Daniela Poggiali, a nurse at the hospital in Lugo, in the province of Ravenna, was arrested in October 2014 and charged with the murder of an elderly patient, Rosa Calderoni, who had died there in April of that year. A second charge, over the death of Massimo Montanari a month earlier, followed years later. In March 2016 the Corte d'Assise in Ravenna sentenced her to life imprisonment for the Calderoni death. In December 2020 a judge in Ravenna sentenced her to 30 years for the Montanari death.
Neither sentence stands. The Corte d'Assise d'Appello in Bologna acquitted her of the Calderoni death three times, in July 2017, in 2019 and on October 25, 2021, and the Court of Cassation in Rome annulled the first two acquittals and sent the case back each time. On October 25, 2021 the Bologna court also quashed the 30-year sentence. In both cases the formula was "perché il fatto non sussiste" ("because the act does not exist"). The Montanari acquittal became final in March 2022, when the prosecutor general did not appeal. On January 24, 2023 the first criminal section of the Court of Cassation declared the prosecutor general's appeal in the Calderoni case inadmissible and the acquittal became final. Prosecutors had also examined dozens of other deaths on the ward in 2014; none of them led to a charge.
Massimo Montanari was 94 and came from Conselice. He died at the hospital in Lugo on the night of March 12, 2014.
Rosa Calderoni was 78 and lived in Russi. She was admitted to the hospital in Lugo and died there on April 8, 2014. The charge was that her death had been brought about deliberately by Poggiali.
The case began with the Calderoni death. Hospital managers already had doubts about Poggiali, because the death rate during her shifts was nearly double that of her colleagues. The local health authority referred the matter to the Ravenna prosecutors, who opened an investigation and, after about six months, authorized her arrest on the evening of October 9, 2014. She was arrested the next day.
The charges at that point were aggravated murder (omicidio pluriaggravato), theft and a further offense connected with photographs of a patient. Hospital figures cited in the case recorded 96 deaths during her shifts between April 2013 and spring 2014, against 45 and 36 for the next two nurses on a list of 39 compared. The Ravenna prosecutors said they were examining 28 other deaths on the ward during her shifts, and consultants for the prosecution regarded at least ten as suspicious. She was dismissed from the hospital, together with a colleague, over the photographs and a suspected theft from another patient.
Poggiali denied the charge. She was held in custody from October 2014.
The trial before the Corte d'Assise in Ravenna ended in March 2016 with a verdict of guilt on aggravated murder and a life sentence for the Calderoni death. The judges deliberated for almost eight hours. Her lawyers appealed.
The prosecutor general asked on February 8, 2017 for the life sentence to be confirmed, and later that month the appeal court in Bologna ordered a fresh expert assessment. In July 2017 the court-appointed experts reported findings that only partly supported the prosecution's case.
On July 7, 2017 the Corte d'Assise d'Appello in Bologna acquitted Poggiali "perché il fatto non sussiste". It found that the death had not been sudden, as the prosecution said, and that it fitted the prosecution's explanation only in part. She was released the next day after 1,003 days in custody.
The prosecutor general appealed. On July 20, 2018 the Court of Cassation annulled the acquittal and ordered a new appeal trial in Bologna.
A different panel at Bologna tried the case again and acquitted her once more in 2019, with the same formula. The prosecutor general again appealed, and in 2020 the Court of Cassation annulled the second acquittal and sent the case back for a third appeal trial.
While the Calderoni case waited for its third appeal, the Montanari death was brought to court. In December 2020 the judge for preliminary hearings in Ravenna, trying the case under the abbreviated procedure, convicted Poggiali of aggravated murder (omicidio pluriaggravato) and sentenced her to 30 years. The four aggravating circumstances alleged included premeditation, abuse of power and abhorrent motives. The local health authority, as a civil party, was awarded its legal costs. She was taken back into custody on Christmas Eve 2020.
The third Calderoni appeal opened in September 2021, alongside the appeal against the Montanari sentence. The court ordered new expert reports, including a statistical study, which found that deaths during her shifts were three to five times more frequent than during the shifts of other nurses. The prosecutor general asked for the life sentence to be confirmed.
On Monday, October 25, 2021, the Corte d'Assise d'Appello in Bologna acquitted her in both cases, "perché il fatto non sussiste", quashed the 30-year sentence and ordered her immediate release. Before the parties spoke she had made spontaneous statements to the court in which she denied the accusation and called it "qualcosa di folle" ("something mad"). Afterwards she said: "Sono felice, non poteva che andare così" ("I am happy, it could only go this way"). Her lawyers had described the investigation as unreliable.
She said in an interview the next day that she wanted to return to nursing and that she regretted how the local health authority and the Ravenna prosecutors had handled the matter, which she said had led to her being portrayed as a serial killer.
