“I want to know if my husband is a hero or a killer”

Sonia la Rosa has decided to say enough is enough and has broken silence. The wife of the Carabiniere who fired a single shot at William Trunfio, and killed him, just before he was about to run over his colleague, has been waiting for 13 months to discover whether the man with whom she has shared her life is a killer or a hero.

“We’ve been living in limbo, between heaven and hell, in a sort of no-man’s land, where the daily anguish is eroding our certainties,” she said. “We were hoping to hear something from the Public Prosecutor’s Office before the end of October, but we didn’t. With total respect for the victim’s family and for the work of the judiciary, my children and I would like to have an answer, to put an end to this infinite waiting.”

On the morning of 6 October, shortly after 3 a.m., the patrol car with her husband and a colleague on board, blocked the road to stop the 39-year-old, who was fleeing in a car he had just stolen. Trunfio decided to not to stop, he engaged first gear and ran over the Carabiniere who had positioned himself in front of the car, while the other Carabiniere was trying to break through the car window to get him out.

In a split second, the other Carabiniere decided to shoot the man behind the steering wheel, to save the life of his colleague, who was on the floor with a broken leg after the first attempt to run him over, and was in danger of being crushed once more by the wheels of the vehicle, with a probably even worse outcome.

“Since that day, my husband has lost all certainty. After the overwhelming burden of killing a man, an investigation was started by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, who, after 13 months, have still not come to a conclusion,” the woman continued. “We just want to know if we can be free again to take control of our lives.”

Even family friends have become impatient with this situation and have not ruled out an initiative in support of them. “They’ve asked us for authorisation to organise a demonstration to bring attention back to this case,” Sonia La Rosa said. “They want to express their closeness to my husband. In these months, that support has been lacking in many quarters.”