ROME - During four hours of questioning, the mother of Mark Samson, Nors Marlapz, confessed to helping her son clean up his ex-girlfriend, 22, Ilaria Sula’s blood after he brutally murdered her, police have said.

 Marlapz had been registered as a suspect since Saturday on charges of complicity in concealment of a corpse, a crime that carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. The interrogation, which lasted 4 hours, due to the necessary presence of a translator. “I helped my son clean the bloodstains at home," admitted Marlapz.

 At the end of the statements and answers to the questions of the prosecutor Maria Perna, she was then therefore formally charged with complicity in concealment of a corpse. In the arrest warrant for her son arrest the 23-year-old, the investigating judge underlined his “coldness and insensitivity" as he “brutally” struck by surprise a “someone who trusted him."

 The mother, who admitted that she was at home at the time of the femicide, which sparked outrage throughout the country, committed by her son, allegedly helped him clean the bedroom where the murder took place. In the coming days, the 23-year-old's defense team could request a psychiatric evaluation of Samson. On this matter, Fabrizio Gallo, Samson’s lawyer specified that it is necessary “to examine his interrogation and ascertain if there was prior intent. It is not fundamental [to his case] but it is one of the hypotheses that can be pursued when we, for the defence, want to understand what went through the boy's head that led him to commit such a grave act”.

 ”Mark must understand what he did and these may seem like phrases of circumstance but I have no words for what Ilaria Sula's parents are feeling. I too wish condolences to the family and we must know what happened with certainty. Mark must understand the mistake he made," concluded the criminal lawyer. The notification regarding Samson’s mother’s confession was released the day of Ilaria’s funeral, at which he father demanded justice for his daughter, who at only 22 years old studying at a top university was violently murdered by her ex-boyfriend, stuffed in a suitcase and tossed off a cliff. Her funeral fell on the same day as that of Sara Campanella, also 22, who was studying to be a biomedical technician in Messina before being brutally murdered by a male stalker. The murder of both girls within a 48-hour period has sparked outrage across Italy and led to widespread protests against femicide and domestic violence.

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