A Mother's Grief and Quest for Justice in Milan

“Today I searched for you everywhere, as I always do when I return to Milan. But I found you only in the courtroom, where I cried again today, yet I was proud of you. Proud of how you, with your Prince Charming Thiago, tried to reclaim your life, the one you deserved, but which was snatched from you,” thus Loredana Femiano, the mother of Giulia Tramontano, in an Instagram story after this morning's hearing of the trial against Alessandro Impagnatiello for the murder of his seven-month pregnant girlfriend. “I love you Giulia - she added -, I love you Thiago, even though I never met you. I will never find peace.” The last words of Giulia Tramontano, sent to a friend via voice message shortly before her murder, were played today in the courtroom during the trial against Alessandro Impagnatiello, accused of killing his seven-month pregnant girlfriend. “He told me everything, about absurd things,” the 29-year-old explained on May 27, after meeting with the woman her partner was having an affair with. “I am shocked by the life he led, by the things he has done and told me.” Shortly after, in their home in Senago, near Milan, Giulia was killed by the man with 37 stab wounds. As soon as the voice of her daughter was heard, the mother Loredana Femiano, present in the courtroom, burst into tears. With her was also the father Franco Tramontano, who before this morning's hearing left a message on Instagram. “Giulia, we will seek justice for you without ever giving up - he wrote -, your murderer must rot in jail.” The hearing opened this morning with the testimony of Captain Gianluca Bellotti, commander of the sixth section of the investigative unit of the Carabinieri of Milan, who was in charge of analyzing Impagnatiello's cellphone. In the courtroom were shown the online searches made by the former bartender in the days immediately before and after the crime, including “Roberto Stasi Bollate,” conducted on May 26 and “burnt ceramic bathtub.” The messages between him and his partner were also reviewed: “I don't want to fight anymore and live an unsatisfied life alongside the wrong person,” Giulia wrote him after a fight, two days before the murder. “Say hi to Thiago - the victim wrote after the meeting with Impagnatiello's other woman -, you'll see him through the binoculars.” The last messages in the chat between the two were all written by the former bartender after he had killed her, pretending to believe in the hypothesis of a voluntary departure. “Just tell us you fled to some distant country to throw everything behind,” he wrote on May 30, “Just tell us you're okay.” As Captain Bellotti recalled, answering questions from deputy Letizia Mannella and prosecutor Alessia Menegazzo, in those days he was “absolutely cooperative and also cold.” When he handed over the cellphone “he was very willing also to our requests for the pin and passwords. He showed himself cold, not agitated.” A mood that, according to the testimony, he maintained even when he learned he was under investigation for murder on May 31, only to have “a breakdown” and “waver” a few hours later. In the morning, Giulia's friend and a neighbor who had seen “the ashes” on Impagnatiello's landing, as he had attempted to burn Giulia's body in the bathtub, were also heard, as well as a clerk from a hardware store in Senago who had sold him a trolley in those days. “Today I searched for you everywhere, as I always do when I return to Milan,” the mother of the 29-year-old wrote on Instagram after the hearing. “But I found you only in the courtroom, where I cried again today, but I was proud of you, of how with your Prince Charming Thiago you tried to reclaim your life. I will never find peace.” The examination in the courtroom of Impagnatiello, defended by lawyers Giulia Geradini and Samanta Barbaglia, is scheduled for next May 27, exactly one year after the murder. On the 23rd of the same month, the last witnesses for the prosecution will be heard, and on June 10, the first for the defense.