Giulia Ballestri disappeared in Ravenna on September 16, 2016. Her body was found on the night between September 18 and 19 in the basement of a villa owned by the family of her husband, Matteo Cagnoni. The villa, built in the 1930s, had been abandoned for some time. In the city, it was known as "the house of spirits."

The investigation established that the woman had been repeatedly struck with a large pine branch. The attack lasted 40 minutes, on several occasions. The killer had watched her suffer and stripped her to humiliate her.

Giulia Ballestri was separating from her husband, a renowned dermatologist from a well-known family in the city. He was arrested after an attempted escape from his parents' home in Florence. He denied, and has consistently denied, that he was his wife's killer. Thanks to the initiative of a public prosecutor, the investigation was opened immediately, starting on September 18th, for murder and not for the disappearance of a person. This allowed them to quickly acquire a series of elements that allowed them to reconstruct, even visually, thanks to various video cameras, what might have happened.

Investigators identified the motive in the man's refusal to address what he considered a disgrace to his public image. Matteo Cagnoni was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder aggravated by premeditation and cruelty.

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