oseghale claims that he didn’t sexually assault the young girl before he murdered her.
“I wonder what is the point of re-prosecuting Oseghale, questioning sexual violence, and opening up the possibility of a sentence reduction,” Verni stated. “Did he not exercise enough violence to merit life imprisonment? Anyone who saw those images knew that if they were made public they would shake consciences.”
Verni also insisted that Oseghale is not the only person responsible for her daughter’s horrific death: “There were other people with Osenghale the day he killed Pamela. I feel that no one is being investigated. No one is looking for these men.”
