Whispered rumors of a marital crisis that had been going on for some time, indiscretions about the mood that had changed to the point that colleagues, who had known her all her life, spoke far from the notebooks of a woman “deeply troubled by her personal problems” . For the moment, no one can say it openly but – at least according to the first reconstructions – there could be jealousy behind the murder-suicide discovered yesterday morning (4 May) in Palermo, in all its shocking drama in an apartment on the third floor of via Notarbartolo 49, not far from the Falcone Tree. A condominium that is also a “sensitive” target guarded day and night by a financial police patrol because a well-known Palermo magistrate who plays an important role outside Sicily lives in the same place.
The dynamics leave no room for doubt: Laura Lupo, 62 years old, municipal police inspector, killed her husband, Pietro Delia, 66 years old, accountant and former Bnl employee with her service pistol, and then fired on herself. The investigations have been entrusted to the Carabinieri, while the autopsy will be carried out next week at the Polyclinic: the medical examiner would have found the weapon still in the hand of the sixty-two-year-old on whom wounds to the head and neck would have been found upon initial examination.
The tragedy would have occurred between 6.30 and 7: the door of the house was locked from the inside, there were no signs of forced entry, except those left by the firefighters who had to break through the armored door to gain entry. The neighbors had heard the noises – probably caused by the shots – and were worried, but an hour later it was the couple’s daughter who raised the alarm, who was unable to contact her parents. The girl, also an accountant, had gone out with both of them the evening before, but yesterday morning she had an appointment with her father to go to the office, which is located in via Nicolò Gallo, between via Libertà and piazza Castelnuovo, to work on some paperwork.
When the firefighters forced entry, they saw the bodies of the couple lying on the ground in a pool of blood and did not touch anything until the arrival of the soldiers of the San Lorenzo company, who carried out the first checks together with the staff. of forensics. Her daughter Eleonora was in shock and unfortunately was an eyewitness to what had happened inside the house, while her other son, Giuseppe, who lives in Milan, was notified of the terrible news by other relatives.
From the first findings it would seem that there was nothing out of place, everything would therefore suggest a crime that would have taken place in the family, perhaps due to a feeling of jealousy that would slowly become unbearable for the municipal police officer. Six cartridge cases were counted on the floor: according to a possible sequence of events, which however will have to be confirmed by the results of the autopsies, Laura Lupo would have fired four fatal shots at her husband which hit him in the chest and abdomen and then would have turned the gun against itself. On the first attempt she only injured herself – hence the marks on her neck – but ultimately she took her own life. The motive could be sentimental, although no lead has so far been ruled out and the investigations are moving in multiple directions.
The woman had been in service for thirty years in the municipal police force: for a few years she had been seconded to the offices of the justice of the peace in via Cavour, while her sister, also a traffic policeman, works in the barracks in via Ugo La Malfa. Pietro Delia, on the other hand, was a passionate fan of football and the Palermo team, he was part of the board of directors of Samot, the association that deals with palliative care for terminally ill patients, also because of his friendship with the founder Giorgio Trizzino.
Officially, relations between Pietro Delia and his wife were peaceful even if there had been a period of separation at the end of which they got back together: those who know them speak of a solid couple even if, after many years of cohabitation, there had been moments of difficulty. No one could have ever imagined such an epilogue even if, to confirm what could be the cause of the murder-suicide, there would be the statements of some friends and acquaintances who described a delicate psychological situation on the part of the inspector who confided to who was closest to her to be distressed by the particular moment she was going through in her relationship with her husband.
«The hypotheses can be the most disparate – said the commander of the municipal police Angelo Colucciello – but, out of respect for the dead, it is right to let the right people work. It’s a very bad story that took us all by surprise. No one could imagine such a drama. Our colleague was a person characterized by great calmness and elegance in her features and behavior, an agent of great professionalism and preparation, beyond reproach.”
