Prosecutors on Friday exhumed
the body of Arianna Zardi, 25, who turned up dead under a bridge
in the Cremona area in October 2001.
The young woman, who lived with her mother, had disappeared
48 hours before her body was found 10 kilometers from her home
in a village near the town of Casalmaggiore.
The coroner at the time found the young woman's injuries to
be consistent with a fall, but did not say whether it was
accidental, a suicide, or murder.
Investigators looked at several suspects but no one was
ever charged.
Among the suspects was Gerardo Salandra, who was 17 years
old at the time. He ran with the same crowd as Zardi, and was
found in possession of her cell phone and other items from her
purse after her death.
He was arrested on charges of murder with intent to commit
robbery, but a judge subsequently ordered him released for lack
of evidence.
In 2011 prosecutors investigated another three suspects -
all of them minors at the time of the incident - who were asked
to give DNA samples for comparison to traces found on Zardi's
body.
Brescia prosecutors have now ordered the cold case reopened,
and Zardi's remains to be examined with new technology that
could shed light on her death 14 years ago.
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