The court filed its reasons in spring 2022, a judgment of some 253 pages. It found no evidence of wrongdoing by her, no plausible motive, and no link between the mortality statistics on the ward and any conduct of hers. It also said that the method used to attribute the death to a particular cause was not unanimously accepted by the scientific community. One passage records that "non esistono uccisioni avvenute in passato o morti causate dalla Poggiali" ("there are no killings in the past or deaths caused by Poggiali"). The court criticized the prosecution expert report and suggested that a clearer statement of its limits could have avoided five levels of judgment.
The prosecutor general in Bologna did not appeal the Montanari acquittal within the time allowed after the reasons were filed, and in early March 2022 that acquittal became final. The same office appealed the Calderoni acquittal to the Court of Cassation in spring 2022, alleging "numerosi travisamenti dei dati di fatto" ("numerous misreadings of the facts"), and sought a fourth appeal trial. The defense argued that a further trial ignored the constitutional principle of a reasonable length of proceedings and that eighteen appeal judges had found her innocent.
On January 24, 2023 the first criminal section of the Court of Cassation declared the appeal inadmissible and confirmed the acquittal. It was the third time the case had reached Rome. The Calderoni case was closed, and Poggiali is no longer a defendant in any murder proceeding.
Separately, the hospital's former head physician and head nurse had been charged with murder with conditional intent (dolo eventuale) over the Calderoni death, on the theory that they could have removed Poggiali from her post. On November 15, 2021 the Corte d'Assise in Ravenna acquitted them at the opening of the trial on the charge alone. On November 23, 2022 the Court of Cassation annulled those acquittals and ordered a new trial before a different panel, which was scheduled to begin on September 19, 2023. Poggiali could appear in it only as a witness.
Poggiali faced a number of separate proceedings over thefts on the ward. In September 2017 a court sentenced her to three months in prison and a fine of 100 euros for an attempted theft in October 2013; the sentence was confirmed on appeal. In 2022 she was sent to trial in Ravenna province, with a relative, on a charge of continued embezzlement relating to goods from a facility in Alfonsine, which the defense valued at about 100 euros; the trial was set for the end of November 2022.
Italian criminal procedure lets the prosecution appeal an acquittal, and the Court of Cassation, which reviews points of law and of reasoning rather than hearing the evidence again, can annul a ruling and send the case to a new panel of the appeal court. That is the route the Calderoni case followed three times. The prosecutor general's appeal in 2022 was counted as the seventh trial linked to the case, and the defense pointed out that a fourth appeal trial for the same charge would have had no precedent.
Article 530 of the code of criminal procedure sets the grounds on which a judge acquits, among them that the act did not take place ("il fatto non sussiste"). The same article allows acquittal when evidence is missing, insufficient or contradictory. The 1989 code removed the older formula of acquittal for insufficient evidence in order to end the distinction between a full acquittal and a doubtful one; the reasons appear only in the written judgment. Under this scheme the Bologna court's "perché il fatto non sussiste" was an acquittal on the ground that the act did not take place.
The prosecution case rested on a mix of medical-legal assessments and statistics on the ward. Statisticians at a Dutch university reanalysed the shift and death data in 2021 and 2022 and concluded that the apparent link between her presence and patient deaths was false, because deaths cluster in the morning, when more staff are present, and because recorded death times reflect when a doctor certified a death. The Bologna court's own finding, in its reasons, was that the mortality statistics could not be tied to specific conduct.
Prosecutors in 2014 considered at least ten further deaths on the ward suspicious. None of those cases led to a charge.
March 12, 2014: Massimo Montanari, 94, dies at the hospital in Lugo.
April 8, 2014: Rosa Calderoni, 78, dies at the hospital in Lugo, hours after admission.
October 9 to 10, 2014: Ravenna prosecutors authorize, and police carry out, Poggiali's arrest on charges of aggravated murder, theft and a further offense.
March 2016: Corte d'Assise, Ravenna: life imprisonment for the Calderoni death.
February 22, 2017: the appeal court in Bologna orders a fresh expert assessment.
July 7, 2017: Corte d'Assise d'Appello, Bologna: acquittal "perché il fatto non sussiste"; release the next day.
July 20, 2018: Court of Cassation annuls the acquittal and orders a new appeal.
2019: second Bologna appeal ends in acquittal.
2020: Court of Cassation annuls the second acquittal.
December 2020: judge for preliminary hearings, Ravenna: 30 years for the Montanari death; custody resumes on Christmas Eve.
October 25, 2021: Bologna: acquittal in both cases, "perché il fatto non sussiste"; release.
November 15, 2021: Ravenna: head physician and head nurse acquitted before trial.
March 2022: Montanari acquittal becomes final.
November 23, 2022: Court of Cassation annuls the acquittals of the head physician and head nurse.
January 24, 2023: Court of Cassation (first criminal section): prosecution appeal inadmissible; Calderoni acquittal final.
September 19, 2023: scheduled start of the retrial of the head physician and head nurse.