Carmela Rea, known as Melania, was born on 24 May 1982 in Somma Vesuviana, in the province of Naples. She lived in Folignano, near Ascoli Piceno, with her husband Salvatore Parolisi, an Army corporal and instructor at the 235th Piceno Regiment, and her daughter Vittoria, born in October 2009. The couple had moved to the Marche for his work and led an apparently peaceful family life. The investigations then revealed a marriage marked by tensions, especially due to the soldier's extramarital affairs.
Monday 18 April 2011 Parolisi said he went with his wife and daughter to Colle San Marco, near Ascoli Piceno. According to his version, while he was near the swings with the little girl, Melania would have walked away to reach the bathrooms of a restaurant, without returning. At 3.26pm the man tried to call her and shortly afterwards raised the alarm, asking for help in a commercial establishment. Carabinieri, rescuers and dog units started searches in the area, but no one was able to find the woman or reconstruct her last movements with certainty.
On April 20, an anonymous phone call to 113, made from a telephone booth in Teramo, reported a body in the Casermette woods, in Ripe di Civitella, in the province of Teramo. It was Melania Rea, killed with 35 stab wounds, about 18 kilometers from the place of the alleged disappearance. A syringe and tourniquet were also found at the scene. The tests excluded sexual violence and detected signs attributable to manipulation of the body following death, a circumstance which led to the hypothesis of an intervention to alter the crime scene. The discovery far from the point indicated by the husband raised questions about the reconstruction of the disappearance.
The investigators soon identified inconsistencies in Parolisi's version: no witness confirmed having seen Melania Rea in Colle San Marco that afternoon. For the accusation, the family had instead reached Ripe di Civitella directly. Here, around 2.30pm, the soldier allegedly attacked his wife from behind as she tried to walk away. Melania Rea attempted to flee before being shot. The subsequent story of the disappearance would have served to hide what happened and to place the family in a different place from where, according to the judges, the attack had taken place.
The investigations revealed that Parolisi had been having a relationship with a soldier he met in the military environment for some time. Melania Rea knew of the betrayals and, according to the prosecution reconstruction, a quarrel linked to her husband's double life preceded the murder. The investigators examined messages, phone calls, movements and biological traces, including the DNA of the soldier identified in the victim's mouth. During the interrogations on 10 and 11 May, Parolisi admitted that he had been with Melania Rea in the Casermette woods a few days before the crime. The man's clothing and the family car were also checked, comparing the results of the tests with his statements. The localization of the attack in that area finally led the investigation to the Teramo Prosecutor's Office, responsible for the area.
On 21 June 2011 Parolisi was registered as a suspect for aggravated voluntary homicide. The arrest came on July 19, three months after his wife's death. The soldier continued to maintain his innocence and the defense contested the elements gathered, without obtaining his release: the review court rejected the request and the Supreme Court confirmed the precautionary measure. During the proceedings, alternative hypotheses were also evaluated, starting from a female genetic trace identified under Melania Rea's nail and the injuries inflicted after her death, considered potentially compatible with the involvement of other people. None of these leads, however, were supported enough to change the judges' conclusions on Parolisi's responsibility.
The trial took place with an abbreviated procedure before the Court of Teramo. On 26 October 2012, judge Marina Tommolini sentenced Parolisi to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife and the contempt of the corpse. The sentence also ordered the loss of parental rights and established provisional compensation for the victim's family, including one million euros for Vittoria and 500 thousand euros for Melania Rea's parents. The soldier, who had requested acquittal through his lawyers, challenged the sentence.
On 30 September 2013 the Assize Court of Appeal of L'Aquila confirmed his guilt, reducing the sentence to 30 years. On 10 February 2015, the Court of Cassation confirmed the judgment of responsibility, but excluded the aggravating circumstance of cruelty: the number of stab wounds, according to the judges, was not enough in itself to prove it. The Supreme Court deemed it necessary to distinguish the violence of the attack from evidence of suffering inflicted with particular brutality and ordered a new examination of the punishment. On 27 May 2015 the Assize Court of Appeal of Perugia established a 20-year sentence, also in application of the reduction provided for by the abbreviated procedure, without recognizing the generic mitigating circumstances.
Melania Rea's daughter was 18 months old when her mother was killed. After her father's arrest she was entrusted to her maternal grandparents, who assumed her guardianship. The judicial measures confirmed Parolisi's loss of parental responsibility. Having grown up far from her father, the little girl remained at the center of a legal case which also involved custody and family relationships. Over the years, Melania Rea's relatives have continued to ask for justice and to contest the penitentiary benefits granted to the man.
After twelve years of detention, in 2023 Parolisi obtained some permits from the Bollate prison in Milan. During one of the outings, on 5 July, he gave an interview to Who has seen it?, in which he reiterated his innocence: "I betrayed Melania several times, but I didn't kill her". The statements provoked a reaction from the family and a new evaluation by the supervisory judiciary. On 14 July, fifteen permits already authorized were revoked: according to the judges, the words of the former soldier showed an insufficient understanding of the reintegration process. Parolisi therefore continued to serve his sentence in prison.
Parolisi could finish serving his sentence in July 2027. The forecast takes into account early release, the benefit which, when the legal requirements are met, reduces actual detention. If confirmed, the release would come approximately sixteen years after the arrest on 19 July 2011, compared to the twenty established by the final sentence. A prospect to which the Rea family has said they are against.
