Horror in Italy: 27-year-old mother drowned her two babies – How the authorities discovered her

The case of a modern Medea, a mother who murdered her two young children, is causing shock in Italy.

27-year-old Monia Bortolotti – was arrested today on charges of double infanticide.

The two shocking crimes were committed in Pedrengo a town in the Bergamo region, one in 2021 and the other in 2022.

And it was precisely the double tragedy, the similar circumstances of death and the short time between the two deaths of the children, that made the Italian authorities suspect that something strange was going on.

After the death of her first baby, a 4-month-old girl, the 27-year-old and her husband almost immediately had a second child. But again, shortly after his birth, the baby, a 2-month-old boy, died.

The investigation, which led to the arrest of the woman accused of double infanticide, began on October 25, 2022, the date of her second child’s death,

The results of the second baby’s autopsy, which were released in February 2023, showed that the baby’s death was definitely caused by acute mechanical asphyxiation with chest compressions. According to police sources, the suffocation was deliberately caused. Subsequently, the exhumation of the first child was also ordered.

For the death of the first child the mother had claimed that she had given him milk and let him digest it in her arms until he fell asleep. She then put him in her crib and after taking a shower herself, she claimed she found the baby, lying in his crib, bruised and no longer breathing. The doctor who arrived at the house, found the child dead and in the absence of obvious signs, had stated that the infant had suffered aspiration, arguing that the child’s premature birth (at 7 months of gestation) had probably caused him to be unable to swallow, so it was assumed that the death resulted from natural causes, attributed to sudden infant death syndrome.

Although the exhumation of the first child due to the lapse of two years since the death did not provide sufficient evidence, the investigation continued through the examination of doctors, relatives, experts and friends of the woman, as well as through the analysis of many medical documents. And so, as reported by Italian media, serious indications of guilt emerged against the woman and for the death of the first child. The contradictions that the 27-year-old fell into are also a strong element.

Italy: In both deaths the mother was alone at home – She could not stand their crying

In both cases, at the time of the children’s deaths, the woman – of Indian origin but who arrived in Italy as a child and was adopted by an Italian family – was alone at home and was the one who alerted the emergency services.

According to Bergamo police, the 27-year-old suffocated her children because she couldn’t handle the babies’ constant crying.

“During the investigation (investigators further explain) no mental disorder emerged in the woman both before and after the murders, so it is considered that she acted with full capacity to understand what she was doing and lucidity, while her coldness and effort were revealed rationalization of what she had done while organizing her defense after discovering that she was a suspect in the two child murders.”

For her part, in October, the woman wrote the following on her Facebook profile: “Without my children I have no reason to be in this world… I always said that I would not be able to survive even if the second child it was getting away from me… And it was true… I continue only to protect the immense love I feel for my children from the prosecutor’s accusations, because the children were “jewels”, the joy I was looking for all my life.” He continued: “Having a psychologically abusive mother, I can’t even conceive of verbal violence, let alone physical violence, against any living being, let alone my children!”