rome
—
Black hair on the back of the neck, hands and chin of an elderly woman renewing her identity card first alerted authorities to the suspected crime, leading to the arrest of a 57-year-old man in northern Italy.
The man, whose name has not been released by authorities, is the son of Graziella D’Auglio, who died in 2022 at the age of 82 in the town of Borgo Virgilio, near the city of Mantua, a spokesperson for the Mantua police department told CNN on Tuesday.
Police said the man, a former nurse who is currently unemployed, did not report the death to authorities.
When the elderly woman’s identity card expired, the son pretended to be his mother and put on make-up, a wig and dressed as his mother in order to renew the card, something the spokesperson said had to be done in person in Italy.
However, the agent who processed the application suspected fraud and reported it to authorities, who summoned the suspect, Mrs. D’Alloglio, to City Hall.
Surveillance footage from the parking lot showed the man driving to the office dressed as his mother, even though he did not have a driver’s license. Police met him there, a spokesperson said.
Officers later went to the elderly woman’s home address and found a mummified body wrapped in a sleeping bag in a laundry closet.
A spokesman said the man was charged with concealing a corpse, fraud against the state, impersonation and falsifying official documents.
It is suspected that fluids were removed from the mother’s body with a syringe to prevent it from decomposing, and an autopsy has been ordered to determine the cause of her death.
He remains in a local jail while prosecutors await autopsy results, a police spokesperson told CNN.
State pension fraud is rampant in Italy, with dozens of people arrested each year for impersonating deceased people to receive pensions, according to statistics from Italy’s financial crime police, known as the Guardia di Finanza.
The country’s death registration and public services aren’t always in sync, so deaths can take years to be reported and pension checks continue to be sent out until someone notifies the local pension office from which they were sent.
