Guilty of having asked for it
In the end it’s the same old story, in the end they (did) ask for it. In June 2022, in Modena, Salvatore Montefusco shot dead Gabriela Trandafir, 47, and her 22-year-old daughter, Renata. For the judges, the murderer deserves 30 years in prison and not life imprisonment, as “having reached the age of 70 without a criminal record, he would never have perpetrated such serious crimes if not driven by the nefarious family dynamics that had been triggered over time “, we read in the sentence seen byHandle. During the trial, the defense had spoken of an “emotional blackout” and the judges considered it “plausible”, also because – according to them – the motive could be linked “to the psychological condition of profound discomfort, humiliation and enormous frustration experienced by the accused, due to the climate of very high conflict that had been created within the marital ménage and the concrete eventuality that he himself had to abandon the family home”: reason for which Montefusco deserves “human comprehensibility (yes!) of the reasons” that pushed him “to commit the crime”.
A treatise on patriarchal culture
More than a sentence, it seems like a treatise on how patriarchal culture is also reflected in the courtrooms, in an even more evident and accentuated way in cases of femicide. First of all, the murder is reduced to raptus, to exasperation: the version of Montefusco’s lawyers is supported who – with so much creativity and imagination – support the thesis of the “emotional blackout”, despite the woman having already reported verbal attacks, threats and physical violence. The victims are also put under scrutiny: it was their behavior that provoked the violent reaction, causing “deep distress, humiliation and enormous frustration in the accused”. They would have provoked him, they would have exasperated him and – following the nefarious logic of this stereotyped representation – they would have finally sought it for themselves: in short, they would embody the guilt (perhaps to be written with a capital “C”) of having unleashed the violence suffered.
The manipulators
Not only that. Mother and daughter appear as manipulators: they would in fact have brought their future killer to a condition of “humiliation”, whose homicidal action is thus diminished in the family drama (the “very high conflict” of the “conjugal ménage”) and in the gesture of impetus, obscuring the systemic nature of gender violence. Furthermore, the murderer may be guilty, but he is still portrayed as a good man: after all, “he arrived at the age of 70 with no criminal record, he would never have perpetrated crimes of such serious gravity if not driven by nefarious family dynamics”. If he had not had such a wife and stepdaughter, it is deduced, he certainly would not have killed. Practically a holy man, perhaps a little short-tempered and nothing more.
Finally, the judges decide to delve deeply into the abjection, finding “human comprehensibility” for those who killed two women by shooting, holding the weapon, aiming and pulling the trigger, knowing that it would put an end to their lives. The circle closes: the killer is humanized, the victims are belittled, degraded. Even for today, everything is from Italy: Anno Domini 2025, the Middle Ages.