Dead woman and child at Villa Pamphili: Kaufmann arrested five times in the US

For the investigators, the origin lies between Russia, where the two allegedly stayed, and Ukraine. For one witness, Oskar 'El Mariachi', a Mexican musician who met her in Malta, she was a 'computer genius, a kind of hacker. A Robin Hood of the net. Not even Rexal knew what she did'.

So what did the two do for a living? Can possible links to security apparatuses be excluded? He presented himself as a film director and producer.

On 7 May, Kaufmann - accompanied by the woman and the child - went to a Roman production studio for an 'international' project with a three million euro budget.

Also corroborating the candidature was an e-mail from the UK from British producers. On 5 June, two days before the bodies were found, the Californian sent a vowel to an Italian friend: 'My wife has left me. She is back with her ex, he is rich. She left me with the child because she was no longer interested in being a mother. Now I am looking for a place to stay in Rome'.

In the same audio, the man mentions a film project in which even Dhani Harrison, son of the legendary George of the Beatles, would be involved.

Friendships all to be proven, in an account made in a detached tone and an almost mechanical voice. Words recorded when the woman was already dead. A body, at the moment, unclaimed by no one but whose identity could be revealed in the next few hours by tracing back to a decisive element: two years ago, in mid-2023, Ford arrived in Malta and met the woman.

The baby was born in 2024, probably in a hospital on the island. That is why checks are under way to find out the name of the baby's mother, possibly contained in health records. It is from there that the couple, with the baby, would then leave for Russia, the woman's possible country of origin.

In Malta, Ford-Kaufmann also allegedly obtained a local identity card and lived with his partner in a small village in the south of the island. Finally, the dramatic epilogue in Italy, with the body of the newborn found on 7 June.

On the body, left near a hedge, signs of violence, of strangulation.

In the charge of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), the prosecutors of Piazzale Clodio, coordinated by deputy Giuseppe Cascini, accuse the suspect of voluntary manslaughter aggravated by the victim's minor age and concealment of a corpse.

The Ministry of Justice also received the European Investigation Order (EIO) from the investigators and forwarded it to the Greek authorities, so that the extradition request to Italy could be formalised.

Thanks to the European Investigation Order, it is possible to obtain decisive elements such as thedna of the accused but also the credit card and the two mobile phones he had with him at the time of his arrest.

If the DNA test establishes a family relationship with the child, the indictment could be further aggravated for the suspect.

The man is now being held in the prison in Volos, Greece, and the Council of the Court of Appeal in Larissa will decide in the coming days on the procedure regarding his surrender.

But Ford has not agreed to the transfer to our country and this could slow down the procedures, even by months.

The cause of the woman's death still remains to be ascertained, and the condition in which she was found makes the job complex.

A possible death due to abnormal suffocation, e.g. with a pillow, would have been ruled out by the initial autopsy findings.