My cell phone rang at 6:27 am last Thursday. It was AP Television Rome’s Senior Producer Maria Grazia Murru. “Can you be on a train for Florence in half an hour. It leaves at 7:05. The prosecutor in the Ashley Olsen murder case is giving a press conference at 10am.”
I had been following this story at a distance all week. On Saturday, January 9th the body of 35-year-old American Ashley Olsen was found naked in her apartment in the Oltarno neighborhood of Florence. Her boyfriend, a Florentine artist, had asked the landlord to let him in after he hadn’t heard from her in a few days.
AP sent a television crew immediately and they had filmed the quaint street on which she lived, the doorway piling up with flowers and graffiti left on the walls remembering the beautiful young woman.
Ashley Olsen had been living in Florence for years without a job, but was apparently active in the art and fashion scene. She was frequently bopping around the neighborhood with her beagle Scout and her skateboard. Olsen’s father is an art professor in Florence.
Shortly after her body was discovered, Italian police released a statement saying her neck was “bruised and scratched”. On Tuesday the prosecutor in the case said the initial results of the autopsy revealed that she had been strangled with a cord, but they were still investigating body fluids and other elements. On Wednesday the forensic police returned to her apartment and spent hours there leaving with large bags of filled with apparently big objects. By Wednesday evening they had arrested a Senegalese man whose DNA had matched that found on the scene of the crime.
And then I was on the train to Florence with AP Television Cameraman Gigi Navarra dragging computer, camera, mifi, tripod, LiveU, and cables frantic to arrive in time to cover the prosecutor’s press conference. We arrived in Florence to find pouring rain and traffic clogged up all over the city. We got to the Prosecutor’s office just in the nick of time. We set up the camera, cabled up the microfone and liveU, and connected it.
Prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo entered the room, sat down in front of the microphones and didn’t waste time in getting right down to the gory details surrounding her death. He explained that they had arrested a 27-year-old man named Cheik Tidiane Diaw from Senegal. He said that witnesses had seen Diaw leave the Montecarla night club with Olsen, the two were filmed by a closed circuit security camera walking together towards her home on Via Santa Monaca at dawn and witnesses saw them entering her building together.
In her apartment forensic police found a used condom and a cigarette butt in the toilet, both with Diaw’s DNA. They also found his DNA under her fingernails.
Creazzo said that they had arrested Diaw the day before and had spent the night interrogating him. Later he revealed that police had offered Diaw a cigarette during the interrogation then whisked away the ashtray and quickly sent the butt off to the laboratory for a DNA analysis. Creazzo also said that Diaw had taken Olsen’s phone when he left her apartment and then stuck his own phone card in it to call his girlfriend.
Creazzo said that Olsen had two fractures on her cranium and that those blows to the head could have caused her death as much as the strangulation. He explained that Olsen had come home with Diaw, both already with plenty of alcohol in their systems. The two had “consensual sexual relations” after which they had probably done some drugs together. After they consumed drugs, they had ended up in a physical struggle. The prosecutor said Olsen had been strangled with something that “was not his hands.”
As a result, Creazzo said, Diaw is accused of aggravated homicide. A judge later confirmed the arrest and Diaw remains in jail.
Diaw just came to Italy from Senegal a few months ago. He worked handing out flyers for nightclubs and lived with two brothers who have been Italy for longer and have legal status and jobs.
The press conference ended and Gigi and I were left with a lot of questions. We headed out – in the pouring rain – to visit (and film) Olsen’s home, the Diaw’s home and visit the church where her funeral was to be held the next day.
The street where Diaw lived with his brothers was mostly deserted. It looked like an elegant residential neighborhood, the family name did not appear on the brass intercom. I met some Italian colleagues at a coffee bar on the corner who had been let in by someone and went up to the apartment but no one answered.
We then got a call that the Olsen family was visiting the morgue. We took off in another taxi that again got stuck in traffic in the rain. I ended up leaving Gigi at the morgue waiting for the family to come out and crossed town again to meet with Father Antonio at the Santo Spirito Basilica where the funeral was to be held. I met the priest in the beautiful courtyard at the side of the Basilica and he ushered me into a small room where I chatted with him and the Bishop who would be presiding over the mass, Monsignor Giovanni Scanavino. The Bishop told me that he was upset about what was happening in the “Oltrarno” community (Note: the Arno is the river that runs through Florence so “Oltrarno” means the other side of the Arno). He said that the community was losing its humanity and the neighborhood should have done more to help a young woman like Olsen and keep her away from drugs and alcohol.
