He had called a company and paid $ 350 to have a 2m long , 90cm wide and equally deep pit dug in his house. She had said she would use it to bury her dog, instead she wanted to get rid of the body of the husband she had killed days before her.
Anna Maria Tolomello, 48, originally from Carini, in the province of Palermo, but living in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, told American policemen that she was forced to kill her husband , also from Carini, to defend herself.
The woman confessed to having killed Giovanni Gallina, this is the name of the 65-year-old man, in self-defense, as reported by the local newspaper The Morning Call.
Tolomello claimed to haveshot with a .38 caliber pistol in her husband’s temple because during a fight he had tried to suffocate her in the bedroom.
According to investigators, the fatal wound is compatible with this story.
The two were well known in the local community as the owners of “Pina’s pizza” , a small Italian pizzeria in Chalfont.
Ptolomello had told the men of the firm that he did not need help filling that grave . She would have done that job on her own, without any problems, as the workers hired to dig the hole later reported to the police, as reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper.
But on Tuesday last week, just after the woman had paid $ 350 for the work done in her home and the earth pulled out of the hole was still fresh, cops arrived at her house with a search warrant.
At that point, Anna Maria Tolomello would admit to the investigators that she should have called them a week earlier. After a quick search of the house, the policemen found Giovanni Gallina’s body in a state of decomposition .
The man’s corpse was allegedly found in the master bedroom , wrapped in a blue towel and duvet, as reported by The Philadephia Inquirer.
The woman thus confessed to havingshot at Gallina in their home on March 16 , 13 days before her body was discovered. The huge hole, she would have admitted, was not for a dog but had to hide her husband’s body.
In those nearly two weeks, the woman would go to work to hide the crime. Police claim she threw a blood-soaked mattress into the dumpster behind the pizza place and removed her fingerprints from the gun.
According to the data collected by the investigators, a few days after her murder, Tolomello would have asked a friend if burning incense would have masked or not the stench of a skunk that had entered her garage.
The turning point in the investigation, however, came only thanks tothe couple’s son, Phillip , who was increasingly worried. The young man, who lives in Italy, often spoke on the phone with his father, but since last March 16 he was no longer able to hear him.
Several times the boy had asked his mother to speak to her father , but the woman replied that her husband had gone on business and had left his mobile phone in the family pizzeria.
On Monday last week, after days of silence, Phillip reported the matter to the local police, who started an investigation.
Employees of the small pizzeria told police they had n’t seen their boss “for a while”.
Thus, the next day the investigators arrived at the house of the spousesand they discovered what was a fresh, makeshift tomb and a decaying body.
The charges against the woman include criminal homicide, bodily abuse , tampering with evidence and other related offenses.
