An Italian village has been left reeling after it emerged that a local babysitter is at the centre of a ‘house of horrors’ infanticide investigation, with the bodies of two newborn babies found buried in her garden.
The suspect, named as 22-year-old Chiara Petrolini, was taken into custody by police after DNA tests allegedly proved her to be the mother of one of the babies, a boy.
Described as a ‘model university student’, Petrolini lived at the home with her parents and had been on holiday in New York with them when the grim discovery was made.
Police have been examining her family’s villa and garden in the quiet commune of Vignale di Traversetolo near Parma since last month, when her grandmother’s dog dug up the body.
A leaked autopsy said the baby had been buried alive as ‘soil was found in the lungs’ and last week a second body was discovered, but as yet no further details have been revealed as to the cause of death.
Chiara Petrolini lived at the home with her parents and had been on holiday in New York with them when the grim discovery was made
Petrolini, was taken into custody by police after DNA tests allegedly proved her to be the mother of one of the babies, a boy
Police have been examining the villa and garden in the quiet village of Vignale di Traversetolo near Parma since last month
Further tests on the body of the first baby to be discovered have confirmed the father is the woman’s boyfriend, a 22-year-old named locally as Emanuele.
Unconfirmed reports have also emerged that the second body was found after Petrolini confessed to police.
She is now being held on suspicion of infanticide, and has reportedly insisted that she acted alone, without anyone else’s knowledge.
The law student is thought to have kept her pregnancy hidden before inducing her labour in the fortieth week and giving birth alone in her bathroom on August 7.
She then allegedly killed the baby and hid him in the back garden. Just two days later, she went on holiday with her parents to the US, a trip which had been planned for some time.
The day she left, Italian media reports, her grandmother’s dog dug up the baby’s lifeless corpse, which had been wrapped in a sheet hidden in a hole in the garden.
The grandmother had initially mistaken the body for an animal and had called a neighbour, who alerted the police after making the horrific discovery.
Investigators looked through Petrolini’s phone and internet searches, which reportedly led them to make the shocking discovery of a second newborn.
Petrolini allegedly looked up how to abort ‘a second child’ online, according to Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
Her friends and boyfriend said they hadn’t noticed anything and had no idea she was pregnant.
Petrolini concealed her pregnancy by eating almost nothing for months, maintaining her slim figure even when she was full term, Italian media reports
Her ‘distraught’ boyfriend told Italian media: ‘I didn’t know anything, I can’t believe it.’ He insisted that had he known he could have taken care of the child.
‘I would have wanted that child, I could have kept him by myself. I’m 22, but I work and my mother would have helped me,’ he reportedly said.
Petrolini concealed her pregnancy by eating almost nothing for months, maintaining her slim figure even when she was full term, La Stampa reports.
A close friend of Petrolini told La Repubblica that before leaving for her holiday the young woman had displayed ‘a calm that now scares me’.
‘I’m still shocked,’ the unnamed friend said. I had to go over everything step by step because I was questioned by the [police]. I can’t get over it, it’s as if the world had turned upside down in front of me.’
Neighbour Gabriele Volpi said: ‘When the news came out last month the first body had been found my girlfriend showed me pictures of the woman on holiday in New York.
‘I just couldn’t believe it, there she was standing with skyscrapers in the background and they had found a body in her garden.
‘I don’t know her that well but I know her boyfriend very well, she is a friend of my girlfriend but I know him.
‘This is a very well to do area, I can’t believe something like this has happened here.’
Local mayor Simone Dall’Orto said: ‘They appeared to be the classic, normal family. The girl is a model university student, she is studying law.
‘The father is a businessman, and the mother also works locally, they are the most unsuspecting family you can imagine.
‘There is a heavy atmosphere in the village and people are already calling it a house of horrors, nobody can believe it.
Her grandmother’s dog dug up the baby’s lifeless corpse, which had been wrapped in a sheet hidden in a hole in the garden of the family home
‘The police are carrying out their investigations, when news of the first body was found there was shock but then to hear of a second body is unbelievable.
‘I know the family have left the house and moved away from the village, we can only hope that this chapter of our history closes quickly.’
In a statement the local prosecutor in Parma confirmed that an investigation had been launched into the discovery of the two bodies and the woman was the lone suspect.
It added: ‘As far as we can establish the pregnancies were in secret and without the knowledge of the family or the father of the first child or friends.
‘It would also appear that no medical facility or doctor was aware of the pregnancies but investigations are continuing.’
