Alessia Pifferi, sentenced to life in prison for leaving home alone for almost 6 days the little one DianaThen dead “of hardship and dehydration”, was animated by a “futile and selfish motive” or “giving yourself your own space autonomy” that is “a long weekend with your partner” failing “to fulfil the priority right/duty to care for the little daughter” of a year and a half. And in doing so he committed a crime of “very high severitynot only legal, but also human and social”. This is written by Court of Assizes of Milan in the reasons for the sentence with which, last May 13, he sentenced the woman, then 36 years old, to life imprisonment for homicide aggravated by trivial reasons and by the kinship bond: with his behavior he “killed”, even if unintentionally, the child.
In the 53 pages signed by Alessandro Santangelo, the judge who wrote the case, and the president of the Court, Ilio Mannucci Pacini, in addition to the reconstruction of when on 20 July two years ago the little girl was found lifeless in her camping cot, with only a baby bottle and an empty water bottle and on the cabinet a bottle of In – a tranquilizer that, it turned out, Alessia Pifferi had given her in the previous weeks and in small doses – the result of the psychiatric assessment in which it is argued that the woman was capable of understanding and willing. In fact, it is observed, “by her own admission (…) she was certainly aware of the disvalue of his own conduct of abandonment and of the danger (…) for Diana” and, therefore, it is reasonably certain that he had serious risks expected that the little girl was running: she left her without a babysitter and without the necessary care in an apartment in the outskirts of Milan to spend time with her partner who was not the child’s father. Apartment in which there were no baby food or other “food for children” in the refrigerator and pantry, while in the living room, in a bag and in a trolley, many clothes were found, about thirty, mostly evening dresses.
Furthermore, the Court “cannot ignore” that the 36-year-old, abandoning her daughter even on previous weekends, had “certainly” become aware of “the precarious conditions” in which she was raising her daughter. For these and other reasons, “there is no doubt that leaving Diana alone at home, with the knowledge of also exposing her to the risk of dying of hardship and dehydration, to give oneself some space for autonomy, in this case a long weekend with one’s partner, cannot but bring about the aggravating circumstance of futile reasons” which is added to that dictated by the mother-daughter relationship. In addition, “taking into account the extremely high gravity, not only legal, but also human and social, of the criminal act in dispute and the futile and selfish motive” it was not possible to grant Pifferi the mitigating circumstancesalso due to the procedural conduct “evaluated negatively” as it was characterised by “de-responsibilization“: he put forward, to justify himself, “objectively and knowingly false circumstances”, also placing the “moral responsibility” for the tragedy on his companion. This is a sign of a “lacking critical re-elaboration of his own homicidal actions”.
