Feminicide, Rita speaks, the mother of the victim

This article is published in issue 47 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 22 November 2022

Federica and Luigi had met when she was a volunteer at the ANT (National Cancer Association) and he worked there. At the time of their first meeting she was only 13, he was 34. It was obvious that their paths parted. Years later, in 2010, when Federica was three exams away from graduation, they met again and from that moment they resumed contact. They got married on March 21, 2012, she was 25 years old».

To tell, today is Rita, Federica’s mother. She tells us that her daughter was very much in love with that man, but this, unfortunately, is not a romantic story.

Luigi was a handsome man, from a good family, there was no need to worry: he was an administrative employee of a charity in Taranto, everyone in the city knew him. Federica had married him, although mom Rita and dad Enzo weren’t enthusiastic about it: it wasn’t just for the 21-year age difference, “it was a matter of skin, one of those sensations that are hard to explain”. Rita says. «The signs – if you understood them – were there right away», she recalls. «He was always very keen, I would say too much, to go to the supermarket with Federica: they filled two trolleys, they didn’t pay attention to the prices and in the end he always paid, flaunting the power of his money. He never gave my daughter money to manage, except for a very few euros, just for everyday things”. Luigi also thought about paying for little Andrea’s asylum. There was not even a need to pay anything for the rent: the house was owned, no mortgage to pay off.

Federica didn’t support herself, she didn’t have a job: he had yet to graduate in linguistic intermediation and, before finishing her studies, she had become pregnant. She had thus dilated the times for the thesis a bit and had managed to bring home the degree at 29 years old. Meanwhile, she took care of her little Andrea, who loved going on missions with his grandfather Enzo, when he, retired Ilva, was a volleyball coach. And Federica too had a passion for volleyball: she liked being a referee during matches. She knew how to do it, she had also refereed in Serie B. For that, however, she was not paid: only the reimbursement of expenses was foreseen. But she hoped, one day, to make it a “real” job: her dream was to become the official referee of Fipav (Italian Volleyball Federation) and the first opportunities had presented themselves at international tournaments, even if Luigi was not enthusiastic and preferred take care of the economic support of the family, as once upon a time, after all, many men did: «Actually, it never worked like this in our house», Rita is keen to point out, «I’ve always worked in a bank, even though my husband he could have allowed me to stay at home.’

Federica had grown up in a wealthy family, who could have helped her, but asking mom and dad for a tip, when she was now an adult and with her own family already formed, she didn’t feel like it. Who knows, a mixture of pride and modesty: «But one day, I remember it very well, she was in trouble: she wanted to buy some shoes for Andrea. Her husband was often absent and she had no money in her pocket, not even an ATM. She shyly then asked me if by chance I could have bought those shoes. He annoyed her, but deep down she didn’t bother much about the fact that she was short of money. She happened to talk about it, but we never lingered too much on it». And instead that was an important signal: the truth was that Federica had no autonomy, she depended on Luigi and he had financial control over everything. “She didn’t even know how much he really earned: she had told me 2,000 euros a month, in reality it later turned out that it was 5,000″. Federica was also unaware that he had sold their sailboat: «She only found out in the summer, many months later, when she had proposed to take a trip out to sea and so he was forced to say that there was no they no longer had it.” And the same thing happened for the car and the motorbike. She had later learned, and not from him, that their house had been foreclosed: «One day an inspector from the Revenue Agency showed up at the door and it was a shock for her», Rita continues to recount, «he her own business and she had no way of checking the bank’s movements.’

Luigi had a parallel life. And Federica had discovered it in the most banal way possible: in her smartphone she had found some hardcore films. Of him, with others. Everything for Federica was beginning to become less bearable: the fact of not having a penny in her pocket, of not being independent, of depending on him for every little thing. She had decided to separate and Luigi seemed to agree. Rita had reassured her daughter that they would go to her lawyer together, that she shouldn’t have to worry. «But the day we had an appointment with the lawyer Federica didn’t arrive. At first I thought it was a delay, although it was strange that she hadn’t warned me. I started to worry. He didn’t answer her phone. Something must have happened.” Ah yes, something had happened: in the meantime, while mamma Rita was waiting for her daughter from her lawyer, Luigi had beaten Federica to death, had disfigured her face with an awl, had suffocated her with a pillow. She killed, in anger. Probably, according to the reconstructions made later, little Andrea had seen everything: those who had met him after her with his father said that he was as if dazed, with a lost look. After the execution, Luigi had taken his son and taken him to the villa they had in the countryside, just outside Taranto. It wasn’t an escape, the race ends there: Luigi parks, enters the house and fires a shot in the neck of Andrea, who hadn’t even turned four. And then it’s his turn, who kills himself next to his son. «That’s how we found them», says Rita, «and I still didn’t know anything about my Federica. I had hoped that somehow she had escaped.’ But no. “The carabinieri broke down the door, but Federica was already dead.”

And who knows, Rita, where today she manages to get all that strength that drives her, together with her husband, to meet every year, from that damn 2016, hundreds of girls in the schools of Puglia: «I tell them my daughter’s story. Federica was a strong girl and yet she justified that man, she had a monster next to her, she should have run away immediately. She hadn’t rebelled against the fact that he kept her in check from her economic point of view, that he didn’t help her fulfill her dream of working. Luigi’s was a form of violence: they call it “economic violence” and it hides an abuse of power, a desire for control, a lack of respect. Women must learn to recognize the signs of a toxic relationship and must rebel, denounce. Love is not possession.”