Imola, September 2, 2026 – Gabriella is calm. She remembers nothing. Her mind is a thick fog of confusion, while in the apartment on the third floor of via Bellini 1, in the Pedagna area, carabinieri come and go, nurses take shifts with mortuary attendants, and a handful of stunned relatives wait in the courtyard for someone to explain the unexplainable. Why a 78-year-old lady, a life spent hand in hand with her husband, beside him even at work, decided to grab a kitchen knife and massacre this good man, remembered by all for his past as a restaurateur with his brother, at Piratello, among the tables and stoves of Campanaccio.
The tragedy discovered by the caregiver
It was 2:30 PM when the caregiver, who assists the couple, returned home after shopping, and found that disaster of blood and pain. He, Francesco Mongardi, 78 years old like his wife, was in bed, lifeless, wounded in several parts of his body. The lady there, also stained with blood, but seemingly unaware of the tragedy that had just occurred. A story that, the deeper you investigate, intertwines illness and pain, with the carabinieri of the Imola company now engaged in trying to piece together the puzzle, reconstructing its origin, together with the men of the Scientific Investigations Section of the Investigative Unit.
Both were worn out by illness
What has emerged so far is that both spouses were worn out by illness: the lady by a progressive senile dementia; he was bedridden due to leg problems, and had also survived a stroke. Those who know them speak of Gabriella and Francesco as a united couple: never a quarrel, never a fight or screams had crossed the walls of that house. And so it was yesterday as well, when none of the neighbors heard cries for help or pain coming from the apartment. The deputy prosecutor Roberto Ceroni also arrived on the scene, while the medical examiner Guido Pelletti performed the first post-mortem examination, which revealed several stab wounds inflicted with a kitchen knife.
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The desperate and tearful son
Sitting under the porch of the condominium courtyard, the family members gathered around the pain of the couple’s only son, desperate and in tears. He too is unable to understand what triggered his mother’s mind to reach such horror. The carabinieri tried to ask the woman, but received no answer. The lady, for a psychiatric consultation, was taken to the hospital by 118 volunteers. The Carabinieri with the magistrate are evaluating how to proceed with her detention, given the delicacy of the situation and the woman’s health condition, which certainly cannot be reconciled with preventive custody in prison. The lady is charged with voluntary manslaughter.
The couple’s caregiver was heard
The investigators also heard the couple’s caregiver at the station, who had been absent for a few tens of minutes at lunchtime to do the shopping. Upon her return, she found the horror. And now she is also helping the carabinieri to put the pieces together of a heartbreaking story, which can only leave dismay in the hearts of those who cared for Francesco and Gabriella.
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