Double femicide in Castelfranco. Gabriela Trandafir had denounced her husband at least three times who killed her along with her daughter

MODENA – Gabriela Trandafirkilled in Cavazzona di Castelfranco Emilia with her daughter Renata from her husband Salvatore Montefusco, had reported her spouse at least three times. The first complaint for ill-treatment is from July 2021, with an integration in August and another complaint filed in December.

The request for dismissal of the Modena Public Prosecutor’s Office also dates back to that period, according to which the conduct, albeit in the context of a difficult family situation, remained verbal. “In the opposition we highlighted that there had been much more concrete attitudes”, explains the lawyer Annalisa Tironi, who assists the victim.

The lawyer: “I’m shocked. Now protect the son”

In the hearings this morning in court in Modena, the lawyer Annalisa Tironi stressed the importance of protecting the minor child of the woman and Salvatore Montefusco. “This is my legal concern, the son is the victim of a giant tragedy,” said the lawyer. “I am thrilled and saddened, Mrs. Gabriela told me that finally the day of separation had arrived”, continues Tironi. In fact, today the lawsuit between the two spouses began. As part of this proceeding, we also learned of three complaints that Montefusco had filed against his wife, “in our opinion entirely instrumental to the appearance of the constitution”, said the lawyer.

Double femicide in Castelfranco, “Renata was afraid, she said: he’s bad, he can do everything”

Montefusco fired 7-8 shots at the women

Salvatore Montefusco, 69, confessed to the Carabinieri of Castelfranco Emilia that he had killed his wife and stepdaughter. Seven or eight shots fired with a sawed-off shotgun: the first to be killed in the backyard was Renata Alexandra, then her spouse reached by the barrage of bullets despite her hiding in the house. Then at the sight of his 17-year-old son, “I don’t know what stopped me,” said the man, a building contractor. Then, after getting a wound in the face, he left home, so much so that the military had thought of an escape, to go to a bar instead. “I saw him come in dirty with blood – said the bartender – he asked me to call the carabinieri if he hadn’t killed everyone”.

Montefusco was thus released and constituted himself in the barracks. A double murder, tragic and absurd ending to a worn-out relationship between the man, his wife and her daughter. The couple was separating and, according to what emerged, the two women wanted to keep the house in which they lived, a hypothesis that the man who would have physically built it in the past was against.

Montefusco was already known to the police for some tax crimes and bankruptcy but above all because in the 90s he rebelled against the pizzo requested by a Camorra clan that had flooded the area allowing the arrest of 16 people. The 69-year-old had already had three daughters in his first marriage then the meeting with the woman of Romanian origin with whom he had had another child. The man, defended by the lawyer Marco Rossi, remains in prison: he will have to answer for a double homicide in multiple cases.

Double femicide: “Foretold tragedy”

“The signs were there and we had to intervene promptly but the red code was not applied correctly. We cannot forgive ourselves for not having avoided yet another and double femicide” declares the M5S deputy Stefania Ascari.

“Another family tragedy, yet another, impossible to ignore. Faced with the heinous murder of the two women, what is certain is that – once again – we have not been able to do enough, as a community, as police, as all authorities “. This is what the Pd of Modena. “The gaps that pervade our legal system, still unable to effectively protect women seeking help, emerge relentlessly: the measures arrive too late and insufficiently compared to what is really necessary. In the presence of a partner who uses violence in any form , the separation – factual and / or legal – results in a death sentence if the existing protection tools are not activated promptly “.

The anti-violence centers: “Women were not believed”

“Unfortunately, women who report violence are often not believed, because they are serving that legacy of ancient thought for which they would lie. Women do not lie. This is demonstrated by the long, uninterrupted trail of blood; the blood of women killed, by husbands, ex husbands, cohabitants, ex cohabitants. One woman killed every seventy-two hours, on average “. Thus the coordination of the anti-violence centers of Emilia-Romagna intervenes on yesterday’s double femicide in Cavazzona. “A cultural change is urgently needed, it is urgent that the police and the judiciary question themselves about the modalities of their intervention”.