The Bergamo court of
appeals on Thursday published its explanation for sentencing
construction worker Massimo Bossetti to life in prison for the
murder of Yara Gambirasio, 13.
The girl went missing on her way home from gymnastics
practice in her home town of Brembate di Sopra on the evening of
November 26, 2010, and her body was found in February 2011 in
the nearby town of Chignolo d'Isola.
She had been bludgeoned and stabbed several times, and left
to freeze to death overnight in a desolate field. An autopsy
revealed she wasn't raped, but male DNA was found in stains on
her clothing.
Bossetti, then 43, was arrested, jailed, and charged with
murder in June 2014 following a DNA sweep of the local
population that involved gathering a reported 22,000 genetic
profiles in a bid to find the killer.
Bossetti's DNA was a match to that found on Yara, but he
has always maintained he has no idea how it got there.
Yara's killing "was a homicide of unprecedented gravity
that took place in the context of a series of sexual advances,
which the girl likely rejected, unleashing a violent and
sadistic reaction," the court wrote in its 158-page opinion
backing up its July 1 sentence for murder aggravated by torture
and cruelty against Bossetti.
"The prevalently physical torments (inflicted on the
victim) and the moral and subjective cruelty (with which the
defendant) appeased his drive to cause pain (in) the absence of
feelings of compassion and pity... are indicative of his evil
spirit," the court wrote.
The DNA trace found on the victim's underwear was proven
beyond a reasonable doubt to belong to Bossetti via "absolutely
reliable" testing, the judges added of a key piece of evidence,
which was much contested by the defence.
"The presence of the defendant's DNA is what proves his
guilt," the court wrote.
"That fact, which is devoid of any ambiguity and cannot be
read in any alternative way, has not been disproved or placed
into doubt by any probatory evidence gathered by the defence".
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