Murderer jumps to his death from Milan cathedral

 ROME – Police were investigating Tuesday the shocking case of Emanuele de Maria, a 35-year-old prisoner-cum-hotel-worker who committed femicide the Saturday prior, and then attempted to stab another colleague before jumping to his death off the MIlan Duomo , the authorities have said. 

A  man who had already killed

 According to il Corriere della Sera, De Maria, was already known to authorities as he was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2018 for the murder of another woman in 2016. Judicial documentation states that De Maria was found responsible for the murder of Racheb Oumaim, 23, who was of Tunisian origin and pushed into prostitution in the Caserta area, Naples. She had met with De Maria in the former notorious Hotel Zagarella in Castel Volturno, which was a known meeting place for drug addicts, dealers and prostitution. After an argument De Maria stabbed her three times in the face, throat and left side: a violent and personal attack. 

 After the murder, De Maria was identified thanks to witnesses and the manhunt began. But he had already disappeared and was hiding in Lower Saxony, Germany. It was there that he met the woman who would become the mother of his daughter, conceived while he was on the run. De Maria was then imprisoned in 2018, since he was arrested as a fugitive on the border between Germany and the Netherlands.

 Despite having already committed femicide and evading the authorities for two years, De Maria was able to benefit from Article 21 of the penitentiary system, which regulates assignment to work outside of prison, and thus, the Ministry of Justice is opening an investigation into how he was able to benefit from this article. 

 On Jan. 10, 2019, he was handed down a 14-year sentence but all aggravating circumstances were excluded from premeditation to despicable motives and cruelty. However, appeal it was reduced to only 12.

 It was highlighted by Vanity Fair, Italia, that he had written a letter from prison in Rebibbia, Rome to a German-language newspaper that spoke about with the conditions of the inmates, his detention and how far it was from the concept of recovery. 

 He spoke of pancreatitis contracted in prison and of the fear of dying saying, "but I told myself to stay strong and continue fighting, for my wife and my four-year-old daughter, who live in the Netherlands." It was 2021 and that little girl should be about eight years old today. "Italy, with its medieval mentality, is 50 years behind, ignorant in its thoughts and evil in its actions […]Don't get me wrong, I'm Italian, but I lived in Holland for over 25 years, where they taught me other values ​​and principles.” He continued, “when an institution is unable to show the light to a prisoner, it is committing a more serious crime than the one committed by the person who was arrested and put in prison."

 These were the comments of a man sentenced to only 12 years for taking the life of a young woman by stabbing her in the face and then fleeing the country, who was then able to access work outside of prison due to Article 21. 

 Article 21

 De Maria had been considered a model prisoner during his brief time there and thus had then been able to access external work and since the end of 2023 he had been a receptionist at the Berna hotel, near Milan's Central Station. 

 The Reconstruction 

 The first police reconstruction released by judicial authorities was as follows. At 3:13 pm on Friday 9 May, the cameras in Parco Nord, Milan filmed the passage of Emanuele De Maria with his colleague Chamila Arachchilage Dona Wijesuriya. They are close to the house where the woman lived with her husband and son. These were the last images alive of the Italian-Sinhalese woman. Her body was found with cuts to her throat and wrists in a green area on Sunday shortly before De Maria took his own life. It has been suggested by police that she died at around 3:30 p.m., as after that time, there were no movements recorded on her phone’s pedometer.

 At 5 p.m., only De Maria could be seen in the footage from the subway surveillance cameras at the Bignami stop, where he was pictured with woman's bag over his shoulder. He then used her phone to call his mother and also his sister-in-law saying, "I ask your forgiveness, I did something stupid..." The cell phone was then found in a trash can by an ATM employee. It was ringing and there were many calls from Chamila's husband since he realised that both of them were not at work. He told Corriere della Sera: "When my wife told me that this guy had started working at the hotel, I told her: 'Be careful, because he killed a woman.'"

 He then disappeared without a trace until 6:15 on Saturday 10 May, when he appeared in via Napo Torriani, outside the Berna hotel and attempted to kill his colleague Hani Fouad Abdelghaffar Nasra. The bartender, who was stabbed, had allegedly told Chamila to stop having a relationship with De Maria.

  The once-convicted-murderer then bought a ticket to go up to the terraces of the Duomo, at 1:42 p.m. on Sunday 11 May. 30-hours since the beginning of his escape and murder. In his pocket he had a photo of his colleague Chamila and a lock of hair in a bag. He then jumped a few minutes before 2 pm and his body was identified by his tattoos, one of which was allegedly an image of Perseus cutting off Medusa's head tattooed on his abdomen.

 Emanuele Sanità, owner of the Fresco e Cimmino bar in Piazza Duomo, spoke to Corriere della Sera saying that “He grazed a boy with a stuffed toy in his hand. He was about 13/14 years old. He fell next to him. He was in shock. He remained seated for twenty minutes without speaking. A miracle”. He continued that, “I got closer and noticed a man on the ground, without shoes because they had flown off. There were some doctors passing by, they felt his pulse but there was nothing they could do: he was dead. Then some police officers approached and alerted the emergency services.” 

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