Catholic Couple Arrested in Family Deaths
Pastor Dale Morgan
Catholic Couple Arrested in Family Deaths*
By FRANCES D'EMILIO
The Associated Press
Friday, January 12, 2007; 8:02 PM
ROME -- A Catholic couple who apparently could not stand a toddler's
persistent crying have been arrested for allegedly killing the child,
his mother, grandmother and a neighbor in a gruesome case that has
shaken Italy, authorities said.
Prosecutors said Rosa Bazzi and Olindo Romano will be tried for
premeditated murder and other crimes, including setting fire to the
murder scene to try to destroy the bodies.
A judge Friday upheld the arrests, Pietro Troiano, an attorney for the
couple told reporters.
Italian media initially blamed the Dec. 11 slayings in the small
northern town of Erba on the 2-year-old boy's Tunisian father, Azouz
Marzouk, who had served a prison term on drug charges. But it later
emerged that Marzouk was in Tunisia when his family was killed.
Investigators said the murders were motivated by a long feud between two
families, who lived in the same apartment building, apparently caused in
part by the toddler's crying. They said the boy's mother had filed a
complaint, which a court had been scheduled to hear two days after the
killings.
The Italian news agency ANSA quoted Troiano as saying the couple denied
they had planned the slayings. Troiano also told reporters a psychiatric
examination will be sought for his clients.
The killings horrified Italy. The toddler's throat was cut. His mother
was stabbed 12 times. The grandmother, Paola Galli, was also fatally
stabbed, and a neighbor in the building, Valeria Cherubini, who
apparently heard the commotion, was also slain.
Cherubini's husband, Mario Frigerio, who tried to come to his wife's
aid, was attacked and left for dead. But he survived and after weeks in
hospital, reportedly described the attack to investigators.
State television on Thursday said the initial media frenzy blaming the
slayings on the Tunisian father showed that "prejudices endure" in Italy
against immigrants. The killers, the TV noted, "were from among us."
Several Italian dailies carried editorials Friday denouncing such
prejudice.