The 27-year-old was killed by her boyfriend, Antonio De Pace, in March 2020. The father after the
decision of the Supreme Court to annul the life sentence: “This is not justice. He had an inferiority complex” Rosa Scognamiglio July 25, 2024 – 07:00″
For the judges, the killer was ‘stressed’ by Covid. My daughter Lorena killed twice”
“You cannot take away the life sentence from a murderer who killed, without any reason,
a 27-year-old girl. This is not justice”. Speaking is Vincenzo, the father of Lorena Quaranta, the 27-year-old killed by her boyfriend, Antonio De Pace, at dawn on March 31, 2020 in the villa where they lived together in Furci Siculo, in the province of Messina.
Both in the first instance and on appeal, the defendant had been sentenced to life imprisonment: he strangled his partner with his bare hands, presumably at the end of an argument, and then gave himself cuts on his arms before calling the police. In recent days, the Court of Cassation annulled the second-instance sentence, ordering a second appeal limited to the applicability of mitigating circumstances.
The ermines believe that, in calculating the overall sentence, the judges of merit did not take into account the exceptional context represented by the Covid pandemic. In essence, the lockdown restrictions could have affected the conduct of the murderer. The issue had been raised by De Pace’s lawyers in the appeal, which is why the Supreme Court deemed it necessary to postpone the point for a new assessment. “Covid is not a mitigating factor. I wonder if Lorena twice. And I really can’t these judges have a conscience”, says Quaranta to the editorial staff of Il Giornale.
Mr. Vincenzo Quaranta, how did you react to the news of the new trial? “My wife, my children and I
were shocked. It’s as if they had killed Lorena twice. And I really can’t explain how it was possible that ‘men of law’, I’m talking about the judges of the Cassation, who certainly read the trial papers, came to the decision to annul the life sentence for my daughter’s killer.
It’s all in black and white, there are no ambiguous passages in the documents filed”. What do you mean?
“De Pace was not scared of Covid, the pandemic has nothing to do with the motive for the murder. First of all because the virus had only started circulating a few days before and then because he was a nurse. In your opinion, is someone who does this job afraid of facing a health emergency? Not to mention that in those days he continued to go out with friends and ride his motorbike. But what are we talking about? He killed my daughter just because he had an inferiority complex towards her”.
What do you mean by ‘inferiority complex’?
“He didn’t accept that Lorena was a brilliant girl, about to graduate in medicine. He was annoyed by the idea that my daughter was fulfilling, with excellent results, the dream she had had since she was a child: to become a doctor.
This is the one and only truth. There are messages that confirm it”.
Which messages are you referring to? “After the murder, my daughter Danila found some WhatsApp messages that Lorena had sent to De Pace. They were discussing precisely this inferiority complex. In one message she wrote to him that she preferred to be ‘the girlfriend of a nurse who
behaves like a man and not of a rude doctor’. I think that is pretty clear”. Did De Pace ever show any signs of disturbance or behave in a worrying way?
“No, never. He studied, played sports and apparently seemed like a good guy. In hindsight I came to the conclusion that he was wearing a mask, because he is a manipulator. It is useless for them to try to make him look like someone suffering from who knows what disturbance due to the Covid emergency. He was and has always been very lucid. He snatched the future from a irl full of life and destroyed an entire family”.
What kind of girl was Lorena? “You know when they say that parents are the pillar of the family? Well, in our house, Lorena was the true point of reference for all of us. I remember that she was only six years old when she told us for the first time that she wanted to be a ‘doctor when she grew up’. And she would have become a good doctor, I’m sure of it, because she was a brilliant and very persistent student. Believe me, I’m not saying this because
I’m her father, but Lorena was beautiful inside and out”.
