Pietropaolo receives life sentence for killing wife and father

Vincenzo Pietropaolo, the Bank of Athens’ former treasurer, has been sentenced to life behind bars for the murders of his estranged wife and elderly father.

Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng handed down the sentence in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Monday, 15 March 2021. All this comes several months after the same court found Pietropaolo guilty of killing his father Pasqualino and his wife Manuela in 2017.

He is believed to have first murdered his father by fatally shooting him, in what was initially believed to be a botched house robbery. Several months later, Pietropaolo used the same weapon to kill his wife, shooting her nine times.

Mokgoatlheng was rather candid in his judgement, remarking on the shockingly cruel manner in which the woman met her end.

“I have never, ever, ever seen the cruelty which was meted out to the wife of the accused,” he said.

Vincenzo Pietropaolo is ‘inherently evil’ – presiding judge

Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng was rather scathing of Pietropaolo, calling him a pathological liar after he said he was told to sign a police affidavit without knowing what it actually said.

Commenting on the “failed robbery,” Mokgoatlheng said this was undoubtedly staged as the elderly man’s most valuable items were not taken.

“I find that the accused is inherently evil. He murders his father, he doctors the scene, in the sense that he pretends that there was a house robbery and (that) resulted in the death of his father. This court has already found that there was no robbery there,” he said.

Pietropaolo has also been sentenced to 15 years for being in the possession of firearms without licenses, five years for being in possession of ammunition without a license, three years for firing an unlicensed firearm and another three years for attempting to defeat the ends of justice.