Voghera (Pavia) – Elisa Roveda, a 44-year-old mother who strangled and killed her less than one-year-old son Luca, has been arrested for murder. The woman is currently being held by the Carabinieri of Voghera in the psychiatric department of the San Matteo Policlinic in Pavia. The chief prosecutor Fabio Napoleone communicated the measure in a statement, stating: “Investigations are currently underway to shed light on the exact dynamics of the events, as well as on the woman’s mental and physical condition.”
The crime on Mezzana Street
This morning, around 9am, Roveda’s mother, the grandmother of little Luca, entered the house to help her daughter with household chores and, above all, to not leave her alone (in a sort of relay with the child’s father and other relatives). At that moment, the terrible discovery was made: Elisa was lying on the bed with Luca beside her, still alive but unconscious. At that point, the mother of the 44-year-old called the emergency number 112. The rescuers, who arrived promptly, after the first resuscitation attempts, could only confirm the death of the child.
Luca would have turned one at the end of the month
The 45-year-old and her husband had struggled a lot to have a child. “They had wanted this baby for five years.” Remembers a neighbor of Elisa Roveda who is still in disbelief about what happened this morning just steps away from her own home. The woman said that Elisa had recently been tired and that is why she had taken a break from work. According to the neighbor, she was suffering from “postpartum depression. She was a bit agitated but she was fine.”
Little Luca would have turned one at the end of the month. Elisa Roveda is described as a “loving and caring mother” who often took her son for walks and never showed any signs of strange behavior.
The fear of being alone at home and the break from work
For a couple of months, however, it seems that Elisa had started to experience mental problems. “She was afraid to stay home alone, she didn’t want to drive the car anymore or go to work,” says the father of the 44-year-old. For this reason, she took a break from work and her family, primarily her mother and husband, but also an aunt, had organized a “relay” to never leave her alone at home. Elisa had also seen a private psychologist who had started to treat her, but it seems that she had never turned to social services or shown any signs of imbalance or outbursts of anger towards her son.
