An Italian mum who murdered her own son before chopping up his body and covering it with lime has said she did it to protect his girlfriend. The case has shocked Italy after Alessandro Venier’s remains were found at his home in Gemona del Friuli, near the north-eastern city of Udine. The 35-year-old was reportedly chopped up into three parts and covered in quicklime to hide the smell.
Confessing the crime to prosecutors, his mother, 61-year-old nurse Lorena Venier, said: “I have done a terrible thing.” She said her son was abusing his Colombian girlfriend, 30-year-old Mailyn Castro Monsalvo. Monsalvo is the mother of their 6-month-old daughter.
Venier said her son had problems with drugs and alcohol and refused to help his mum and girlfriend around the house. She became concerned he would bring harm to Mailyn and their daughter after he began talking about moving to Colombia with the family.
She said at a hearing on August 2: “Mailyn is the daughter that I never had. Mailyn was being beaten up, insulted and threatened many times with death. My son downplayed the postnatal depression she was suffering from. Alessandro was violent, and Mailyn’s life was in danger.
“I could not have allowed them to go to Colombia, Mailyn and the baby would have run very serious risks there. The only way to stop him was to kill him.”
Mailyn is alleged to have helped out with the July 25 murder. She confessed a week later. The pair are alleged to have given Allesandro lemonade spiked with tranquillisers. Once that didn’t work, Lorena allegedly injected him with two doses of insulin she took from the hospital where she worked.
Despite the overdose, which can cause coma and even death, Allesandro was still alive. The pair allegedly killed him by smothering him with a pillow and strangling him with his shoelaces.
Lorena allegedly told police: “I took care of the dismemberment myself. I used a hacksaw and a sheet to hold the blood. I dissected him into three pieces.”
Roberto Revelant, the mayor of the town, said: “Nothing like this has ever happened here before. It’s a terrible thing, it’s heart-wrenching.”
The women are expected to be officially charged in the coming days.
The six-month-old daughter has been taken into care. The mayor added: “The whole community is rallying around the baby. We are working with social services to make sure she is safe.”
