REPRESENTATIVES OF both Irish families were in court yesterday for the resumption of the trial of Italian Friedrich Vernarelli (31), accused of the hit-and-run killings of Mary Collins and Elizabeth Gubbins in Rome on St Patrick’s night last March.
On this third day in court the trial proper finally got started, with six police officers and a coroner giving evidence. Two traffic police officers, Enzo Zazza and Pietro Grandoni, who arrested Mr Vernarelli about 3am, 2km upriver from the pedestrian crossing opposite Castel Sant’Angelo where the tragedy took place, were among the first to give evidence.
Both men agreed that when they found Mr Vernarelli, leaning against his Mercedes car after he had crashed into a parked car on Via Virgilio, he was in a “confused” state. Both claimed Mr Vernarelli was unable to offer a coherent story, and that he was on his own.
Given Mr Vernarelli’s condition, the officers ordered that he be taken to Santo Spirito hospital for treatment of a facial cut and so he might face blood and urine tests.
Mr Grandoni said he felt such tests were essential given that Mr Vernarelli gave the impression of having drunk heavily or “of having consumed other substances”.
Mr Grandoni offered a potentially significant piece of evidence. After Mr Vernarelli had been treated in the hospital, he was taken to the barracks. When he woke at about 6am he became distressed, telling Mr Grandoni: “I have done a terrible thing . . . I was the one who was driving.”
Much of yesterday’s examination of witnesses concentrated on the controversial figure of US citizen Manuel Ruiz, who with three US friends witnessed the deaths.
Luciano Di Stefano, another traffic policeman, took statements from Mr Ruiz and his friends and took Mr Ruiz to the hospital for formal identification of Mr Vernarelli. There, Mr Ruiz looked at Mr Vernarelli and said: “No, he was not driving the car.” This evidence could prove crucial to the defence, which has argued that Mr Vernarelli was not driving the car at the time of the deaths.
Rather, he was “out of it” in the back seat while one of two Hungarian friends, Zsolt Balogh or Andras Korzma, whom he met earlier in the night, was at the wheel.
Patricia Collins, Mary’s mother, told The Irish Times she would return to follow the next sittings of the trial early in 2009: “She [Mary] and Elizabeth were such lovely girls . . . I will be here the next day, I have to, she is my girl.”