Sara Di Pietrantonio, a 22-year-old Rome university student, died early Sunday morning after her 27-year-old ex-boyfriend Vincenzo Paduano set her car on fire. After running out of the vehicle, Paduano allegedly chased her down the street and eventually lit her on fire as well.
According to investigators, Paduano doused his ex in alcohol before setting her face on fire with a cigarette lighter.
“I can say that in 25 years in this work I have never seen something so atrocious,” said Luigi Silipo, the lead police official in the investigation.
Roma, cadavere carbonizzato vicino l'auto: giallo sulla morte di Sara Di Pietrantonio https://t.co/LtpVa6hg0E pic.twitter.com/nsdOj5nX8s
— Today (@Today_it) May 29, 2016
After eight hours of interrogation, Paduano finally confessed to killing Di Pietrantonio and admitted that he “didn’t accept being abandoned” by the woman. According to prosecutors, Paduano was being held for premeditated murder with reason to believe that he organized and planned the attack that cost Di Pietrantonio her life.
From The New York Daily News,
Silipo said the suspect walked off his job as a security guard about 3 am and waited outside the home of Di Pietrantonio’s current boyfriend. Then, after the woman left the home and drove off by herself, Paduano drove off, eventually forcing her car to the side of the road, he said.
“He got into her car, and after an argument, doused the car (interior) with a small bottle of alcohol, and doused Sara, too,” Silipo said. “She ran out, he torched the car, caught up with her, and after about 100 meters” set her ablaze, leaving her to die “in an atrocious manner,” the police official said.
A nearby security camera showed two cars passing the couple while the incident was going on, but neither stopped to help, despite Di Pietrantonio’s obvious screams for help.
Prosecutor Maria Monteleone insists that if one of those cars stopped to help, Di Pietrantonio’s life could have been spared. She also encouraged women to “not to keep hidden any threatening behavior by those who insist they love you, but it’s not that way.”
Chamber of Deputies President Laura Boldrini announced Monday that a change in cultural mentality was needed, and that women “must understand that those who should be ashamed are the violent ones, not the women who suffer threats.”
