The Bari Public Prosecutor's Office has entered the parish priest of the San Giovanni Battista church in Bari, Don Antonio Ruccia, and the technician who has been in charge of the maintenance of the thermal cradle in recent weeks in the register of suspects, with reference to the case of the newborn found dead last January 2.
The criminal hypothesis against them is that of manslaughter.
The crime for which the proceedings are being conducted has therefore changed: until today, in fact, the investigators had investigated the case of abandonment of minors in the care of unknown persons. The hearing of the parish priest and the technician, which took place in recent days, has instead convinced the investigators to change direction.
The investigations of the Bari mobile squad are coordinated by the additional prosecutor Ciro Angelillis and by the pm Angela Morea.
The baby was found shortly after 9:30 by the owner of a funeral home, Roberto Savarese, who was in church for a funeral that morning. The task of the investigators is to understand the reasons for any malfunctions of the cradle, activated in 2014 and thanks to which two newborns were saved in 2020 and 2023. In mid-December, perhaps due to some brief blackouts that had affected the parish, the intervention of the technician under investigation today was necessary.
The parish priest, from the beginning, declared that he had not received any calls as had happened on the previous two occasions.
Normally, in fact, placing a newborn in that cradle activates the heating and starts a phone call to the priest's cell phone. Which, however, did not happen this time.
Tomorrow the assignment for the autopsy will be given to Professor Biagio Solarino of the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Policlinico of Bari. The examination will be carried out immediately after the assignment.
(Unioneonline/vl)
