One year after the suspicious death of an 85-year-old woman found in her home in Castellina in Chianti, Siena province, on August 7, 2024, the prosecutor’s office has announced that two women are under investigation for voluntary murder and aggravated robbery.
Chief Prosecutor Andrea Boni stated that a lengthy and complex preliminary evidence hearing has been underway since October 2024, a circumstance that also explains why the victim’s body has been held at the morgue for over twelve months.
The victim was named Franca Genovini. When she was found dead, her passing was initially believed to be from natural causes. However, the prosecutor’s office clarified in a statement that “preliminary investigations are ongoing against two women for the alleged concurrent crimes of multi-aggravated voluntary murder, multi-aggravated robbery, and self-money laundering.”
The day after the elderly woman’s death, the prosecutor ordered an autopsy. “The first immediate investigations,” explained Prosecutor Boni, “along with the acquisition of footage from municipal surveillance cameras and other evidence, confirmed that the suspects had sold some gold items belonging to the victim to a gold-buying business in Poggibonsi,” a town not far from Castellina.
Subsequently, the prosecutor requested a preventive seizure of the money obtained from the sale of the gold jewelry in relation to self-money laundering. This seizure was ordered by the preliminary investigations judge (GIP) on October 3, 2024. Meanwhile, the autopsy raised suspicions that Genovini’s death was linked to violent acts by other persons. The autopsy was therefore halted, and the two women were formally registered as suspects for murder and aggravated robbery.
“Simultaneously, search and seizure warrants were issued against the suspects, as well as an inspection warrant for the RIS Carabinieri forensics team of Rome to examine the victim’s home and her car,” further explained the Siena prosecutor’s office. Also in October 2024, the defense for one of the suspects requested the preliminary evidence hearing, which was granted by the GIP.
“From that date until today, the collegiate preliminary evidence hearing has been ongoing and presents multiple and particular elements of complexity,” concluded Chief Prosecutor Andrea Boni. “The difficulty of this investigative act has made it necessary to keep the body at the disposal of the judicial authorities until now.”