Annabella Martinelli, a 22-year-old student, was found hanging. She had left home on her bicycle, which was subsequently discovered parked with a padlock around twenty km away. She had ordered two pizzas the night she went missing, and the boxes were found beside her vehicle.
Annabella Martinelli, a twenty-two-year-old Paduan lady who had been missing since the evening of Epiphany, was found hanged on Thursday, January 15, not far from where her bicycle had been discovered a few days earlier on a street in Teolo (Padua), at the foot of the Euganean Hills.
The young woman’s lifeless body was discovered behind a row of trees between numbers 1 and 3 on Via Euganea Teolo; a woman walking her dog saw her. In addition to police enforcement, Deputy Prosecutor Martina Varagnolo and Chief Prosecutor Angelantonio Racanelli were on the scene.
The most likely hypothesis is that it was a deliberate act; however, a series of investigations are underway to rule out the involvement of other people.
The 22-year-old university student had left the home she shared with her parents in Padua, near the Hospitals, in the late afternoon of January 6th. She was last seen on video at Villa di Teolo, near the foot of the hills, sometime after 11:00 p.m., riding her bicycle for roughly thirty km.
The women’s purple bicycle was found over the next few days, while firefighters, Carabinieri, drones, sniffing dogs, helicopters, and volunteers looked for her from dawn to nightfall. Earlier last week, the Padua prosecutor’s office initiated an abduction case to help with its investigation.
The Carabinieri and prosecutor’s office revealed the last photographs of the 22-year-old alive on Wednesday. Annabella, dressed in a black jacket, hood, dark wool cap, pants and a rucksack, was seen traversing Selvazzano Dentro, then the centre of Teolo, and lastly before the ascent to Castelnuovo.
The young woman departed home about 8:00 p.m. and pedalled 30 km, stopping first at the “Dove Come Quando” pizzeria for two Margherita pizzas and then at the “La Pepita” restaurant in Treponti for a bottle of water and a Coke.
Her smartphone stayed turned on until the following evening, making it hard to determine her specific position.
