Benno Neumair, the 31-year-old from Bolzano who confessed that on 4 January 2021 he killed his parents, 63-year-old Peter Neumair and 68-year-old Laura Perselli, both retired teachers, and then threw their bodies into the Adige, was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The court of assizes fully accepted the prosecution's requests, sentencing Benno to life imprisonment both for the murder of his father, Peter Neumair, and for that of his mother, Laura Perselli.

Benno Neumair was sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment for the crime of suppressing a corpse, i.e. for having thrown the bodies of his parents killed in the waters of the Adige.

The final penalty is therefore life imprisonment with a year of daytime isolation and perpetual disqualification from public office.

"Unfair sentence, we did not expect it, we will have to read the reasons".

This is the comment of the lawyer Flavio Moccia, defender of Benno Neumair, collected by the Agi agency a few minutes after the reading of the sentence of the Court of Assizes which condemned the thirty-one year old. 

"This is not a win. It's not an achievement. It's the end of a chapter that has been very painful, in this last year and maybe if someone had told me earlier how much pain it would have been maybe I thought I couldn't make it."

This was said by Madè Neumair, Benno's sister, who was in the courtroom at the reading of the sentence.

With her voice broken by emotion, on the sidelines of the reading of the sentence, Madè spoke to journalists: "Today we finished the day, let's hope it can give us some peace. Then it's only this sentence or the reasons that we will read they will give us back our mum and dad. But maybe it will give us some peace as much as we can have peace after this upheaval", he continued.    

"I think the jury decided what felt right at the moment. I think it felt right. I don't know if I'll forgive it. It's such a difficult question that I'm not thinking about it. I'm not thinking about him right now but Mum and the dad," he added.

The double murder was committed on January 4, 2021, in the family home in the South Tyrolean capital.