Italian football player, Giovanni Padovani, 28 gets life imprisonment for stalking and murdering his ex-girlfriend, Alessandra Matteuzzi, 56!
Alessandra Matteuzzi’s murder case reached a closure when the Judge handed a life imprisonment sentence on the murderer, her ex-boyfriend, Italian football player Giovanni Padovani, 28.
Giovanni Padovani gets a life sentence
Italian football player, Giovanni Padovani was served a life sentence on 12 February 2024. He had murdered his ex-girlfriend, Alessandra Matteuzzi, 56, on 23 August 2022, a few weeks after she filed an FIR against him for stalking her.
It took the judge at the Bologna court, Domenico Pasquariello, only two hours to deliver his sentence on Giovanni. The Judge stated that it was a premeditated murder and Giovanni’s stalking and predatory behavior were of a serious nature and demanded a life term in jail.
Giovanni had tried to get his sentence reduced by saying:
‘If I was completely lucid and capable I deserve life in prison. But if you consider that there is something abnormal, anomalous, in the conduct, then no.’
‘I wasn’t well, because a person who is well doesn’t kill another human being. I’m in a nightmare, I’m sorry, this is a bigger burden than prison.’
But it did not help. On hearing the sentence, Alessandra’s sister, Stefania burst out crying and left the courtroom in a hurry. She was heard saying:
‘Alessandra is no longer here, my sister is no longer here.’
The relationship of the couple
Giovanni and Alessandra were dating for less than a year when Giovanni’s violent nature came to the forefront. But it was a long distance relationship since Alessandra worked in Bologna while Giovanni played for Sancataldese in Sicily.
The two had a fight in January 2022. And at that time, Giovanni in anger had broken some dishes and a light in Alessandra’s home in Bologna. Later, she broke up with him. But he followed her and bombarded her with text messages and phone calls. He stalked her and refused to accept her No. Hence, she reported him to the local police station on 1 August 2022.
Read here: Taylor Swift’s Alleged Stalker is Arrested Again, Third Time in a Week!
But Giovanni’s negative behavior did not stop. Neighbors of Alessandra reported that Giovanni had attempted to sabotage her car and had disconnected her meter from the outside. Moreover, he had tried to reach her by climbing her house balcony. One of her neighbors had revealed:
‘She was very afraid of him because he had become persistent and she didn’t want to let him in the house.’
The murder plan
On the ill-fated day, Giovanni flew to the city and lay in wait for her outside her house. When Alessandra arrived, she was in her car talking to her sister, Stefania. He attacked her and Stefania heard her screams from the other side of the phone. She told the police:
‘She got out of her car and started screaming, ‘No Giovanni, no, I beg you, help.’
‘I was on the phone. I immediately called the [police] who arrived straight away.’
It was later at the hospital that Alessandra died due to massive injury wounds. Giovanni had first attacked her with a hammer and his fists, later with a baseball bat, and finally with a garden bench he found outside her home in Northern Italy.
After the murder, there was public outrage as people felt that the judicial system had failed to protect Alessandra. The Bologna Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Amato denied all allegations and said:
‘We did what we could,’
He added that the witnesses in the case were on a holiday and hence the investigation did not proceed fast. Additionally, he added:
‘The report on stalking did not stress on situations of a concrete risk of violence, it was just the typical conduct of bothersome stalking.’