TERAMO. Between pain and anger there remains an infinite space: the space to find meaning and continue living. You end up there suddenly and the sense of injustice suffocates you. Michele Rea wipe away all rhetoric in the days of another anniversary without her sister Melania massacred with 35 stab wounds delivered by her husband Salvatore Parolisi on 18 April 2011 in the Ripe forest of Civitella del Tronto. Because thirteen years have passed since that day, but it’s still today. In this Italy that never stops counting the murdered women, we always need a face, a story to understand what we lose, what void and what trail of pain they leave behind. «For me and for our family it is as if it happened yesterday», he says, «but life always finds a way to move forward and for us it found it with our granddaughter, Melania’s daughter, who we try to raise in the most peaceful way possible. The more she grows, the more you resemble Melania.”
After Melania, the law against feminicide arrived, but the massacre continues. What is missing?
«There is no certainty of punishment in this country where the state continues to look at this infinite list of women killed by men. Something has been done in terms of laws and just think of the law on femicide that came after Melania’s death. But it’s not enough. Need anything else. You look at Melania’s case and think that her killer will be able to leave prison and start a new life, as if the murder had been an interlude. I don’t believe that whoever killed her in that way can redeem himself, can repent. I think whoever has done something like this can do it again. After Melania’s murder, my family founded an association against violence against women so that attention remains high, but it is the State that must do more. Instead he stays on the balcony watching the murders increase, giving discounts to murderers who can start a new life. But who thinks about the victims? Who survives day to day? Who raises children who are left alone?
The former corporal Salvatore Parolisi, Melania’s husband was sentenced to a final sentence of twenty years after the Supreme Court eliminated the aggravating circumstance of cruelty. Do you believe justice has been served? «I can’t say that Melania got justice because she didn’t get it. Her husband killed her with 35 stab wounds while their 17-month-old daughter was in the car, she left her dying in the woods and after a few days he returned to abuse her body to throw off the investigation. But for judges this does not mean being cruel. Parolisi you have always lied, you lied to us, to the investigators who were looking for the truth. He has always told lies but despite this he was rewarded by the justice system which last year allowed him to go out on a leave of absence. And even on this occasion he continued to lie, to tell lies. The permits have been blocked, but we all know that sooner or later the time will come for him to get out. He will be able to return to her family, but my sister will no longer return to us and her child. Our Melania will never be able to see that this splendid girl has become her child.”
After so many years after Melania’s death, what is the memory of her that accompanies her?
«My sister’s smile, her desire to live and be a mother, her love for the man who would have taken her life. Every time I look at my granddaughter I see her, what she could have been and will never be, what she could have given to us family members and which we will not be able to have. She was happy with her life, with her marriage, when we saw each other her desire to live infected everyone. Here, the memory of Melania is Melania herself. We were very close and spoke every day. We had spoken the day before her murder. We had talked about plans for Easter which was imminent, about how my granddaughter was growing up. Of everyday events. It was the last time I heard her voice.”
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