A tragic epilogue that did not arrive suddenly, because digging into the past of Santino Bonfiglio, the truck driver who in recent days killed his ex-partner with forty stab wounds, after months of beatings and threats, there is something that – today – makes Daniela Zinnanti’s feminicide appear even more unacceptable: her violent past, made up of beatings, threats and heavy attacks against women.
Episodes which had already brought Bonfiglio before the judges in the past, but which did not prevent the spiral of violence from continuing to its most tragic epilogue. One of the most serious precedents dates back to the night of 5 September 2008 in the hamlet of San Martino di Spadafora, in the Messina area. Bonfiglio, a truck driver originally from Torregrotta, attacked his partner at the end of yet another domestic dispute. First he tried to strangle her with his bare hands, then he went into the kitchen, took a knife with a blade sixteen centimeters long and stabbed her in the chest. The woman was urgently transported to the hospital in Milazzo, with a deep wound and numerous bruises: a forty-day prognosis.
What prevented that night from turning into a murder was the courage of a traffic policeman from Spadafora, the couple’s neighbour. He and his wife noticed the scene from the window: the woman was barefoot, on the ground, while Bonfiglio – in briefs – was pulling her and covering her mouth to prevent her from screaming. The policeman immediately took to the street to intervene; his wife called 113 and 118. But before fleeing the truck driver still managed to stab him. Thus began a manhunt that lasted a few hours. Bonfiglio drove away in his Fiat Panda and, during the escape, telephoned his ex-wife who lives in Milazzo. He told her he wanted to see his daughter immediately and threatened her. The woman, sensing the gravity of the situation, decided to take her time: she told him that she was in Messina, in the village of Catarratti, as a guest of her sister. Then he called the police. The police arrived in the indicated area and intercepted the Panda just before two in the morning. Bonfiglio was arrested on charges of attempted murder.
At first instance the sentence was ten years’ imprisonment. But on appeal the judges changed the legal classification of the facts: no longer attempted murder, but personal injury. A decision that drastically reduced the sentence: three years. Yet the violence was not an isolated incident. Already a few months earlier, in March of the same year, Bonfiglio had attacked the same woman for trivial reasons, hitting her with punches, kicks and slaps and causing her to fracture two ribs.
A sequence of attacks which, reread today, in light of the murder of Daniela Zinnanti, takes on a different weight. Femicide was not – it can never be – the sudden explosion of unexpected anger, but the last chapter in a long history of domestic violence which had already shown clear signs for years. A violence that, despite complaints and trials, was not stopped in time.