Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
TRENTO / NEWS & CRIME – Fourteen years spent behind bars protesting her innocence in vain, even though another woman had already confessed to the crime. One of the most controversial legal cases in recent years ends with a stunning acquittal: the Trento Assize Court has acquitted Monica Busetto, 75, a former healthcare assistant from Mestre (Venice), accepting a second appeal to overturn her conviction and quashing the 25-year prison sentence imposed for the murder of her neighbour Lida Taffi Pamio, 87, on 20 December 2012.
What overturned the verdict, after years of legal battles, was a technical analysis of a necklace recovered and examined during an investigation by the TV programme “Le Iene”, which dismantled the evidential framework on which the prosecution had relied.
The 2012 Mestre murder and the necklace clue
At the time, Monica Busetto worked as an elderly care assistant at Venice’s San Giovanni e Paolo hospital and lived alone on the second floor of a building on the mainland, directly opposite the victim’s home. The 87-year-old was found dead in particularly brutal circumstances: struck on the head with a nutcracker and subjected to 40 stab wounds inflicted with four kitchen knives, two of which had broken blades still embedded in the body.
Despite no signs of forced entry at the door and footprints in the snow leading away from the building, investigators soon focused on the neighbour, with whom there had been long-standing disagreements. The only item missing from the ransacked flat was a necklace: the discovery of a similar piece of jewellery in a jewellery box at Busetto’s home led the Flying Squad to make the arrest, which ultimately resulted in a final conviction.
The other woman’s confession and the trial inconsistencies
Three years after the Mestre murder, a second killing with strikingly similar methods – that of Francesca Vianello – led to the arrest of Susanna Milly Lazzarini, who also confessed to killing Lida Taffi Pamio. However, because the two women were tried in separate proceedings, a legal contradiction arose:
- Opposing verdicts: while Busetto was being convicted of the 2012 murder, in the case against Lazzarini the judge acquitted her of that charge, amid subsequent retractions and contradictory statements in which Lazzarini herself even claimed they had acted together.
- The first rejection and the turning point: an initial appeal for a retrial submitted by Busetto’s lawyers had been rejected by the Trento judges. The defence then filed a second appeal, focusing on the necklace seized from the former healthcare assistant’s home and proving it did not belong to the victim.
The role of “Le Iene” and the decisive expert reports
Crucial evidence for the defence came from journalistic investigations by reporter Massimiliano Andreetta for “Le Iene”, supported by expert consultations commissioned by the programme. In the second retrial, the Trento judging panel examined the entire case file along with expert reports from the defence on the length of the necklace and the storage of the evidence, ultimately delivering the acquittal that restores Monica Busetto’s freedom after fourteen years in prison.
