Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
CAMPOBASSO / NEWS – The investigation into the tragic deaths of Antonella Di Ielsi and her 15-year-old daughter Sara Di Vita, who died on 28 and 27 December 2025 respectively in Pietracatella, in the province of Campobasso, from severe ricin poisoning, has taken new investigative and scientific turns.
As detectives continue to examine the family’s network of relationships, the inquiry led by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Larino is approaching a crucial technical-forensic stage with a trip to Germany.
[Image: A forensic science laboratory conducting tests on seized items]
A lab technician from the Riccia Agricultural Institute interviewed
On the testimony front, a laboratory technician from the Riccia Agricultural Institute was interviewed as a person with relevant information at the offices of the Flying Squad in Campobasso. The man, a Pietracatella resident and the husband of a long-standing friend of Gianni Di Vita, arrived at Police Headquarters at around 11am in a police car and left just after 12.20pm; the contents of the conversation are currently confidential.
The same school was already the subject of a computer forensic search on 13 October, ordered by the Public Prosecutor’s Office: investigators had seized data from the school’s central system — comprising 71 computers — to check for any online searches related to ricin, the castor bean plant or the use of anonymous browsing tools such as Tor. In recent days, friends and teachers of Sara and Alice Di Vita have also been interviewed to reconstruct the family’s habits and associations before the tragedy, with further hearings already scheduled for next week.
Five items to be examined at Berlin’s Robert Koch Institute
On 19 and 20 November, the investigation will move to the laboratories of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin. Officers from the Flying Squad and the Campobasso Forensic Police, working with the German police, will carry out targeted tests to search for latent fingerprints and biological traces on five items taken on 30 July from the Di Vita family home in via Risorgimento (which was released from seizure on 6 November), selected from the 131 samples collected in total:
- A pink bag containing kefir, found on the stairs;
- A rubbish bin;
- A water bottle found on the floor between a bedside table and a bed;
- A yellowish bottle with liquid and sediment at the bottom;
- A pack of work gloves.
Forensic tests before toxin analysis and the two lines of inquiry
The decision to carry out fingerprint and biological tests first follows specific technical advice from the Robert Koch Institute specialists: the chemical analyses needed to detect ricin could indeed alter or destroy any biological traces and fingerprints still present on the surfaces. For this reason, the Larino prosecutor Elvira Antonelli has ordered that the forensic tests be carried out first. The operations will begin at 10am on 19 November, will be fully video-recorded and — as these are one-off technical tests — will involve defence lawyers and expert consultants, with the minutes to be filed within five days.
The investigation is proceeding along two separate tracks: on the one hand, the hypothesis of a double voluntary homicide aggravated by the use of poison, currently attributed to unknown persons; on the other, an examination of possible medical responsibility, with five staff from Cardarelli hospital under investigation for involuntary manslaughter in connection with the deaths of mother and daughter and the injuries sustained by Giovanni Di Vita.
