Nurse Monica Busetto freed as Trento court grants retrial in neighbour's murder case

Retrial granted on 13 November

The Trento Court of Appeal accepted a second request for a retrial on 13 November 2026, and Monica Busetto, a 64-year-old nurse, was freed after more than ten years in prison. She had been serving a final 25-year sentence for killing her neighbour, an 87-year-old woman found dead in her home in Mestre in December 2012. Open reports that the prosecutor general's office in Venice also requested the revision of the trial. Outlets give different figures for her time behind bars: ANSA says 14 years, Open quotes her saying 13 years, and Il Messaggero reports more than 10 years.

The original conviction

Police arrested Busetto about a year after the killing, relying on DNA from the victim found on a necklace in her home. Open reports that she entered prison on 30 January 2014, and the Court of Assizes convicted her in December 2014. The conviction was not overturned in the years that followed, ANSA reports, partly because of DNA evidence found on a chain in her home.

A confession and a second killing

In 2016 Susanna Milly Lazzarini said she had killed the neighbour. Lazzarini had been arrested over the killing of another elderly woman, who had asked her to repay a 100-euro loan. Open reports that in her first three interrogations Lazzarini said she had acted alone, but at a fourth, when investigators pressed her, she said Busetto was involved. Her account shifted, first saying Busetto had found her inside the flat, then that the neighbour had caught her in the act and helped her. Open says Busetto was freed in March 2016 after the confession, but a life sentence handed down on 18 November sent her back to prison.

New evidence and the retrial

Massimiliano Andreetta, a journalist for the TV programme Le Iene, obtained new evidence showing that the small chain seized from Busetto differs in size and design from the one the victim wore shortly before her death. Her lawyer, Stefano Busetto, said this made it unnecessary for the court to rule on a second ground for retrial, a breach in the custody of the evidence, which he now says was contaminated. He told the court that the family had kept faith in her innocence.

“We have always had faith and now, naturally, we must say to Monica: 'sorry about the delay'.”

After the ruling was read, Busetto reacted in words Open attributes directly to her.

“It's all over, after 13 years it's all over.”