When they arrived, the 118 rescuers immediately lost all hope: little Luca, less than a year old, was dead, strangled with visible marks on his neck . Helpless in his parents' bed, with his mother next to him.

The tragedy took place yesterday on the outskirts of Voghera, in the Pavia area. It was the child's grandmother who called for help who, early in the morning, like every day, had gone to her daughter's house to help her with the housework and spend some time with the child. Entering the house, she found herself faced with a gruesome scene: Elisa Roveda, 45, in bed, next to the motionless little body of her son .

To the carabinieri Elisa said only one sentence: "I killed my son" . Then she was taken by ambulance to the psychiatry department of the San Matteo polyclinic in Pavia, where she is guarded by the carabinieri.

Elisa was alone in the house when the drama took place. Her husband, Maurizio Baiardi, a lorry driver, was away on business and arrived shocked in front of the building where the two live. He was desperate, also incredulous because, according to a friend of Elisa's, they had been expecting that child for five years .

A neighbor explained that the alarm went off this morning after eight o'clock. “My husband called me because he heard his grandmother screaming. He went there but then he ran away, scared. He told me he didn't make it. Elisa was a very good girl, as were her husband and grandmother, very good people ».

Again: "She was tired, a little depressed but physically she was fine". The only explanation she can come up with: " Postpartum depression, it happened to me too ."

Elisa's father, Marco, instead says that for a month and a half the woman "was afraid to be alone, to drive the car. She didn't want to be alone. You couldn't leave her alone. The husband went to work and was left alone before my ex-wife arrived, he had to call me, I would have come ».

Relatives had given themselves a rule, never leave her alone . And now they are all in torment. Elisa's husband and father of the child cannot find peace and accuses himself of having left earlier , without waiting for the arrival of his mother-in-law. Elisa's mother: «I rang the intercom and she didn't answer, I should have rang the neighbors and let them open me because maybe in those seconds..." .

Elisa was being treated for this depression which later resulted in her murder .

«We are astonished in front of a child snatched from the life by a terrible gesture – commented the mayor of Voghera, Paola Garlaschelli on social networks -. We look forward to hearing more from the police about the tragedy that has shocked our city. For now, a thought of enormous pain and closeness to the family ».

(Unioneonline/L)

© Riproduzione riservata