The owner of the “Le Vignole” pizzeria in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, Giovanna Pedretti, was found dead. She was the protagonist of a media case after publishing her response to a homophobic and anti-disabled review that appeared on Google. A story that had sparked several controversies on social media where some users had raised doubts about the authenticity of the review. The body of the 59-year-old was found in the waters of the Lambro in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano (Lodi). According to investigators, this would be an extreme gesture.
The Lodi Public Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation, with no suspicion of crime for now. At the same time, an autopsy was ordered on the woman's body. The husband noticed her absence on Sunday morning and then became alarmed, thus alerting the police, after having viewed the footage from the home cameras which showed that the woman had left her home, above the restaurant, at 4 am morning, not giving any more news about himself. The Lodi police began searching after 2pm and it was the same soldiers who first found her car, a beige Panda, and then her body. The woman left behind her husband and a daughter.
According to the information gathered by the Lodi prosecutor's office, which is investigating together with the Carabinieri of Sant'Angelo Lodigiano, it would be an extreme gesture: an autopsy was ordered after the opening of the investigation. The entire area was immediately closed to traffic by the police for several hours to allow all necessary investigations to be carried out. On site, in addition to the magistrate on duty, forensic experts intervened and completed the operations by sifting through the restaurateur's car and inch by inch the meters that separated the body from the vehicle. The investigators are looking for as many elements as possible to exclude any other leads. An immense tragedy that adds to that already experienced by the family of Giovanna Pedretti, originally from the Bergamo area, but resident in the Lodigiano area for years, who lost her brother who committed suicide in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano on January 12th about ten years ago.
In recent days Giovanna Pedretti had responded to a review on her restaurant from a customer who complained about having eaten next to a table with a homosexual couple and a disabled boy. “They put me to eat next to gays. I didn't immediately notice why they were composed, and the boy in the wheelchair ate with difficulty. I was sorry but I didn't feel at ease. It's a shame because the pizza was excellent and the dessert excellent, but I won't go again”, the customer's absurd complaint in the review.
The woman did not let those words fall on deaf ears and replied: “Our restaurant is open to everyone and the requirements we ask of our guests are education and respect towards everyone. Your words of contempt towards guests who don't seem to have bothered you seem like gratuitous and rather unpleasant malice to me.” And then her definitive invitation: “Given this human baseness and poor taste… I think our place is not for you. We do not select our clients based on sexual orientation, much less disability. I kindly ask you not to come back to us unless you find within yourself the human requirements that have been missing in your attitude.”
The review was from last summer and was then deleted, Giovanna explained, but she had taken a screenshot of it. This is an element of the deleted post which aroused suspicions of the untruthfulness of the review among some social media users.
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