Story By: Ana Marjanovic, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Newsflash
A mum-of-two posted this photo of her husband kissing her just hours before he stabbed her to death following a blazing row.
Donatella Miccoli, 38, posted the tender snap on Instagram at around 8pm on Saturday, 18th June.
A few hours later, husband Matteo Verdesca, 38, stabbed her to death at their home in Novoli, Lecce province, southern Italy.
Donatella’s post was eerily prescient, as it included a caption of the song lyric ‘And together we are the end of the world’ from ‘La parte piu bella di me’ (‘The Most Beautiful Part of Me’) by Anto Paga.
And her profile picture on Facebook shows a snap of the whole family, under which Verdesca had commented “I love you” and to which Donatella had replied: “We love you too”.
The couple had been married for nine years and had a daughter, 7, and a son, 2. Verdesca also had another son, 18, from a previous relationship.
On the night of the crime, the family had gone out for a walk in their village before Verdesca took the children to their grandparents’ house for them to sleep over.
He then returned home with Donatella.
Neighbours reported hearing a violent quarrel, which ended when Verdesca grabbed a knife and killed his wife just before 2am.
When first responders arrived on the scene, they were only able to pronounce Donatella dead.
It was Verdesca’s own mother who reported him to the police after he called her to say “I screwed up”.
His charred body was found inside his burnt-out Renault Clio on the outskirts of Novoli hours later.
Donatella originally hailed from Copertino and worked at a shopping centre in Surbo.
The motive for the suspected murder-suicide is unclear, though some who knew the couple described Verdesca as “very jealous, sometimes pathologically”.
Novoli Mayor Marco De Luca said: “I am a mayor, but I am above all a man, a father of a family, and this morning I am literally shocked by the news of this tragedy.”