It ended with the sentencing to life imprisonment of two of the three perpetrators of the murder of the Italian pensioner Maria Laura Satta, killed three years ago in Kikambala, near Mombasa, during a chilling robbery that ended badly by members of a gang, just 20 years old, who had also injured her husband Luigi Scassellati, a former entrepreneur well known in Cremona, where the couple of Sardinian origin lived even though they used to spend the winters in their cottage in Kenya.
The two thugs and murderers confessed and will end their years behind bars, while the third member of the gang was even worse, because the crowd that identified him as one of the perpetrators of the brutal episode lynched him in public.
At first the suspects had focused on the gardener at home, Lewis, suspected of being the baseman if not the gang's mastermind, but he was released almost immediately.
As we had already written at the time, the village of Kikambala, once a holiday resort especially for Germans, was no longer considered a safe place. Its proximity to Mombasa and especially to Mwtapa, considered the "sin city" of the north coast, between drug and prostitution tours and baby gangs, did not make it one of the most popular destinations for European tourists. Despite this, some Italians, particularly pensioners, had chosen it as a destination for "wintering". Surely if the three young people had not acted so brutally that July 23, 2017, there would have been talk of a "normal" robbery, as it had appeared immediately to investigators who came after the discovery of an Italian friend of the couple, who, in addition to the two bodies in blood, had found the house upside down. Scassellati's body was lying in the garden but still alive, while his wife, who was in the bathroom at the time of the assault, had been shot to death.
Unfortunately no one will be able to bring Maria Laura Satta back to life, but at least justice has been done and the maximum penalty has been given to her murderers.