Kriti Mehrotra
It was on the evening of December 11, 2006, when a quiet apartment building in the small town of Erba in Lombardy, Italy, became the site of a brutally heinous act of pure violence. That’s because four residents were found dead by the end of the night, and one other was so severely injured that he had to be immediately hospitalized for treatment – he thankfully survived. It took a while for authorities to bring matters to a close, but a married couple living in the same complex, Rosa Bazzi and Olindo Romano, were ultimately arrested, charged, tried, and convicted.
Rosa Bazzi and Olindo Romano Had a Troubled Background
While Rosa Bazzi was born on September 12, 1963, into a rather middle-class household in Erba, Olindo Romano was born on February 10, 1962, into a similar environment nearby. He actually hails from the Albaredo per San Marco area in Lombardy, where he grew up surrounded by at least one brother and parents with whom he often did not see eye to eye. In fact, by the time the early 1980s had rolled around, he was estranged from them following a family dispute that had turned into a legal battle involving a complaint against him.
As for Rosa, according to records, she had allegedly been sexually assaulted by an acquaintance or relative at the tender age of ten, following which she sadly never received any assistance or support. She thus grew up into a reserved individual, which allegedly led to dependency on her husband after she met, fell in love, and tied the knot with Olindo in the 1980s. It’s thus no surprise that the couple led largely unnoticed lives, even with Olindo serving as a manual laborer and garbage collector, and them having constant issues with their neighbors.
Rosa Bazzi and Olindo Romano Had Strained Relationships With Neighbors
As per court records, Rosa Bazzi and Olindo Romano resided in an apartment a few floors below the Castagna-Marzouk family. The family comprised 30-year-old Raffaella Castagna, her Tunisian husband Azouz Marzouk, their 2-year-old son Youssef Marzouk, and her 57-year-old mother Paola Galli. Unfortunately, these two families never got along, with the friction reportedly beginning with noise complaints, disagreements over shared space, and perceived slights. These escalated into more serious issues as the couple reportedly viewed the family as deliberate transgressors, whereas the latter deemed them unfriendly and overly confrontational owing to their formal complaints.
According to witness testimonies, several verbal confrontations occurred between these two residents over the past few years, with them often involving severe accusations, disrespect, and insults. Some witnesses even claimed that Rosa and Olindo were so strict with their space that they picked fights with several other neighbors too, most of whom eventually chose to relocate. As per records, the couple also got into an argument with Raffaella on New Year’s Eve 2005, which resulted in there being a civil case between the two parties, a hearing for which was supposed to be held on December 13, 2006.
However, two days before the court date, on December 11, 2006, Raffaela, her mother, and her toddler were killed inside their home – they had been massacred with a knife and crowbar. Among the victims were also another set of their neighbours, 55-year-old Valeria Cherubini and her 65-year-old husband, Mario Frigerio. Mario’s throat was slashed, but his preexisting condition of a congenital malformation of the carotid artery prevented him from bleeding out by clotting it. What’s more is that the crime scene was subsequently set ablaze, but thanks to a quick response by firefighters, a lot of evidence was recovered.
Rosa Bazzi and Olindo Romano Are Incarcerated in Different Prisons For Murder
Owing to the heinousness of the matter and how personal it seemed, the first person officials looked into was the sole survivor of the Castagna-Marzouk family, Azouz Marzouk. However, he was cleared relatively quickly as they were able to confirm without a shadow of doubt that he was visiting his parents in his hometown of Zaghouan, Tunisia, at the time of the crime. That’s when they zeroed in on Rosa and Olindo, whom they had begun to suspect from the moment they questioned them as part of their standard canvassing, due to their unusual behavior. After all, they had essentially provided an alibi without being asked to do so.
According to records, Rosa and Olindo seemed disinterested in the massacre despite its severity, never asked the police for any sort of reassurance of their safety, and seemed to have defensive wounds. This led officials to seize some of their clothing for testing as well as place them under surveillance, but what bothered them most was that they had offered a statement regarding their whereabouts. They claimed they were in a McDonald’s in Como before providing a receipt for the same, but they were never asked about it, so following extensive investigations, they were ultimately taken into custody on January 8, 2007. Rosa and Olindo were formally arrested following a long interrogation the next day, with them both also confessing to their crimes with explicit detail in court on January 10, 2007.
It appeared as if the couple would end up pleading guilty, but they both recanted their statements in October, with Olindo going as far as to claim he was “brainwashed” to confess during his interrogation. Questions about Rosa’s competency to stand trial were also raised, but once that was cleared and officials were certain that two individuals were fully involved in the crime based on the evidence, the case proceeded to trial. What followed were lengthy legal proceedings, some spontaneous statements by Olindo, and the ultimate verdict that both he and his wife, Rosa, were guilty of multiple counts of aggravated murder. Their motive was the disagreements they had had between them over the years, so both individuals were sentenced to life in prison without parole. Therefore, today, while 62-year-old Rosa is incarcerated at the medium-security Bollate Prison, 63-year-old Olindo is serving his sentence at the high-security Opera Prison. However, owing to their marital status, they are reportedly allowed to meet once a month.
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