A former cinema dressmaker who acted as seamstress for Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni and Alberto Sordi was jailed in Rome last week after stabbing her husband at the age of 84.
The woman, whose first name was given as Loretta, was placed in the infirmary at Rebibbia Prison, said Lazio inmate guarantor Gabriella Stramaccioni. Stramaccioni has criticised the decision to send someone of that age to jail. “She was taken away in her pyjamas without the possibility of bringing anything with her, not even her false teeth,” she said.
“At such a dramatic time for prison overcrowding, how can you think of jailing such an elderly woman? Perhaps there weren’t alternatives in that moment, but alternatives must be thought of and constructed”.
Stramaccioni said she had found Loretta a place in a home run by Catholic nuns and hoped to get her booked in there later Tuesday.
The facts date back to August 9, when a quarrel broke out between Loretta and her husband at home. He threatened her, then started to beat her. Loretta grabbed a knife and to defend herself, she stabbed him and then she called the police.
The man was then transferred to the hospital (where he is hospitalized on a confidential prognosis, but apparently not in a life-threatening condition), Loretta was arrested. Her investigating judge issued a precautionary custody order confining her to prison: having nowhere else to go, she was transferred to Rebibbia. And it is here that her story reached Stramaccioni, who visited the prison and also met the elderly woman and arranged to have her relocated.
