Chronicle

The secret identity of Francis Kaufmann and the mystery of the three credit cards in the Villa Pamphili murder

A man with multiple identities and a dark international past involved in a tragic murder in Rome. Ongoing investigation.

18 June 2025Aggiornato alle ore 13:45

Ritrovamento del corpo di una donna e di una neonata all’interno di Villa Pamphili , la scientifica torna il giorno seguente a fare un sopralluogo l’8 giugno 2025 (Cecilia Fabiano / LaPresse)

3' min read

Key points

Francis Kaufmann He was still in Malta on 27 March
Dead mother and baby girl: search for house where they lived in Rome

3' min read

Francis Kaufmann, the 46-year-old man arrested in Greece and charged with the murder of a six-month-old girl later found lifeless in Villa Pamphili in Rome, a short distance from her mother's body, was in possession of three cards that he also used for lunches and dinners in restaurants.

According to reports in some newspapers today money came to the man, in the order of 5-6 thousand euro, from his parents. Kaufmann used a passport under the name Rexal Ford.

After living in various countries including Russia, New Zealand and Iceland, he settled in Malta, where he assumed a false identity as a film director and producer, founding Tintagel Films.

There he met a Russian-speaking girl, named Stella, nationality unconfirmed, with whom he had a daughter whom he claims was named Andromeda.

He landed in Italy by sea, on a rented catamaran together with the woman and the little girl. In our country, according to reconstructions, he also used a second alias: Matteo Capozzi.

Investigators are also working on three phone cards, one of which was bought at Termini station, to try to reconstruct how he lived in Italy and who hosted him in the weeks before the girl's murder.

Francis Kaufmann He was still in Malta on 27 March

Francis Kaufmann was still in Malta on 27 March. The man, a 46-year-old American citizen stopped on the Greek island of Skiathos, was using an Italian alias, Matteo Capozzi, and was looking for information from Malta to rent an ark and arrive in Sicily. Confirming the fact is the owner of a Sicilian carsharing company who had been contacted by the American.

According to reports, on the evening of 27 March he received a message on his mobile phone from Capozzi, whom he did not know, asking him for contacts with companies dealing with charter boats from Malta.

Mother and baby dead: search for house where they lived in Rome

The alleged Villa Pamphili killer Francis Kaufmann had contacted an estate agency in early April to rent a flat in Rome.

Investigators are now working to locate the house where the 46-year-old Californian, together with his mother and daughter found dead in the park on 7 June, lived during their stay in the capital.

The search is particularly focused on the Monteverde quadrant and the Gregorio VII area. The suspicion, in fact, is that the three did not sleep in the street.

It is also awaited to know what money the man had in his account in America. The investigators are also trying to give a name to the young woman and child.

The hypothesis is that the 30-year-old woman was Russian. No trace, however, of the child's birth certificate and the marriage certificate between the two on the island of Malta.

"Who saw it?" shows Rexal Ford passport

"Who saw it?" showed Rexal Ford's passport on its social media.

It is 'the same document he had when he was stopped in Greece on charges of murdering the little girl,' the programme wrote in a post on Fb, adding that the identity of the woman, who at police checks said her name was Stella and could be from the Ukraine or Russia, has yet to be established.

Kaufmann's home in Malta: he walked around with laptop

"I remember that couple well, they were very taciturn. He always wore a baseball cap with a visor. He often went to the mini market nearby to do his shopping and sometimes I saw him coming out of the pharmacy on the street corner. Every time I met him he had a briefcase with him, the kind you use to carry laptop computers. He would nod his head and give a half smile but I never spoke to him. A couple of times in the autumn I saw him in the company of the pregnant woman'.

Thus to LaPresse, a resident, who prefers to remain anonymous, of 78 in-Nadur Street in Malta, where Francis Kaufmann, alias Rexal Ford, lived from 2023 until 2024.