Milan, Aug. 26 (LaPresse) – Alessia Pifferi was fully capable of understanding and making decisions when she killed her 18-month-old daughter Diana in July 2022, who died of starvation after being left alone at home for a week. According to reports, these are the conclusions of the new psychiatric evaluation ordered by the Milan Court of Assizes of Appeal and submitted yesterday in the second-degree trial for aggravated voluntary homicide against the woman.
The lay judges, led by president Ivana Caputo and associate judge Franca Anelli, commissioned in February psychiatrist Giacomo Francesco Filippini from Brescia, neuropsychology and cognitive science professor Nadia Bolognini from the University of Bicocca, and child and adolescent neuropsychiatry specialist Stefano Benzoni. The expert panel was asked to determine whether the woman, who turned 40 on Monday, suffers from “psychiatric disorders” and “clinically significant cognitive alterations” that could have “completely or severely impaired her capacity to understand and decide” at the time of the events and during the two previous occasions when the child was left alone at home and survived, from July 2–4 and July 8–11, 2022.
The six-month evaluation conducted in Vigevano prison confirms the conclusions of the first-degree trial, in which Pifferi was sentenced to life imprisonment. It will be discussed in court on September 24 with Milan deputy public prosecutor Lucilla Tontodonati, who appointed as consultants Dr. Patrizia De Losa and Dr. Valentina Crespi for the prosecution, the defense represented by lawyer Alessia Pontenani, and for the civil party (Pifferi’s mother and sister) lawyer Emanuele De Mitri.