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Antonia Giampietro, 47, lived with her father, mother and son in Cordoba, Argentina. A chambermaid, she was the only family member with an earned income. She had no criminal record. Yet her breadwinning was not restricted to cleaning.
Between May and July of 2003, Antonia Giampietro attacked and robbed an average of five men per month. She preyed upon male retirees who withdrew pension money from bands, including Provincial Bank of Alta Córdoba and the New Blue Independent Bank. She also targeted a retirement home, the Arturo Illia Day Home on the corner of General Paz y Tablada.
She would offer an elderly man some juice which she had put Diazopam in, wait for him to fall unconscious, take his money and leave him to his fate, not even bothering to anonymously call for an ambulance.
In a single day she could steal over 5,000 pesos. On one good day, she took in 1,500, 2,700 and 840 from three victims.
By interviewing surviving victims, investigators were able to piece together a pattern that would lead to surveillance and arrest.
It was on August 28, 2003, that police caught Antonia red-handed, just as she was trying to seduce and assault a man who had withdrawn money from a bank a few minutes earlier. The investigator caught her on video just as she was preparing to drug her victim to steal his salary. In her purse were pills and a dropper. The attempted drugging/theft was Antonia’s third such attempt that day.
Giampietro is accused of seducing retirees when they were going to collect their pensions, and then making them drink a juice mixed with drugs in order to steal their money. According to the investigators, this action caused the intoxication of 11 men and the death of two others: Julio Luna and Antonio Almada.
~ Trial ~
One of the victims, Juan Carlos Figueroa, related at the trial that when he went to collect his pension, Giampietro initiated a conversation with him and then accompanied him on some errands.
Figueroa testified: “While we were walking, she bought a box of juice, she took it and invited me for a drink; I said I didn't want to, but she insisted. After a while, I started to feel very bad.”
The man related that Giampietro made him sit on the bench in the plaza, where he woke up "several hours later." When he checked his wallet the 300 pesos he had withdrawn were missing.
Other victims woke up in a hospital. Numerous witnesses related similar situations. In some cases, men were tempted with sexual advances. In others, the poisoner gained the trust of men - and women, sometimes – hanging out with them at a bar.
The trial, which ended on December 27, 2004, ended with a 24-year sentence based on two deaths and 13 robberies, coupled with the use of drugs. Giampietro received the reading of the sentence with the same attitude that she maintained during the almost two months that the trial lasted: impassive. Flanked by a police guard, she left the room in apparent calm, as if nothing had happened.
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CHRONOLOGY
1947 – Antonia Giampietro born.
1965 – At 18, Antonia went to live alone. She got a job as a shoe saleswoman and thus made a living for several years.
1998 – The investigations that led to the arrest of Giampietro began with events that occurred in 2003, although references to others dating from 1998 were later discovered.
May 30, 2003 – seduces Julio Enrique Luna (71).
May- July, 2003 – attacked an average of five men per month, and in one of those months, in a single day, she had accumulated a sum of 5,040 pesos after stealing 1,500, 2,700 and 840 pesso from three different retirees.
Jul. 2003 – Julio Enrique Luna (71) dies.
Aug. 6, 2003 – Antonio Almada (73) murdered.
Aug. 28, 2003 – Arrested by Diego Gabriel Osorio,
Dec. 27, 2004 – Antonia Lorenza Giampietro, 57, was found guilty of two murders and eight robberies.
sentenced to 24 years. Bouwer Women’s Prison.
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SOURCE:
[Condenaron a 24 años a una "viuda negra": Fue acusada por dos homicidios y 13 robos en los que usó somníferos. (“A ‘black widow’ was sentenced to 24 years”), Rio Negro, Dec. 28, 2004]
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