Police said Thursday that they
have detained a man suspected of murdering Ashley Olsen, a
35-year-old American woman, in Florence last week.
The detained man is Diaw Cheik Tidiane, a 27-year-old
undocumented Senegalese migrant known to the police for
drugs-related issues.
He has admitted being responsible for her death, but said
he did not intend to kill her, sources said.
Prosecutors said the man was held on the basis of DNA
evidence taken at the crime scene.
"There is very serious evidence of his guilt," Florence
Prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo told a news conference Thursday.
The man was detained overnight and interrogated until
04:00 Italian time.
Tidiane said he had sexual relations with Olsen after
meeting her in a club and going to her home, according to the
sources.
He said they subsequently argued and she banged her head
after he pushed her, the sources said.
He said that the bruising on her neck, which led coroners
to conclude she had been strangled, resulted from his efforts to
lift her up, according to the sources.
Olsen, originally from Florida, was living in Florence
where her father, an architect, works at an art school.
She was found dead at her rented apartment on Saturday.
An autopsy found that she had been strangled with a cord
or rope.
The detained man was identified with the help of footage
from surveillance cameras that showed him going from a club to
Olsen's home with her early last Friday.
Creazzo said Olsen had two fractures to her skull, which
suggested the murder was carried out in two stages, first with
an attack with a blunt instrument or by hitting her head against
something and then via strangulation.
Prosecutors said that there is no evidence to suggest that
an erotic game gone wrong was a factor in the murder.
"There is no trace of an erotic game," Creazzo said,
adding that he believed the pair had "consensual sex".
He stressed, however, that he believed both the suspect
and the victim may have been under the influence of alcohol or
drugs.
"It's possible that both parties may not have been lucid,"
said Creazzo.
"We are waiting for the results of the toxicological tests
(but) we have reason to believe that they took substances that
did not leave them lucid, certainly alcohol, maybe something
else".
He added that there was nothing to suggest the pair knew
each other previously.
According to sources, Tidiane, a PR for a club, said the
row broke out when Olsen tried to send him away soon after they
had sex because she feared her boyfriend would arrive.
"I'm not a dog," he said, according to sources.
Creazzo added that, after Olsen was killed, Tidiane fled
with her mobile phone and put his SIM card into it.
A lawyer representing Olsen's father said her funeral will
take place on Friday at Florence's Santo Spirito Basilica.
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