While Gigi and I were running around, my colleague Maria Grazia had booked us a hotel on the Piazza Santo Spirito near both the church and Ashley’s apartment. Although it was only three stars it was a beautiful hotel with gorgeous old rooms. After the meeting at the church I retreated to my room to re-group. Gigi was still stuck outside the morgue in the rain waiting for the Olsen family to emerge.
As I worked on plans for coverage of the funeral the next day, my colleague, AP Rome Bureau Chief Nicole Winfield, called. She had been talking to Diaw’s lawyer, and he was willing to give us a TV interview. I jumped in another taxi and again had to cross Florence in the heavy rain. Lawyer Antonio Voce’s office was on the outskirts of Florence in a modern building. I stepped in the small elevator and as it slowly made its way up to the 7th floor I started contemplating the case, thinking of Ashley Olsen in a casket at the morgue and running over words that start with “mor” – morgue, morphine, morto, morbid, moribund, mortal — Suddenly I was overwhelmed with claustrophobia and felt that the elevator was like a coffin.
Diaw’s lawyer had been up all night assisting his client, but at 8pm he was still wired and eager to tell Diaw’s side of the story. He told us that when Diaw met with Olsen at the Montecarla club, they were both drunk. They went to her home together and had sex. He said there were abundant amounts of alcohol and cocaine involved.
Voce explained that after sex, Olsen told Diaw to leave. According to Voce he felt “exploited”, and “treated like a dog”, “he said he would leave without hurrying, she pushed him and he fell into the door, he reacted by punching her and she fell to the ground. After falling on the ground, she got back up, she pushed him away again, and at that point he pushed her and she fell to the ground hitting her head.”
There are a lot more details that are not that clear. Diaw said he put her back on the bed and when he left she was still alive. He says he punched her in the neck but did not strangle her, but the prosecutor said she was strangled with something like a cell phone charger cord or a rope.
The prosecutor excluded the possibility of erotic games what would involve a cord around the neck. “You would use a foulard for that kind of thing,” my cameraman colleague Paolo Lucariello explained to all of us the next day as we waited outside the church for the funeral.
That evening the Olsen family released a statement thanking the Italian investigators for their “swift apprehension of the perpetrator”. Many of us who covered the Meredith Kercher/Amanda Knox case thought the Italian authorities – who were widely accused of botching the Kercher crime scene – were eager to avoid a similar situation, especially when they were again in the media spotlight.
Thursday night we worked late editing and then got a bite to eat at a restaurant next to our hotel. I had a couple of glasses of wine before heading to bed in my enormous room at the Hotel Guadagni. The room had huge French doors leading to a balcony, enormous mirrors on the walls, and sheer white curtains. I collapsed in a deep sleep then woke up at sometime in the night. I was thinking of Ashley and felt a presence in the room. A crack in the shutters threw a little streetlight on one of the mirrors that reflected the curtains. I thought it was Ashley’s ghost. I closed my eyes and tried to go back sleep.
On Friday we covered the funeral at the Basilica of Santo Spirito, just around the corner from her home. There were a lot of TV cameras outside, but none were allowed inside. Her friends came, many of them carrying single roses—red, pink, white. Her boyfriend Federico Fiorentini, looked anguished as he walked in with a huge bouquet of red roses. Throughout the ceremony he held Olsen’s beagle Scout in his arms. Scout seemed to understand the solemnity of the situation and sat patiently throughout. As he came out on his leash, Gigi caught a shot of Scout and the poor dog appeared to be in mourning.
After the funeral the family took her to a Florentine cemetery to be buried. Her lawyer told me that in a homicide case a body cannot be cremated or taken out of the country, so that explains the decision for her burial in her adopted home.
OK, those are the facts – thank you. I wonder if we will ever get a true version of what happened.
I am also very curious about the true version. Obviously we will never hear the victim’s side of the story. There is still a total lack of clarity on the cord around her neck.
