Pamela Mastropietro Murder: Mother Shows Photos of Pamela Cut to Pieces in Court
Pamela Mastropietro's father and mother and in the background Tension was palpable at times, this morning in the freezing air of Piazza Matteotti in the Court of Appeal in Perugia, where the relatives of Pamela Mastropietro, the 19-year-old killed and dismembered in Macerata on January 30, 2018, and Innocent Oseghale, the Nigerian drug dealer accused of the brutal murder, met.
“Justice for Pamela” was written on some banners, or “Pamela cries out for justice and we are her voice” but above all there were the shocking photos of the remains of the dismembered girl. The same remains that someone found closed in two trolleys, a few hours after the murder in via dell'Industria in Macerata.
Those shots, printed in large format on her T-shirt, Alessandra Verni, Pamela's mother, tried several times to show them to Oseghale. The anger of the victim's parents and friends who arrived in the Umbrian capital to attend the second trial, flared up when the prison officers made the defendant get out of the van to let him enter the courthouse.
Shortly thereafter, the second appeal trial for the man began. The first, which took place in the Ancona Court of Appeal, had confirmed the life sentence already read by the Macerata Court of Assizes. Oseghale was charged with voluntary homicide, sexual assault, contempt and destruction of a corpse.
The story began in Rome when Pamela, in October 2017, moved to a therapeutic community in Macerata. The girl had a borderline personality, with drug and alcohol addictions. On January 29, 2018, she left the community with the intention of returning to Rome, where, however, she never arrived.
After leaving the community, she met a man who, in exchange for sexual intercourse, would have accompanied her to the station but too late to take the train to the capital. Another man, a taxi driver, offered her hospitality, also in exchange for sex. The next day, in the Diaz gardens in Macerata, Pamela met the drug dealer Oseghale.
From that moment on, all traces of her were lost and her body was found on January 30, terribly mutilated, closed in two trolleys in via dell'Industria. According to what was reconstructed during the investigation, it was the drug dealer, 33 years old at the time of the events, who killed her after having drugged her with heroin and raped her.
Then, to get rid of the body, he dismembered it and threw it away in that manner. For this reason, the Court of Assizes of Macerata and the Court of Appeal of Ancona had sentenced him to life imprisonment, but the Court of Cassation, while confirming the charge of voluntary homicide, did not consider the previous sentences regarding sexual violence as the motive for the murder to be sufficiently motivated.
An aspect that makes the difference between life imprisonment and a possible sentence of 30 years. This is why, by order of the judges of the Palazzaccio, we returned before a second court of appeal. It could not be the one in Ancona because in the Marche there is only one section and the same judge cannot review the sentence.
We then arrived in Perugia where, this morning, the second trial began, which included the reopening of the debate to hear two witnesses: the two men who had had relations with the victim before she was killed.
The discriminant that the Attorney General is trying to support would be linked to the fact that Pamela did not have sexual intercourse unless it was protected, therefore the intercourse she had with Oseghale without protection, and moreover while drugged, should demonstrate, according to the prosecution, the lack of consent and, in fact, support sexual violence.
The two witnesses, who however did not appear in court today, should report on this: the taxi driver justified his absence with a medical certificate, the other witness was found to be unjustified and, for this reason, in addition to ordering his forced accompaniment to the next hearing scheduled for February 22, the president also fined him.
“I expect that this second appeal trial will result in a life sentence, and that” Oseghale “will remain in prison for life,” said Alessandra Verni. “After 5 years still discussing whether he deserves life or not. Pamela,” the victim’s mother continued, “dies every single day while he sits quietly in prison.” And showing the photos of her dismembered daughter, Verni said: “This is what he reduced her to.”
“We do not believe it is right – explained the lawyer Marco Valerio Verni, the lawyer of the victim's mother – to stand here and discuss whether” Pamela was raped or not “after two levels of judgment have ascertained it on the merits”. An aspect, that of sexual violence “which acts as a discriminant to determine the sentence of the accused”.
Meanwhile, Oseghale will remain in prison in Forli' on February 22, where he is being held, renouncing the possibility of attending the hearing. His lawyer Simone Matraxia, referring to the two witnesses who were absent today, said that "their behavior is not reassuring and their contribution" to the trial "cannot be considered reliable for the purposes of the decision".
Article published on 25 January 2023 - 19:10
