Sara Di Pietrantonio
Sara Di Pietrantonio was a 22-year-old woman from Rome. In the period before her death, prosecutors said her former boyfriend, Vincenzo Paduano, had subjected her to stalking behavior after their relationship ended.
That history became legally significant in the later appeals. The courts ultimately treated the stalking as an offense distinct from the murder rather than something automatically absorbed into it.
The killing
During the early hours of May 29, 2016, Sara was intercepted in the Via della Magliana area of Rome. Paduano killed her and then attempted to destroy evidence by setting fire to her body and her mother's car. This archive does not reproduce the graphic details reported at the time.
The case rapidly became a prominent Italian example of lethal intimate-partner violence, but its legal path was not straightforward because the sentence changed during successive appeals.
First trial and appeal
In May 2017, Paduano received a life sentence in a fast-track first-instance trial. In May 2018, an appeals court reduced the punishment to 30 years.
The reduction was challenged. A central issue was whether stalking should be treated as a separate crime alongside the aggravated murder.
The Court of Cassation orders a new appeal
In April 2019, the Court of Cassation annulled the 30-year appellate judgment in part and ordered a new appeal. The high court rejected the approach that had treated stalking as absorbed by the homicide and sent the case back for a new sentencing decision.
This did not erase the finding that Paduano had killed Sara. The renewed proceeding focused on the legal consequences of treating the stalking and murder as distinct offenses.
Life sentence restored
On September 11, 2019, the Rome appeals court in the new proceeding imposed life imprisonment. The court applied the murder and stalking convictions separately, following the legal direction from the Court of Cassation.
The definitive 2021 judgment
Paduano appealed again. On April 23, 2021, Italy's Court of Cassation rejected his challenge and confirmed the life sentence. ANSA reported that the ruling made the sentence definitive.
The final status is therefore not based on an unresolved accusation or a lower-court verdict still under ordinary appeal: the murder and stalking convictions, with life imprisonment, survived Italy's highest criminal review.
Timeline
May 29, 2016: Sara Di Pietrantonio is killed in Rome.
May 2017: Vincenzo Paduano receives life imprisonment at first instance.
May 10, 2018: an appeals court reduces the sentence to 30 years.
April 12, 2019: the Court of Cassation orders a new appeal, rejecting the treatment of stalking as absorbed by the homicide.
September 11, 2019: the appeal-bis court restores life imprisonment.
April 23, 2021: the Court of Cassation confirms the life sentence, making it definitive.
Current status
The murder of Sara Di Pietrantonio is solved and adjudicated. Vincenzo Paduano is definitively convicted of murder and stalking and is serving a life sentence.