Supreme Court upholds jail term for Nigerian man who murdered 18-year-old girl in Italy

The Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome, Italy, affirmed the life sentence imposed on Innocent Oseghale, a Nigerian native, for the atrocious murder of an 18-year-old girl named Pamela Mastropietro.

On January 30, 2018, 39-year-old Oseghale murdered Mastropietro in the countryside outside Pollenza, near Macerata, Marche.

Oseghale was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 after being convicted of murder, sexual assault, and damaging Pamela’s corpse.

The Nigerian contested a portion of his rape sentence, saying he never had intercourse with the woman before murdering her.

On Tuesday, January 23, 2024, the Court of Cassation of Rome formally ended the legal case by condemning Oseghale to life in prison for murder aggravated by sexual assault, damage, and hiding of a body.

In truth, the Supreme Court had already decided in favor of murder and concealing of a body. With Tuesday’s sentencing, the Supreme Court justices determined, after a reference to the appeal, that there was sexual assault.

“It’s what I’ve been waiting for for six years. That’s what I hoped for. But the battle doesn’t end here,” Alessandra Verni, Pamela’s mother said after the ruling.

“You spent six years chasing justice in the courtrooms of Macerata, Ancona, Rome, Perugia and then Rome again. A painful result that prolonged the pain and agony but we have reached the right conclusion.” This was stated by Marco Valerio Verni, the family’s lawyer and the victim’s uncle.

“I ‘ve always said that there are other people responsible. As far as we are allowed, we will continue to seek the truth. The conviction, hypothetically speaking, could lead Oseghale to name any accomplices,” he added.

Alessandra Verni shows the shirt with the photo of her daughter that “I have been wearing for six years. I will wear it again next January 30th “the date on which the girl was killed” on the occasion of the torchlight procession in memory of my daughter “in Piazza Re di Roma” after which she will move on“.

The story began in Rome when Pamela, in October 2017, moved to a therapeutic community in Macerata. The girl had a borderline personality, with drug and alcohol addictions.

On 29 January 2018 she left the community with the intention of returning to Rome where, however, she never arrived.

Having left the community, she came across a man who, in exchange for s3xual intercourse, would accompany her to the station but it was too late to take the train to the capital.

Another man, a taxi driver, offered her hospitality, also in exchange for s3x. The next day, in the Diaz gardens in Macerata, Pamela ran into the drug dealer Oseghale.

From that moment on, all traces of her were lost and her body was found on January 30, terribly mutilated, closed in two trolleys in Via dell’Industria.

According to what was reconstructed during the investigation, it was the drug dealer who killed her, 33 years old at the time, after drugging her with heroin and r*ping her.

Then, to get rid of her body, he dismembered her and threw her away in that way.

For this reason, the Assize Court of Macerata and the Court of Appeal of Ancona had sentenced him to life imprisonment, but the Cassation, while confirming the charge of voluntary homicide, did not consider the previous sentences regarding the violence sufficiently motivated, s3xual understanding as a motive for the murder.

An aspect that would have made the difference between life imprisonment and a possible 30-year sentence.

This is why, on the orders of the Palazzaccio judges, in February last year they returned to a second appeal court, that of Perugia, which confirmed the life sentence for murder and s3xual violence.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that Oseghale deserves life in prison.