Alessia Pifferi, the woman who shocked Italy after leaving her 18-month-old daughter to starve to death home alone while she visited her boyfriend in 2022, was sentenced to life in prison by the Milan Court on Monday.

The case dates back to July 2022, when Alessia, then 37, left little Diana, 18 months old, home alone, lying in her crib with only a bottle and diapers, in the Milan area to travel to Leffe, in the province of Bergamo, to meet her new boyfriend, a 58-year-old man. The facts occurred between July 14 and 20 and the baby died of starvation and dehydration.

The Public Prosecutor's Office had requested a life sentence, while the defense asked for an acquittal, arguing that Pifferi had no intention of killing her daughter and that the case was a crime of "abandonment of a minor," according to the Italian press.

"It is a fair sentence, the first phase of the search for the truth. I always believed in it and with this verdict they brought the victim back to the center of the trial," said the public prosecutor, Francesco De Tommasi, after the reading of the sentence.

Alessia Pifferi impassibile alla condanna all'ergastolo #ANSA pic.twitter.com/bsQrDjsOuW

— Agenzia ANSA (@Agenzia_Ansa) May 13, 2024

"Alessia Pifferi was described as a victim and a child. In this process, there is only one girl named Diana and there is only one victim named Diana. There is a liar named Alessia Pifferi, there is only one actress named Alessia Pifferi," he said.

Quoted by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Alessia's mother commented that, despite the "excruciating pain", her daughter had to "pay for what she did" because "she forgot that she was a mother". Her sister, Viviana Pifferi, also agreed with the sentence and considered that "the judges did the right thing".

"For me she never had any extenuating circumstances, she was never crazy or had psychological problems. I hope that Diana can now fly in peace," she said.

At the time of her arrest in July 2022, the woman said in a court hearing that she left her daughter home alone to go visit her new boyfriend because she wanted the relationship to work out and, therefore, considered it "essential not to interrupt those days when she was with him, even when she was afraid that the child would get sick or die".

Little Diana was left alone on July 14, Thursday, dressed, with a bottle and diapers. On the third day, the mother admitted that she began to "fear that the child would die", but "hoped that this would not happen". "It was a kind of hope, partly the thought that maybe the things I had left with her would be enough," she said.

When she got home, she saw that her daughter "was not moving". "I patted her on the back and put her feet in the sink to wet her, but she did not react. I asked a neighbor for help and she immediately called the emergency services. I knew the risk I could run, but I am not a bad mother," she told the judge, adding that she wanted to have "the feeling of being free" and to be "finally relieved for a while from the burden of being a single mother".

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