Two newborns born in secret and buried in the garden of the houseto. This is the case of Chiara Petrolinithe 22-year-old young woman at the center of an affair that took place in Vignale di Traversetolo, in the province of Parma.
It was April 24th sentenced in first instance to 24 years and 3 months for the murder and concealment of her second child, born in August 2024, while she was acquitted of murder charges for first babydelivered in May 2023, for which the crime of concealment of a corpse remains.
An affair that has profoundly shaken public opinion and which, also due to the thesis supported by the defense, leads to questioning a delicate question: Is it possible to give birth without really being aware of the pregnancy?
We talked about it with the criminologist Roberta Bruzzone.
Dr. Bruzzone, in the case of Chiara Petrolini, is it correct, from a criminological point of view, to talk about denial of the pregnancy?
«No, absolutely not. Invoking the so-called denial of pregnancy, as the defense is attempting to do, is an impassable path in light of the evidence on file. Chiara Petrolini was perfectly aware of the pregnancy, both for the first and for the second. And the very fact of being able to hide everything, of maintaining secrecy and absolute control over something that no one else had to know, gave her a feeling of omnipotence. The report describes a personality with narcissistic traits, profoundly immature and very tied to control. This is perfectly compatible with a subject aware of being pregnant and also of the fact that that child would not have had a real chance of surviving.”
What, then, is pregnancy denial from a psychiatric point of view?
«Denial of pregnancy is a condition that usually develops in subjects with significant psychiatric fragility, who often do not even have the cultural tools to realize what is happening. We are talking about situations that manifest themselves in marginal contexts, certainly not in a person like Chiara Petrolini. And certainly not twice.”
What is the difference between not knowing you are pregnant and knowing but emotionally rejecting it?
«It’s a huge difference. If I don’t know I’m pregnant, I can implement a series of apparently normal lifestyle behaviors that can also compromise the life of the fetus, but without being aware of it. When the birth arrives, the situation worsens because I am not prepared in the slightest. It’s one thing not to be aware of your pregnancy, it’s another thing to experience it in a hidden way, that is, to hide it. They are two completely different things.”
Is it plausible that no one, not even the boyfriend, noticed the pregnancies?
«Yes, it’s absolutely plausible. Nobody noticed. We are talking about a subject with psychological characteristics strongly oriented towards appearance, perfectly in line with the social model he wanted to show. The ability to hide aspects of oneself deemed unacceptable is perfectly compatible with what happened: being able to hide two pregnancies and, especially in the second case, already having it clear that that child would die and would be hidden.”
The immediate return to normal life after giving birth is also striking…
«This says a lot about the fact that, from a psychological point of view, there was no emotional investment in those children. Definitely not on the second one. Online searches, with unambiguous content, take place during gestation. This shows that she was perfectly aware that she was pregnant. Evoking the denial of pregnancy is not compatible with these elements.”
How important are online searches in this sense?
«They weigh a lot. Let’s talk about research on home birth, on how to induce it, also in view of a departure for the United States… Denial of pregnancy implies that the subject discovers that she is pregnant at the time of birth. Here we are faced with a lucid person, who documents and plans. Honestly, evoking that condition seems to me to be an unsustainable thesis.”
He told the investigators that he buried them because “he wanted to keep them close”: what does such a sentence reveal?
«I give a much less romantic reading. I believe it is an expression linked to a very deep-rooted need for control. Keeping them there meant continuing to control that secret even afterward. It is part of a hyper-controlling strategy.”
The report speaks of emotional immaturity. What does it mean, concretely?
«Immaturity is not a legal parameter. It is clear that we are talking about a young girl, but she has the tools to understand the negative value of what she has done. In fact, she was judged to be fully capable of understanding and wanting. If the immaturity had been such that it really had an impact, the assessment would have been different.”
What profile emerges, then?
«I see a subject with narcissistic traits, with a strong need to appear perfect according to external parameters. Everything that does not fit into this scheme becomes expendable. Even a child.”
Does the fact that there are two episodes change the reading?
“Yes a lot. After a first pregnancy, a person with adequate cultural tools puts themselves in a position to prevent it from happening again. Here instead we have a recurrence, a behavioral pattern. If you continue to hide the pregnancy and challenge the world with a secret that only you possess, drawing a feeling of omnipotence from it, it becomes difficult to attribute everything to immaturity.”
Finally, why does the sentence only concern the second child?
«For an evidential matter. The first child’s remains were too compromised to determine with certainty whether he had been born alive. This does not mean that things happened differently, but that there is not enough evidence for a conviction. For the second case, however, the proof is there.”
