Lidia Peschechera, 49 years old, was killed on February 12, 2021 in her house on via Depretis. The Court of Cassation has confirmed the twenty-year sentence for Alessio Nigro, 30 years old, who killed Lidia Peschechera, 49. The judges expressed their decision yesterday, rejecting the appeal of the defendant’s defense and confirming the second-degree sentence. Nigro, from Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, had been sentenced in July 2022 in the first degree by the Court of Assizes of Pavia to twenty years in prison, a sentence confirmed by the Court of Appeal in March 2023.
Lidia Peschechera was killed on February 12, 2021 in her home on via Depretis in Pavia, the house where she had welcomed Nigro. The two had a relationship and, after the man had spent a period abroad, they had reestablished contact. On the day of the murder, Nigro was expected at the Sert of Treviglio for an appointment, but he had drunk excessively on the train and had fallen asleep, missing the meeting and having to return to Pavia.
He had informed Peschechera of the situation and a discussion had arisen between the two. The argument in the house had become violent and, at the height of the altercation, the two had ended up in the bathtub, where Nigro had strangled the woman. For the next four days, he had stayed in the house with Lidia’s lifeless body, drinking and only going out to buy food and drinks with her credit card, sending messages to her friends and employer pretending to be her.
Then he had fled to Milan, reaching a hotel where he was tracked down by the authorities and arrested. In the first degree, the Court had recognized partial mental illness, sentencing Nigro to twenty years in prison. The Prosecutor’s Office had requested life imprisonment, believing that the defendant was lucid. Subsequently, the Court of Appeal had confirmed the sentence established in the first degree, but did not recognize partial mental illness: according to the judges, Nigro was lucid at the time of the crime.
In the reasoning of the sentence, it is also remembered how Nigro, upon returning to Italy, had resumed contact with Peschechera and had gone to live with her to avoid being homeless. The penalty also took into account the unauthorized use of the woman’s credit card, but not theft, a crime for which Nigro was acquitted. Now we await the motivations of the Cassation judges. Nigro’s lawyer, Giovanni Caly, commented: “I think it is a fair sentence in any case.” The ex-husband, mother, and sister of Peschechera were civil parties to the proceedings, for whom provisional damages were recognized.
