Marta Russo

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Marta Russo (born April 13, 1975 in Rome , † May 14, 1997 ibid) was an Italian law student . Her murder in 1997 and the investigation that followed caused an international stir. The crime could not be fully clarified until today.

Sequence of events

When Russo and her friend Iolanda Ricci crossed the courtyard of the Law Faculty of the University of Rome at 11:34 a.m. on Friday, May 9, 1997 , she suddenly collapsed. A .22 caliber bullet hit her in the temple . Russo initially fell into a coma, then succumbed to her injuries four days later.

The course of the investigation

The police started investigations around the faculty. During their work, the police came across a "wall of silence" that has been quoted again and again. The Italian public, sensitized to crimes of the Mafia because of its extensive activities, became increasingly indignant, as public opinion suspected a traditional vow of silence by the “Cosa Nostra”, a so-called “ Omertà ”, as the cause of the slow progress of the investigations. The case also attracted international attention because of its mysteriousness.

Memorial plaque for Marta Russo at the University of Rome

After weeks of mixed investigations, two faculty students came forward with a tip. The ambitious lecturers in legal philosophy Giovanni Scattone (then 30 years old) and Salvatore Ferraro (then 31) had argued during a seminar a few weeks before the crime that a perfect murder was possible. Scattone is said to have opened the seminar with the following words: "It is impossible to solve a murder if the perpetrator has no motive and if the murder weapon is never found." In the absence of alternatives, the police focused on them. Meanwhile, public outrage intensified over the possibility that Marta Russo might have fallen victim to pathological ambition or curiosity. In fact, the gun was never found, and the two suspects had no motive, as there was evidence that they did not know Marta Russo. It was difficult to find a motive for the murder at all, since Marta Russo came from an intact family background and was popular. Due to a happy relationship, the police quickly dismissed the motive of jealousy.

The note from the students ended the secrecy of the university environment. A secretary of the institute said she was in the same room as Scattore, who shot all at once, at the time of the crime. However, out of sympathy, she did not want to betray him and his colleague Ferraro. The assumption of the two lecturers that a “perfect crime” cannot be solved, especially through the increasingly contradicting testimony of witnesses, was confirmed: the secretary increasingly contradicted herself, so that she became less and less credible as a witness. In addition, her testimony could not be used in court because a video of her interrogation was released in which three police officers tried to force her to repeat her testimony during the trial.

Other, mostly academic, staff of the faculty also proved to be unwilling to cooperate. Its chairman, Bruno Romano, is said to have denied statements and, when the investigators arrived, he refused to break off ongoing tests in order to enable searches.

Process flow

In the same year, the Italian judiciary opened the trial against the two doctoral students. The trial developed into a circumstantial trial, with the accused hindering the progress of the trial with a skilful defense that mixed legal elements with illegal elements such as perjury . The case was dealt with by three courts until, in 2003, Scattore and Ferraro were sentenced to seven and a half years and five years and eight months in prison for negligent homicide , respectively. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had confessed to the accused, but his initiative to pardon the accused failed in the Italian parliament .

Organ donation

After completing the examinations on her body, Russo's parents released their organs for transplant , on the grounds that something useful should still be done to them.

Television productions

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ la Repubblica / cronaca: Marta Russo, due processi per il delitto della Sapienza. Retrieved May 8, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Agency report.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Hamburger Morgenpost , July 4, 1997; Retrieved February 10, 2007@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / archiv.mopo.de  
  3. ↑ The impulse to hold hands was strong: this woman now had the heart of a twenty-year-old student from Rome, Marta Russo, whose parents donated her organs after she had been shot. ( Memento of the original from December 10, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nicholasgreen.org
personal data
SURNAME Russo, Marta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian law student
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1975
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1997
Place of death Rome