Rome appeal court confirms life sentence for man who killed ex-partner in 2024

Appeal ruling in Rome

The Rome Court of Assizes of Appeal has upheld the life sentence imposed on Gianluca Molinaro for killing his former partner on 4 July 2024. The judges accepted the request of the prosecutor general and kept the aggravating circumstances of premeditation and stalking, both of which the first-instance court had recognised in January. Molinaro followed the reading of the verdict by video link from prison. The first-instance court had already imposed the maximum penalty.

The killing

The shooting took place on via degli Orseolo in the Portuense district of Rome, a short distance from the clinic where the victim worked as a physiotherapist. The victim was a 51-year-old woman and the mother of Molinaro's son. Molinaro used a sawn-off shotgun and then went to a carabinieri barracks, where he handed the weapon over. According to Il Messaggero, he phoned a friend minutes after the shooting and described the blood he had seen, and he also called another former partner, who persuaded him to go to the barracks.

Evidence and trial

Investigators gathered text messages Molinaro exchanged with a friend. In one, written before the killing, he wrote that he might kill two birds with one stone that day. In another, sent after the shooting, he wrote that he had fired two shots. Audio messages he sent the victim between 2021 and 2024 were played in court, and they contained death threats.

The prosecutor, Antonella Pandolfi, described a long escalation of threats, obsessive behaviour and stalking that ended in the killing. She told the court that Molinaro had nursed an obsession for years and had planned the killing in a cold and lucid way.

“Molinaro's act was not an impulse, but a premeditated execution. It was the chronicle of an announced death.”

Pandolfi said Molinaro described himself as a time bomb and named the victim as the problem he wanted removed. The prosecutor's office had asked for the aggravating circumstances to be recognised, and the appeal court agreed.

Reactions

The defence said the sentence was more punitive than fair. Lawyer Carlo Testa Piccolomini, who represents the victim's son, welcomed the ruling and linked the aggravating circumstances to the way the killing was carried out.

“This ruling confirms the solidity of the first-instance sentence, an adequate response given the gravity of the facts charged against the defendant.”

The victim's sister-in-law said the family was glad that justice had been done for Manuela and for all women, and that the life sentence sent an important social signal to victims and their families. The family described the loss as a pain that changes the life of everyone involved.

Key dates

The timeline runs from the shooting on 4 July 2024 to the appeal ruling reported on 13 November 2026, with the first-instance verdict in January in between.