A 23-year-old Sicilian mother on
Tuesday confessed to killing her five-year-old daughter and
falsely claiming she had been abducted for ransom.
Martina Patti told police she had killed Elena, but did not say
why she had done so, sources said.
The alleged 'kidnapping by masked' men was a false report to
cover the murder, police said.
The incident took place near Catania.
The dead body of Elena, a five-year-old girl reported as being
kidnapped on Monday in the Sicilian town of Tremestieri Etneo,
was found on Tuesday.
The sources said the child's mother, who had reported the
alleged kidnapping, led investigators to the body.
The mother had told Carabinieri police that three hooded men,
one of whom was was armed with a gun, opened the door of her car
and grabbed Elisa after she had picked her up from nursery
school.
Sources had said investigators did not believe organized crime
was behind the alleged kidnapping and they did not think the
child would have been abducted to obtain a ransom either.
Elena's family are not considered wealthy enough to be the
targets of attempted extortion of this kind, they said.
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