A Dark Chapter: The Novi Ligure Murder and Its Aftermath

When they were arrested on charges of killing Erika De Nardo's mother and 11-year-old brother, the young woman and her then-boyfriend Omar Favaro were respectively 16 and 17 years old. It was 2001. Today, they are 39 and 41 years old and have long since served their sentences. Omar Favaro, the former Novi Ligure killer facing trial, threats to his ex-wife: 'I will scar you with acid, you're disgusting.' What Omar does today: Omar was released from prison in 2010 and after moving with his parents from Asti to Acqui Terme, still in Piedmont, he made a new life in Tuscany. He could soon be brought to trial on charges of domestic abuse and sexual violence: his ex-wife, with whom he has a daughter, has indeed reported him for having threatened and beaten her, physically and psychologically abusing her. He claims he is innocent. The new life of Erika: Erika, who was released a year later, finishing her sentence in 2011 (both benefited from substantial reductions and rewards), graduated in philosophy with a thesis on Socrates and then spent a period inside a judicial psychiatric hospital in Castiglione dello Stiviere. There she met a volunteer who works as a musician and would marry him, moving with him to Lake Garda, where she would work among the vineyards of a farm. This was revealed a few years ago by Don Antonio Mazzi, the priest who takes care of the community that the woman has attended for a long time in Brescia. 'She got married, she gained the right awareness of the tragedy, the one that allows you to continue living,' he said. Her father, Francesco De Nardo, has never stopped being there for her and supporting her. The crime of Novi Ligure: The facts for which Erika De Nardo and Omar Favaro were sentenced to 20 and 16 years in prison date back to February 21, 2001. They had been dating for a few months when, by mutual agreement, they caught by surprise and stabbed to death in the villa where the 16-year-old lived with her family, in via Dacatra, in Novi Ligure, her mother Susy Cassini and her brother Gianluca De Nardo, aged 42 and 11. The motive? The desire to live 'a dimension of absolute freedom,' alone and happy, in the house of the massacre: according to the plan, they should have killed the young woman's father as well, who, however, was not at home. They were arrested two days after the crime, which was very brutal (the forensic doctor in charge of performing the autopsies on the victims spoke of over 97 stab wounds). The sentence: Then both were tried and convicted. In the moments following the murders, they had tried to mislead the investigation: while Omar had run home, Erika, with her clothes still stained with blood, had asked for help from the neighbors, who in turn had alerted the police, telling them she had escaped a massacre. She spoke of a botched robbery committed by two foreign citizens in the family villa, claiming she had managed to escape before it was too late for her as well. The investigation soon proved she was lying and that, together with her boyfriend, she was guilty.