The Italian mother of a murdered 18-year-old has appeared in court with a printed T-shirt of her daughter’s dismembered body after her killer appealed part of his conviction.
Pamela Mastropietro was murdered and dismembered by Nigerian drug dealer Innocent Oseghale in January 2018. He has appealed part of the verdict, which originally found he had sexually assaulted the teen before killing her.
Mastropietro’s mother, Alessandra Verni, attended the Court of Appeal in Perugia yesterday wearing a T-shirt showing the horrifying images of her daughter’s body.
At one point, a clash broke out in the courtroom, with Verni and Oseghale being dragged away from each other by the police. The court hearing will continue next month.
Alessandra Verni appeared in court wearing a printed T-shirt with her daughter’s dismembered body
Pamela Mastropietro was murdered and dismembered by a Nigerian drug dealer in January 2018
Oseghale (pictured) was found guilty in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison with eighteen months in solitary confinement
“Did you see what they did to her?” Verni said of her murdered daughter, whose mutilated body was depicted on her t-shirt.
“This man who raped and tortured her should be rotting in prison.”
The distressed mother’s t-shirt showed her daughter’s dismembered head. The series of shocking images were also designed in such a way that the detached body parts formed the structure of a body.
Innocent Oseghale, 32, was found guilty of the murder of 18-year-old Mastropietro in 2019 and sentenced to prison. He is appealing part of his rape conviction.
Oseghale arrived in Italy as an asylum seeker in 2014 but had abandoned his refugee program in 2017, a year before he murdered Mastropietro.
The judge asked Oseghale if he intended to attend the next hearing in February. After speaking to his attorney, he told the court he would not do so.
Verni, who was in the courtroom with the T-shirt at the time, shouted loudly: “Now even a hangman is asked whether he wants to take part in the trial or not.
Mastropietro’s mutilated and dismembered body was found in suitcases left in a ditch
“Let’s throw a red carpet at this point too,” she added.
The two then faced each other and as police escorted Oseghale out of the courtroom, he shouted, “Enough judicial repression”.
Verni charged at him and yelled, “Tell me…tell me what you want.”
Both were immediately removed by the court police and the carabinieri.
Oseghale’s life sentence will be reduced if the Court of Appeal finds him innocent of the rape.
Mastropietro was killed after she left an addiction treatment center in Macerata, in the Marche region, in early 2018.
Investigators understood that she had decided to leave the facility and made the journey to the local train station on foot.
After leaving the convalescent center, Mastropietro tried to find drugs in Macerata. Then she met Innocent Oseghale, a local drug dealer from Nigeria, then 29 years old.
A day later, a passer-by noticed two abandoned suitcases in a small ditch. Mastropietro’s mutilated and dismembered body was found in the suitcase.
Drug dealer Oseghale was accused of selling Mastropietro drugs before then arresting, raping and stabbing her. Police found Mastropietro’s bloodied clothes at Oseghale’s home.
The Nigerian claimed in his statement that Mastropietro died of a heroin overdose.
However, an autopsy revealed that Mastropietro died from consecutive stab wounds in the abdomen. It was also noted that her body was dismembered while she was still alive.
The Nigerian was charged with murder, sexual assault, concealment and destruction of a body. He denied the allegations at trial in February 2019.
He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment with eighteen months in solitary confinement.