Last moments of the trial in which Piero Pesce, the Canellese man on trial in the Court of Assizes in Asti, is accused for the murder of his son Valerio, 28 years old, which occurred in November 2022 in their home in Viale Risorgimento.
Today was the hearing in which the threads of the trial came together which had no secrets or mysteries to reveal: it was he himself, that cursed morning who called the police asking them to intervene because he had killed his son and himself attempted to commit suicide . From the first interrogation, the reasons for this desperate gesture were also clear, i.e. the moment of great difficulty that the gambling-addicted and alcohol-addicted boy was going through, with economic repercussions also on the tobacco shop he owned in Alba. In prison since then, for Piero Pesce the trial was celebrated to find the right balance “in terms of punishment”, that is to decide the most appropriate sentence taking into account the gravity of the act committed but also of that partial capacity of understanding and will to the moment of the murder justified by a deep depression that had accompanied him since the death of his wife five years earlier after eight years of therapeutic ordeal.
And it is on this that prosecutor Cotti, in over two hours of reasoned and orderly indictment, based his final request: 21 years, obtained by “scaling” from the maximum established by law for voluntary homicide which is life imprisonment. During the sentence request phase he excluded the initial aggravating circumstance of premeditation which, in light of the testimonies and in-depth analysis in the courtroom, was evidently not present. At that point he considered the mitigating factors and the semi-mental infirmity to be equivalent with the other two aggravating factors still standing, namely having caused the death of a direct relative and having done so when the victim was in a state of impaired defence, or while he was sleeping in the his room.
The conclusions of the forensic psychiatrist Dr. Franco Freilone weighed heavily on this decision, comparing the state of severe major depression diagnosed in Pesce since his first admission a few hours after the murder in the Psychiatry Department of the Asti hospital to a mental pathology. who guided his hand when, at dawn, he took a knife from the kitchen and used it against his son.
If there is substantial agreement between the prosecution and the defense on the facts, the latter, supported by the lawyer Carla Montarolo, has asked that the mitigating factors must prevail over the aggravating factors. It may seem like a minor technical request, but in reality it could yield the accused a further and significant reduction in his sentence.
Also present today in the courtroom were Pesce’s elderly mother and mother-in-law and some relatives and friends who wanted to be by his side throughout the trial.
The Court of Assizes, presided over by Judge Elisabetta Chinaglia, postponed any replies and sentence until May.
Tags: Canelli prosecutor asks years prison father stabbed son death
