San Martino in Rio: he killed his father with a hammer, his sentence to 24 years in prison was confirmed on appeal

The sentence of 24 years and two months’ imprisonment for Marco Eletti for the premeditated murder of his father and the attempted murder of his mother, on 24 February 2021 in San Martino in Rio, in the Reggio Emilia area, was confirmed in the second degree. The Court of Assizes of Appeal of Bologna confirmed the sentence of the Court of Assizes of the court of Reggio Emilia of February 2023, effectively rejecting the requests made by the prosecution (which in the first instance had requested life imprisonment) and the defense – entrusted to the lawyer Domenico Noris Bucchi – who asked for the aggravating circumstances of premeditation to be dropped as well as the granting of the prevailing generic mitigating factors. The reasons for the sentence are expected in sixty days, then the parties will evaluate a possible appeal to the Court of Cassation.

Eletti killed his father Paolo with a hammer in the family home and had tried to kill his mother Sabrina Guidetti who was saved after being found drugged and with her wrists cut next to her husband’s body that same day, while he was acquitted by accused of falsifying prescriptions to obtain benzodiazepines, a substance injected into cream puffs brought to the family and eaten by the mother.

Among the aggravating circumstances contested by prosecutor Piera Cristina Giannusa there was also that of parental relations with the victim, which however fell through in the preliminary hearing after the DNA revealed that Paolo was not Marco’s biological father. According to the prosecution, the motive can be traced back to the discovery of a double life linked to another gender identity of the father. But also to issues relating to the family home that the parents did not want to leave, but which the son would have liked to inherit right from the start.