
22-year-old Albanian Ilaria Sula, who had been reported missing since March 25 in Rome, has been found murdered in a wooded area in Poli. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase that was found dumped in a ravine, reports Corriere della Sera.
The crime scene investigators went to the scene together with firefighters to retrieve the young woman's body. According to initial verifications, the young woman had recently had a relationship with a 23-year-old Filipino, Mark Samson, who was arrested by the authorities and has also confessed to the murder. Ilaria was studying Statistics at the "La Sapienza" University. In addition to her family, who had raised the alarm on social networks on Tuesday, friends and colleagues had also mobilized to find her by publishing numerous photos of her.
Ex-boyfriend arrested
The ex-boyfriend was arrested and confessed to the murder during a lengthy interrogation. According to initial reports, the boy is suspected of stabbing Ilaria several times in the apartment on Via Homs, before locking her in a suitcase and trying to dispose of the body. He faces charges of intentional murder and concealment of the body. It is not known whether he was the one who revealed the location where he had hidden the body.
The young man of Filipino origin, in order to cover his tracks, continued to use the student's cell phone, responding to messages and posting on social networks even after the young woman's death. Sula had left on the evening of March 25, without saying goodbye to his roommates and had not responded to their messages on WhatsApp.
Ilaria Sula's brother: "Why did he do it?"
"We can't explain it. Why did he do it? We don't understand why he did it, only he knows," says Leon, Ilaria Sula's younger brother, who has arrived in Rome with some relatives. "I spoke to my sister the last time two weeks ago, because she came to visit us in Terni - he recalls - She was calm and didn't tell me about the problems. Then only messages". As for Samson, he says: "I knew her, they were together for a year but they broke up".
Scientific expertise at the ex-boyfriend's apartment
The investigation took a dramatic turn overnight, when police went to the young Filipino's apartment on Homs Street, in the Africano neighborhood, where they conducted a search. On the evening of her disappearance, Ilaria had left the house in a hurry to meet someone. Her parents, who live in Terni, said she had taken nothing with her, not even her personal belongings, while her phone had been on for some time and someone had even answered some messages. It is not clear if it was really her. After that, no trace of the young Albanian woman.
Ilaria was a student at 'La Sapienza'
Ilaria was a student at La Sapienza University of Rome and shared an apartment in the university district of San Lorenzo with four other students. Her roommates said she left at around 9:30 p.m. on March 25 and that they had not noticed anything suspicious in her behavior. However, she had exchanged several messages on Whatsapp with them. According to reports, these messages were allegedly returned by the perpetrator after he had committed the murder. Then, starting on Saturday, March 29, she did not respond to anyone, so her roommates notified her family and went to report it to the police.
"She left home at 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 25, without saying goodbye. She didn't tell anyone where she was going. We didn't see anything strange. But since then, we haven't seen or heard from her."