Woman Bashed To Death By Ex-partner In Bologna (22)

 (ANSA) - ROME, AUG 24 - A 56-year-old Italian woman was bashed to death by her Italian former partner in Bologna on Tuesday evening, police said Wednesday.

The victim was hit with a baseball bat and other blunt instruments including a hammer, they said.

The man, 27-year-old Giovanni Padovani, was arrested for the aggravated murder of the woman, Alessandra Matteuzzi.  

 The alleged femicide took place in the courtyard of their condo in via dell'Arcoveggio in the Emilian capital. Matteuzzi was still conscious when medics arrived but died in hospital of massive head injuries.    An autopsy has been ordered.

Matteuzzi had reported Padovani at the end of July after their relationship ended a few months earlier, police said.    She said he had been stalking her, judicial sources said. 

Padovani is a lower-tier Italian soccer player and former model.

He is from Senigallia, in the province of Ancona in Marche.  He has played for various teams in Serie C and D including Foligno, Troina, and Giarre.    He is currently with Sancataldese, another Sicilian Serie D team like Giarre.    Padovani is thought to have flown to Bologna from Sicily Tuesday and to have waited for his alleged victim under her flat.    Matteuzzi was on the phone with her sister when she was attacked, the sister told Tgr Rai Emilia-Romagna.    "She got out of her car and started screaming: 'No Giovanni, no, I beg you, help.' I was on the phone. I immediately called the Carabinieri who arrived straight away. I live 30km away. In the end, he beat her to death", she said in tears.    Italy has so far this year seen one femicide every three days with the victims being exes, girlfriends, mothers, and sisters.

Anti-domestic abuse group D.I.Re-Donne in Rete President Antonella Veltri said "this umpteenth femicide shows that the institutions have given a wholly inadequate response to the crisis, and they do not correctly apply existing provisions".