What a sad story. As bad as it is that she was murdered, the horror of the crime seems somehow compounded by the fact that it happened in a foreign country. At least her father lives there, but it is still a tragedy to die in a foreign land.. Do you feel that murders of foreigners, especially Americans, get more than their fair share of publicity and police and investigative effort and time?
I am always amazed when you describe all the running around you have to do. And with all of that equipment, it must be quite an ordeal. I remember “the old days” when the cameraman and various specialists accompanied the reporter into the field. Now with you carrying such a load, it must get pretty crazy. The sheer physicality of it is daunting, but it sure seems like you get the job done!
Hi Adri, there is no doubt that murders of Americans or when Americans are involved (i.e. Amanda Knox) get far more than their fair share of publicity. And I definitely think the police in Florence were absolutely determined not to botch this one and try to make a “bella figura” with the US. They felt that they got a bad rap in the Kercher/Knox case. As far as me running around and dragging equipment is concerned, it is a lot and perhaps I am getting too old for this. I did not mention in the blog post but due to the traffic we got to courthouse late and were running around trying to find the prosecutor’s office. The cameraman had the camera and the tripod, I was dragging my rolling computer bag and had our Live U on my back. The LiveU is a little backpack that can be connected to the camera and has the equivalent of 6 phone cards in it and transmit live. But it needs a few minutes to connect. As we were running down the hall trying to find the prosecutor’s office, the cameraman Gigi said he should start trying to connect so he opened the back of the LiveU and turned it on while it was still on my back . I felt so silly rushing around whilr this thing on my back was trying to connect to our London server. In addition to being a tv journalist, I am a walking antenna sometimes!!
A fine report, it carries the anguish and the hard work of everyone involved, and the dog is heart-wrenching. It’s sad to think of a lovely young life cut off for no reason at all, and sad to think that even in Italy there is so much recreational drug use. And with such a devoted boyfriend, sad to think she needed a hook-up. Sad that Diaw felt so angry about being asked to leave, and a little strange, too. But the drugs could be behind all these feelings and decisions on that night. It must be devastatingly hard for her parents, and hard on the people of Florence, who know this family, so they can’t shrug it off as exchange student mischief. Thanks again –
Sad indeed. I think the drugs had a lot to do with everything that went wrong that night. And yes, I do think the people in her Florence neighborhood are doing a lot of soul-searching wondering how this horrible death could have happened in what seems like such a close-knit community.
Here I am commenting again – I read this on Twitter, but so loved seeing the photos in larger size on your post, which arrived in my mailbox today! And perhaps because this woman has Chiara’s hair, and a bit of her looks, and though 35 was youthful enough to have taken and shared a photo of her meal, I find myself thinking you might want to share her story with her and your son, because they are of the generations that party with cocaine. And they may shrug it off but it will stay in their minds as a small reminder to be careful. And I guess this is kind of grim, sorry about that. But I keep thinking about her family, and how they will really never be able to put this behind them. Diaw’s family, too. Such a sad, sad tale.
I have shared this story with all three of my children and I certainly hope they will never go anywhere near cocaine. It is extremely dangerous. I feel terrible for her family and can understand why they do not want to know anything more about it. They have lost their daughter and they cannot get her back, so there is no need to try to understand any more about that terrible killing. On Diaw’s family, I did not mention this in the post, but when I went to the defense lawyer’s office, I bumped into three very tall, nice-looking African men as I stepped out of the elevator. I learned later from Diaw’s lawyer that two of them were his brothers. They are obviously very angry, upset and concerned. They have worked hard to create a life for themselves in Italy with legal work and documents and this will make life difficult for them. As I took taxis from one end of Florence to the other while I was there, I spoke to all the taxi drivers about this case. Many of them used some pretty unattractive anti-immigrant language against Diaw. A case like this can stimulate a lot of racism. It is tricky. I spoke to the defense lawyer about that and he said that he is actually not at all worried. He said that Florence has a large and very well-respected Senegalese community and he does not think there will be any backlash.
I wish I could live for years in Florence without a job….
Great write up – I could feel the frantic sense of rushing from moment to moment on this fast pace story. I have been reading about this and I think there are several victims here including Olsen’s boyfriend and family and Diaw’s girlfriend. I cannot fathom why in this day and age a woman (and this was not some young teenage girl either) would take home a stranger. And while I think Ms Olsen was fatally stupid, I don’t think she deserved to die. I think these stories have to serve as lessons to women to be aware of who we associate with and aware of our safety. Life is not always a Julia Roberts Hollywood movie (Eat, Pray, Love), sometimes it can end up more like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre….
