Three suspicious deaths, one murder and five attempted murders. The list weighing on the shoulders of Paola Pettinà, the fake carer from Vicenza who between 2022 and 2024 allegedly poisoned the elderly she cared for with lethal doses of drugs, posing as a social health assistant, is growing longer. Among the alleged victims of the woman, arrested last Wednesday by the Carabinieri and now in prison, is also Pettinà's ex-husband, Romano Rossi, 88 years old. His ex-partner and cohabitant, however, managed to save himself from drug poisoning thanks to hospitalization. To the latter, she allegedly made him believe that she was administering a multivitamin. But in reality, what the 46-year-old made the people she cared for drink were a mix of Tavor, Xanax and Lorazepam .
The other suspicious deaths for which she could be held accountable are those of her ex-husband, who died on March 1, 2024, of Graziella Pulliero, who died on February 19 of the same year, and of Alessandra Balestra, 75, mother of the fake carer's ex-partner. The woman from Sandrigo (Vicenza) did not answer the investigating judge during the preliminary hearing ; but in the spontaneous statements provided at the time of her arrest she reportedly said: "maybe I overdid it with the benzodiazepines, but I saw the elderly people agitated, I didn't want to hurt them."
It turns out that she administered up to 100 drops of psychotropic drugs a day . Overdoses that caused patients to feel dizzy , dysarthria, and have difficulty standing, ultimately forcing them to be hospitalized. According to the reconstruction, the woman allegedly obtained the drugs by showing photocopies of blank prescriptions at the pharmacy, ensuring that she had the originals at home. The Carabinieri checked 25 pharmacies, ascertaining that in the space of a few months the 46-year-old had managed to obtain 272 packages of Xanax.
According to the investigating judge, as written in the custody order, Pettinà is "a woman radically accustomed to lying". Despite an investigation that lasted nine months, including wiretaps, the motive for the murderous plan is still unclear. But in addition to murder, the investigation documents include charges that prefigure the purpose of profit: the woman is also accused of drug dealing, robbery and self-laundering, because after having stunned one of the elderly women she was supposed to assist with drugs, she stole some jewelry from her. The loot was then resold, making 3,000 euros.
