A tip from a member of the public to a popular Italian television show led to the arrest on a Greek island of an American man suspected of murdering a baby girl and hiding her mother’s body in a busy park in Rome.
“On June 13, in Skiathos, police officers of the island’s police department, in collaboration with (Italian) state police… identified and stopped an American citizen, credibly suspected of the murder of a newborn and the concealment of her mother’s cadaver, whose lifeless bodies were found in Rome on June 7 inside Rome’s Villa Doria Pamphili Park,” Rome police prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi said in a statement Friday.
The body of the baby girl, thought by Italian state police to be between six and 10 months old, was found under bushes in a corner of Rome’s largest park on June 7.
A few hours later, a child playing in the park noticed an arm sticking out from under a black garbage bag, leading to the discovery of the naked body of a young woman, thought to be in her late 20s or early 30s.
DNA tests showed that the woman was the baby’s mother, police said in a press conference on June 11.
Initial autopsy reports were inconclusive in the cause of death of the woman, they said, adding that she had no visible wounds. The baby, whose stomach was empty, showed signs of strangulation.
Unable to identify the bodies, police released photos of the mother’s extensive tattoos. These tattoos were shown on June 9 on the popular missing persons TV show “Chi l’ha visto?” (“Who has seen him/her?”), which invited the public to call in with any information about the identities of the mother and child.
Several people came forward, including some who had seen the young woman and her baby in various soup kitchens in the city, and another who had witnessed an altercation between the woman and a man in a central square in Rome, according to witnesses featured in “Chi l’ha Visto.”
Police had been called to that incident and took the man’s details. No arrest was made at the time, but the information led to the man’s identification. The woman’s details were not taken at the incident.
Photos reported to be of the man, covered in blood from a head wound, sitting next to the woman and the baby also surfaced as a result of the TV appeal, as well as a photo of the man without the woman – with the clearly crying baby girl in his arms – talking to police just two days before the infant was found dead. The woman, whose body was in a more advanced state of decomposition than the baby’s, according to police, was not seen in the photo.
The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation also helped by tracing the man’s credit and SIM cards, police said during a press conference in Rome on Friday following the arrest.
The suspect’s identity has not been officially released in Italy, but he has been widely named in the Italian and Greek media. CNN will not publish his name unless and until he is charged with a crime.
Police told CNN on Monday that they still had not been able to confirm the identity of the woman or her baby, but DNA testing was underway to determine if the American arrested in Greece was the baby’s father.
The US embassy in Rome said it provides consular services to any Americans arrested, but it would not comment specifically on this case. CNN has been unable to determine if the man currently has an attorney.
The Italian prosecutor’s office said it will seek the man’s extradition from Greece, which could take up to three weeks.