A woman has confessed to murdering her 35-year-old son, dismembering his body, and attempting to hide it with the help of his wife. According to Italian news agencies ANSA and L’Unione Sarda, as well as the Daily Mail, 61-year-old nurse Lorena Venier admitted to killing her son, Alessandro Venier, after his wife, 30-year-old Mailyn Castro Monsalvo, contacted police to confess their crime on July 25.
Alessandro’s dismembered body was discovered in the basement of the home he shared with his wife, mother, and their infant daughter in Gemona del Friuli, located in Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.
During a court hearing, Lorena explained, “I took care of Alessandro’s dismemberment myself. I used a hacksaw and a sheet to contain the blood and cut him into three pieces. There were no blood splatters, which is why the police found the scene orderly.”
Lorena claimed that she and her daughter-in-law had been planning the murder for months, citing ongoing physical abuse from Alessandro as their motive. She said Mailyn had repeatedly asked her to kill her husband since their daughter’s birth in January, alleging that Alessandro was violent and abusive. According to Lorena, Alessandro minimized Mailyn’s postpartum depression and even assaulted her when she tried to report the abuse.
She also alleged that Alessandro threatened Mailyn, who is originally from Colombia, saying, “I’ll take you to Colombia and drown you in the river because no one will be looking for you there.”
Investigators say Lorena and Mailyn first gave Alessandro a tranquilizer-laced lemonade, followed by two insulin injections, obtained by Lorena through her hospital job, to render him unconscious. Authorities claim he was then suffocated with a pillow and strangled with shoelaces. Mailyn reportedly moved the body to their garage and covered it in quicklime to mask the odor.
Alessandro had recently told friends he was considering moving to Colombia, and authorities believe Lorena and Mailyn planned to use this as a cover for his disappearance.
Mailyn eventually called the police to confess, and Lorena stated in court that her daughter-in-law only handled moving the body.
Lorena now faces charges of murder and concealing a body, while Mailyn is under investigation for incitement to murder.
