Antonella Baccaro (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
La psychiatric report that established the sanity of Alessia Pifferi, the woman accused of letting her 18-month-old daughter Diana die of starvationseems to deprive the accused of the possibility of being able to count on a reduction of the sentence in the event of conviction for a crime which, as currently contested by the Prosecutor’s Office (aggravated voluntary homicide), could lead to life imprisonment.
But the exclusion of the hypothesis of mental illness gives us above all a truth that we struggle to face: a mother is not by nature necessarily a good mother.
The expert report in question establishes that «at the time of the facts, (the accused, ed) she protected her desires as a woman with respect to her maternal care duties towards little Diana.”
Specifically, the mother abandoned her daughter alone at home, being aware that the milk and water she had left her would not be enough for her survival, to go and stay with her partner. She had already done so on other occasions, from Saturday evening to Sunday evening, but on the fatal occasion she returned home after a whole week.
Any of us, when faced with a person who acts like this, automatically thinks that they are crazy and with this essentially excludes that it could happen to us, unless we lose our minds tomorrow. But in this case exactly the clarity with which the mother behaves in a potentially dangerous behavior for the child he persuaded the expert to deny that he was unreasonable.
As well as the lie told to her partner, who questioned her about whether her daughter was with her sister or with the babysitter. A falsehood, said “for fear of her reaction” to the news that she was leaving the child at home alone, which once again denotes awareness of wrong behavior.
Alessia Pifferi before the Court of Assizes of Milan in the trial in which she is accused of the multi-aggravated voluntary homicide of her 18-month-old daughter Diana, who died of starvation after being left at home alone for six days, Milan, 19 September 2023. ANSA / ALANEWS
The trial, which has not yet concluded, puts us before the figure of a mother who rejects her state. Our task is not to confine this story among those of horror, of degradation, of ignorance, of what does not belong to us. But look at the truth it contains: a mother who can’t cope is not an inconceivable fact. She is simply a woman who needs to be helped. Isn’t that what we would want if it happened to us?
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