Dad charged with murdering 7-year-old son Daniele Paitoni and stuffing body in cupboard — With a chilling letter

ROME — No one heard the cry of 7-year-old Daniele Paitoni when he was allegedly stabbed to death dad on New Year’s Day. According to Italian police, 40-year-old Davide Paitoni ensured it by stuffing a rag down his son’s throat and covering his mouth with duct tape so that his screams could not be heard.

A stab through the child’s jugular vein ended the boy’s short life, after which the father reported stuffed in his drawer a letter blaming his estranged wife, Silvia Gaggini, 36, for the boy’s horrific death.

Investigators explained that the letter, in which he apologized to his son “from his father,” was soaked in the child’s blood, and was written in a way that implied he intended to take his life or force the scene. must shoot him. The incident is said to have taken place at Paitoni’s father’s house in the north Italian city of Morazzone near Varese. Paitoni then left a voice message to her father: “Don’t open the closet. I hurt Daniele,” according to police.

But before Paitoni’s father could go home, he called his wife on Right where the year afternoon to pick up their son, tell her when she comes to look in the closet for him. She thought he was hiding there, she called the police. She assumed he would jump out to try to scare her. Instead, his body rolled to the floor at her feet.

Paitoni then allegedly tried to stab her before she escaped and ran off for help. By the time the police arrived, Paitoni was gone. After a lumpen, He was found near the Swiss border and taken into custody after a brief clash with police in which he cut off his hands and arms and threatened to kill himself with a murder weapon. Police found cocaine in the pocket of his sportswear.

He was arrested and charged with murdering his son and attempting to kill his wife with aggravating circumstances of cruelty and premeditated murder.

Investigative judge Giuseppe Battarino wrote in a 10-page sequence that Paitoni had promised his son a snack before assaulting him, based on evidence including blood splatters near a table with snacks in the house where the incident took place.

According to Battarino, after killing the child and stuffing it in a cupboard, Paitoni called his wife, lying to her when he told her, “We had a nice day.” The investigator notes that when Paitoni chased his wife, he told her that their son had done nothing wrong, that she was to blame, and that he killed him just to “punish” her for leaving he.

Battarino writes: “Indifference is a sign of predestination, justifying aggravating factors applied to crimes that, if convicted, would warrant a life sentence without grace. amnesty. “He wants to punish his wife, to make her suffer in a way typical of gender-based violence and his assertion of a dominant role.”

The horrific incident, which rocked Italy, could have been prevented. Paitoni was placed under house arrest after allegedly attempting to murder a co-worker at the warehouse where he worked last month and should not have been allowed, by law, to pick up his son without supervision. He is also accused of abusing his wife, who has not filed for separation but lives elsewhere. Their son lives with her and has gone to see his father as part of a joint custody agreement that they discussed privately through their attorney instead of a judge.

Italian Justice Minister Marta Cartabia has opened an investigation into how a man being investigated for attempted murder with his wife’s barrage of accusations could be left alone with her son. surname. The investigation was opened after Cartabia was petitioned by Veronica Giannone, secretary of the Committee on Children and Adolescents and a member of the Judiciary Committee.

“If laws are not working well, they must be changed quickly,” Giannone said in an open letter to the minister. “Otherwise, all organizations become complicit in these horrors.”

Daniele’s funeral is scheduled for Friday at the school where he is a student. The mayor of Morazzone wrote in a Facebook post that the city will hold a day of national mourning in the child’s honor.

One of the comments on the post was a joint letter from the teachers at the school. “With your dark eyes and sweet smile, with your sympathy, wit and humor, unstoppable as a storm but at the same time as sweet as the snacks we eat. ate together in the recital, you have the ability to make us all fall in love. you, you have always conquered our hearts. We love you! Hi, Dani. ”