ACERRA-MARIGLIANO. Arrested for the murder of Domenicantonio Vellega: handcuffs for Maddalena Masi, the victim’s ex-wife, and for her partner, Francesco Miranda, both accused of aggravated murder. The Carabinieri of the Castello di Cisterna Group arrested them, after almost two years of investigations, following a detention order issued by the judge of the Nola Court, at the request of the public prosecutor who followed the investigation. Of course, before moving forward, the usual premise must be made: for the two recipients of the precautionary measure, the presumption of innocence until a definitive conviction applies in any case and in any way. The facts date back to the night of March 3, 2022. Following a report received by the carabinieri’s operations center, the police officers discovered a burning car in Ponte dei Cani, on the border between Acerra/Marigliano and Brusciano, inside of which was the charred body of a man. A real mystery. The magistrate on duty at the Nola Prosecutor’s Office also arrived at the crime scene. Initially, not knowing the name of the victim (at the time of the events, he was 48 years old), it was thought to be a Camorra murder. An autopsy was immediately ordered on the body, which allowed the investigators to identify him and clarify the exact circumstances of his death. Naturally, the investigations started from scratch, delving into the life of the victim. Maddalena Masi, the wife, was immediately questioned for preliminary testimonial information, which did not add anything to the already quite nebulous investigative picture. The investigation remained under the jurisdiction of the Nola Prosecutor’s Office because the investigators quickly realized that the motive for the murder was to be found within the victim’s personal sphere. Much attention was also focused on the new partner of Masi, the ex-wife. Obviously, on behalf of the Prosecutor’s Office, the carabinieri initiated a series of technical investigations, which slowly began to outline a heavy body of evidence. Thanks to the investigations and the technical-scientific examinations, conducted under the constant coordination of the Nola Prosecutor’s Office, the military was immediately able to rule out the initial hypothesis of suicide, an hypothesis that seemed to find more than a few confirmations in the statements of those who knew more than what they were reporting and wanted to shift the investigative focus at all costs. The reconstructions by the investigators, despite the failed attempts by the suspects to divert the investigations, ultimately allowed the carabinieri to gather serious evidence of guilt against the ex-wife of Vellega and her partner, who from the very beginning did not have an unbreakable alibi. As it was later ascertained, on the evening of March 3, 2022, Maddalena Masi and Francesco Miranda allegedly seriously injured Domenicantonio Vellega inside their home, subsequently disposing of his body, first by placing it inside the vehicle with which the man used to travel, and then setting fire to the car while the victim was still alive. A gruesome end for Vellega, who could never have imagined that the two would kill him while he was still alive, with the “hope” of making that murder appear as a suicide. After the formalities, the couple was taken to their cell, awaiting the guarantee interrogation scheduled for the next few days. It must be said that the diabolical couple made some wrong moves that did not escape the expert investigators. Basically, the two were betrayed by the staged false leads, the suicide and the clan. The first mistake: a gun, found in the victim’s house and that was not there during a previous search (the goal was to make it appear that the victim was a criminal). The second mistake: both front seats were flipped in the car, there was no reason for the man to do that and then kill himself. Furthermore: a witness stated that the female killer used gloves to clean the balcony, however, when the carabinieri inspected her house, there was so much dirt that prevented them from using the luminol technique. Furthermore: there were traces of Vellega’s blood in the apartment where Masi and Miranda lived and where the victim had been present until about twenty minutes before his Fiat 600 caught fire.
