The Villa Pamphili mystery, mother and daughter the victims. Further investigations needed from the child's autopsy

Further histological tests will be necessary to clarify the causes of death of the newborn found lifeless yesterday afternoon in Villa Pamphili, Rome. This is what emerged at the end of the autopsy performed today at the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Catholic University, directed by Professor Antonio Oliva. Samples were also taken for DNA testing. The comparison, entrusted to the scientific police, will take a few days to provide useful results for the investigation. Small pieces of a complex puzzle. The mystery - the discovery, a few hours apart, of the bodies of a newborn baby of about six months and a woman of about 40 years - presents itself as a real puzzle for the investigators, busy giving an identity to the two victims and identifying the perpetrator, or perpetrators, of what for the Prosecutor's Office is currently an aggravated double homicide. The autopsy was brought forward to Sunday to provide answers as quickly as possible: the first is that no lesions were found on the woman's body. The wait for the results of the toxicological tests is longer.

The investigation is therefore continuing on two tracks: on the one hand the identification of the victims, on the other the search for the alleged perpetrator. As regards the first element, the woman's fingerprints have not given any confirmation: this means that she has never been photographed before. In these hours several reports have arrived: some witnesses report having seen, on Saturday, a person wandering around the green area with a sort of "bundle" in his arms. A lead that still needs to be verified. At the moment, none of the witnesses has recognised the victims in the photographs shown by the investigators. From the first checks it has emerged that the bag containing the woman's body was not dragged - there are no signs attributable to this hypothesis - but rather placed near some oleanders, not far from one of the entrances on Via Olimpica. This detail would make it unlikely that the operation could have been carried out by a single person.

The main hypothesis is that there is a family link between the two victims: mother and daughter, who died at different times. An assessment suggested by the state of the woman's body, in advanced decomposition and perhaps already in the place where it was found for some time. Taking into account the sultry heat of the last few days, investigators believe that the death dates back to a few days before that of the newborn, found on Saturday afternoon around 4 pm near a hedge, inside the large park of the capital, about 200 meters from the body of the presumed mother. Answers about the identity and, above all, the causes of death will come from the autopsies. Initially, it was indicated that the prosecutor Antonio Verdi, in charge of the case, had entrusted the task of the autopsies to the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Policlinico Gemelli, which was supposed to perform them on Tuesday. Subsequently, there was a change of plan: tests brought forward to yesterday evening, entrusted to the Institute of Forensic Medicine of the Catholic University directed by Professor Antonio Oliva. While an initial external examination did not reveal any obvious signs of violence - neither gunshot wounds nor stab wounds - on either body, the data for the woman was also confirmed by the autopsy. One of the hypotheses in the field - but we will have to wait for the outcome of the toxicology test - is that the death could be linked to drug use.

At the same time, DNA samples were also taken to try to give the victims a name. The physical features of the woman and the girl, both of light skin, would suggest that they came from Eastern Europe. Investigators are cross-referencing the data with lists of missing persons, both in Italy and abroad. The samples will be sent to specialized laboratories to compare the data: the results should arrive and be communicated to investigators within 24 hours. At the same time, investigators are trying to reconstruct the hours before the discovery by analyzing the images recorded by surveillance cameras in the area, in particular between Via Olimpica and Via Aurelia Antica. Testimonies are also being collected to verify whether the woman and the girl gravitated towards the Villa Pamphili area, also frequented by homeless people, including drug addicts, who often spend the night in makeshift beds, in a context marked by degradation. Also to verify this aspect, on Sunday the investigators returned to the site for a wide inspection that involved a large part of the park area. The garbage bins were also checked, from which some documents were recovered that are now being examined by the investigators.