The former porn actress accused of killing her toddler son and leaving his stabbed corpse on a Lidl checkout counter could escape jail time.
Hungarian national Katalin Erzsebet Bradacs, 44, was arrested and taken into preventive custody after being charged with murdering her own toddler son, Alex Juhasz, last autumn.
The former porn actress and nightclub dancer entered a Lidl supermarket in the small town of Citta della Pieve in the central Italian region of Umbria on the afternoon of 1st October 2021.
She reportedly entered the supermarket shouting for help as she placed her son’s bloodied body on top of a checkout counter.
The youngster was pronounced dead, with nine stab wounds found on his body, to his chest and neck areas.
His mother was treated by health workers at the scene and was subsequently arrested by the police after a knife was found in her handbag.
A number of items including the youngster’s bloodied t-shirt, which was punctured with nine holes, and the woman’s jumper were found later that night at a nearby disused building.
The police believe the motive for the crime was revenge against the child’s father, with whom the mother was separated and had been disputing custody over the child.
The father, who lives in Hungary, had alerted the Hungarian authorities after a photo of his dying son was sent to his mobile phone via WhatsApp.
According to reports, it was the child’s mother who sent her ex the photo, and it was sent shortly before she went to the supermarket carrying the boy’s body.
Following her arrest, the woman was taken into questioning, and she denied the accusations against her, telling the police repeatedly: “I did not kill my son.”
She reportedly proffered three contradictory versions of events before choosing to remain silent on the advice of her lawyer Enrico Renzoni.
The suspect had been living in the Tuscan town of Chiusi Scalo at the home of a man who had managed the now-closed nightclub she had worked at and with whom she had remained in contact.
She also has an 18-year-old son, who lives in Hungary and whose father is deceased.
According to the dead toddler’s father, Norbert Juhasz, Katalin had fled to Italy with the boy in September 2021 after a Hungarian court granted custody of the youngster to the father.
The father has since claimed that when his then-partner was pregnant with their child, she would hit her belly and also took steroids.
Witnesses also report having seen the woman mistreating her toddler son on a day preceding the crime.
The suspect was taken into custody at a prison in the nearby city of Perugia.
According to the Hungarian news site Bors, the trial is now underway in Italy, and Bradacs may escape jail time.
The defendant will undergo a psychiatric evaluation at the end of the month, and if she is deemed to be unfit to take the stand, she will receive involuntary psychiatric treatment.
According to Bors, Bradacs will first be interviewed by an expert psychiatrist before undergoing multiple tests.
Although she speaks fluent Italian, the court will probably hire a translator for the process, considered important in such cases, as even one word or a subtle change of tack can be of crucial importance.
Meanwhile, the defendant’s parents Gyorgy and Erzsebet have said they will continue to support their daughter despite expressing concerns that she could kill herself if she does not receive specialist treatment.
Her father said: “I hope they can cure her and she will realise what she has done.”
The case continues.
