An 18-month-old baby dies after being abandoned for six days at home. Mother had gone to visit her boyfriend.
In Lambro Bridge, Milan, an 18-month-old baby girl was left alone for six days with a bottle of milk beside her. Alessia Pifferi, 36, returned from Bergamo after meeting her boyfriend to find Diana’s body in Pifferi’s crib on Wednesday night.
According to Corriere Della Sera, the woman was arrested on Thursday and charged with premeditated aggravated voluntary manslaughter on frivolous grounds.
“I knew this could happen,” he said.
The newspaper also reports that Diana was found in a travel crib with a bottle, as well as a bottle half empty with anxiolytics. First, her mother threw water in her face, then performed resuscitation manoeuvres, without success, and called a neighbour for assistance. The neighbour called 118.
The doctors called the police after finding that the girl had been dead for at least 24 hours. Diana appeared severely dehydrated and starved, despite no signs of violence.
After the police arrived, agents and prosecutor Francesco De Tommasi questioned the mother, but they found no evidence that she had a drug problem. However, Alessia is undergoing tests to determine whether she suffers from psychological issues. Diana’s autopsy will determine whether she ingested anxiolytics, as authorities suspect since no neighbours heard her cry over the past six days.
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It’s not the first time Diana has been left alone. As she admitted to the authorities, Alessia had already left her daughter alone on other occasions in the last three weeks, but never for more than three days at a time, leaving her in bed with a bottle of milk and water.
However, contrary to what she told her boyfriend and family, the girl never had a nanny. During her visit with her boyfriend on Tuesday, Alessia told him Diana was taking care of her sister, but the girl was actually alone.
“I was afraid, but the future with my partner was more important”
Fabrizio Filice, the Milan judge, confirmed the arrest and coercive measure to Alessia Pifferi, even saying that the mother did not intend to kill her daughter, but wanted her to die. As the Italian press advances, Diana was the product of an old relationship, was never registered by her father, was born on the floor of her ex-partner’s bathroom, was considered to be a burden by her mother, and had no photos of her with her.
Alessia will have told Corriere Della Sera that she was “afraid” that her daughter would die, but chose “the future” with her boyfriend “over the past”.
Pifferi committed violent and repeated crimes, according to Fabrizio Filice, so she should remain in prison. Furthermore, the judge said that Alessia’s pride and fear could not justify her not asking her sister for help to care for Diana, since such help could have prevented Diana’s death.
According to the criminal investigation judge, the woman has a psychologically dependent relationship with her current partner, which led her to endanger her daughter’s life.
Alessia Pifferi said:
“I was counting on the possibility of having a future with him and, in fact, I tried to understand that during those days”, the woman said in court, according to the court order. For this reason, Alessia will have considered that “it was crucial not to interrupt these days”, even though she was “afraid that the child could get very sick or die”.
Alessia also said that she argued with her boyfriend and that she even thought he would take her home. “But when I saw that he took my hand and headed towards Leffe (near Bergamo, where he lives), I realized that we were going to go back to his house and I didn’t say anything. At this point, I was afraid the child would die, but on the other hand, I was afraid of the reactions – my sister’s negative judgment and my boyfriend’s reaction. When I think about it now, my perception is that these two fears were equally strong without one prevailing over the other. When did the Sabbath begin, when More days than usual started to pass, I started to get really scared that the child would die but, in any case, I had hope that it wouldn’t happen. This wish in my mind, it was a bit like a kind of hope, a little like a thought that maybe the things I had left with her were enough”.
As a result of Alessia’s statements, the judge also concluded that Diana’s mother had no respect for human life, was intolerant of her daughter, and had a fatigued attitude towards her role as a mother.
The judge believes Pifferi is at risk of suicide because of her mother’s statements, her dependence on her boyfriend, and the consequences of the trip.
