Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
PIETRACATELLA – New developments in the investigation into the Pietracatella murders, in which Sara Di Vita, 15, and her mother Antonella, 50, died from ricin poisoning between 27 and 28 December 2025. Shortly after 9am today, officers from the Police Headquarters in Campobasso arrived outside the house on via Risorgimento to conduct a new search and a final walk-through before the property was released from seizure.
Operations on site were coordinated by Marco Graziano, head of the Flying Squad in Campobasso. At around 9.30am, Gianni Di Vita, husband and father of the two victims, also arrived at the building.
Property returned to family after ten months
The house, which had been sealed off since the early stages of the investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Larino, is now back in the family’s possession more than ten months after the tragedy:
- Previous inspections: the National Police (Polizia di Stato) had already entered the property several times in December, January and over the summer.
- Tests in Germany: on 30 July, a thorough technical inspection took place in the presence of Italian investigators, specialists from the Robert Koch-Institut and German experts, during which 131 samples and exhibits were collected.
- Extension for tests: the results of the analyses carried out in Berlin remain the key element awaited by the Public Prosecutor’s Office; the German experts have been granted a 30-day extension to complete the toxicological tests.
Investigative hypotheses and state of the inquiry
The investigation opened by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Larino is treating the case as a double murder by person or persons unknown. No one is currently listed in the register of those under investigation.
During the investigation, detectives have explored several lines of inquiry, including the possibility that the actual target of the poisoning may have been Gianni Di Vita himself, who has been questioned on multiple occasions by public prosecutors as a person with knowledge of the facts. The exact source of the ricin toxins, the method of administration and the means by which the two women were contaminated remain to be clarified.