I think you are absolutely right Kay and I made sure all three of my children — ages 20,18, and 15– heard my description of what happened. I felt even (and perhaps especially) my 20-year-old son needed to know. If in a city that is very safe like Florence, things can go terribly wrong. The combination of drugs and alcohol is extremely dangerous. Women have to be doubly careful. Sigh, it is all truly awful.
must have been tough to cover this horrible story.
I have stayed in that hotel, love that place, possibly in the same room. room was enormous with view of the duomo. I have used that hotel the last two times i spent the night in Florence. Our son had a great room too with lovely view of the pitti palace.
buon lavoro trisha
Isn’t that hotel awesome!! I want to go back up for a visit and stay there without having to worry about work.
Hi,
A sad event, but it seems to mean excellent example of what a journalist can be called on to do. Never experienced it myself since I did most of my journalism in the classroom, but despite the subject, I liked reading about your experiences. I head home tomorrow after a month in my favorite city,Rome. I look forward to reading more of your experiences.
A presto, Joan
Thank you Joan. Sometimes on stories like this we journalists feel a bit like vultures swooping down and devouring (as a story) the victim. It is a fine line between decent journalism and trashy tabloid coverage. There is always enormous interest in murder/mystery stories, but we have to be careful. The lawyer for the family said to the journalists who were outside the morgue that the family was not interested in knowing all the details of the story. I can understand that. I just got an email from my own mother scolding me for the “voyeurism” and “disrespect” shown in this blog post. My mother is right about most everything, so perhaps I should listen to her!!
Trisha,
I am Ashley’s aunt, and I read your blog. I do appreciate you not making judgemental statements about the murder. I am curious, am I just not seeing anymore of the reporting of the murder, or especially, the trial? Are you aware that her murderer is being sentenced on December 22nd? Thought you might like to do a follow up story.
Thank you for your comment. I did not know that there will be a sentence for the man accused of murdering Ashley on December 22. I will not be around on the 22nd, but I will let my colleagues at AP know and some others in the foreign press who covered the story. Thanks for the tip, I appreciate it.
Thank you for another “behind” the scene blog post. The long hours news people put in are not part of the story and thus the news consumer simply does not go into putting the story together.
Thank you John, I hope my behind-the-scenes with AP Television posts are interesting for my blog readers. I never have time to write them until after the story is over so on the actual news there is usually nothing left to say.
Many reactions. You certainly cover the sacred and the profane. It is a good case of the nature of a reporters job.. You don’t choose the jobs, they choose you. What a case of bad judgement and probably misunderstanding. One thing strikes me is that inequality and different social status may have been a factor. We will never know. I confess this makes me sad and angry.
I think inequality and social status played a big role here, also bad judgment by all. Very sad indeed.
On the topic of Americans in Italy, I was reading about the Rudy Guede (convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher) interview from prison which was televised on Italian television. So he was 101% sure Amanda Knox was there when Meredith was murdered? You must have seen the interview – what were your thoughts? I am curious…
Hi Kay, yes I did see the Rudy Guede interview. My foremost thought is that prison has done Rudy Guede a lot of good. When he appeared in court he was disheveled, unkempt, spoke in a confused way making his version incomprehensible, in an Italian that was mediocre. Now he looks ship-shape, has nice new glasses, speaks excellent Italian and made a very precise case for himself. I always think of prisons as being horrible places but here was a young man at loose ends, a small-time thief who drank regularly, did drugs regularly, picked up women regularly and did not have a proper job or education. Now he is off drinking, drugs and casual relations with women and has been studying while in prison. Guede is now going to get a University degree in literature. Listening to him speak I had the impression that he had studied all the court documents on the case and has re-worked his story a bit to defend himself and he did a damn good job. I do not think he is innocent, but he definitely gave me some doubts — what would have been his motivation for such a grisly murder? Where did the murder weapon go? I have always been convinced that Amanda and Raffaele were in the house and knew a lot more than they have ever let on. Unlike Rudy Guede they were able to defend themselves better from the beginning. I hope that Guede comes out of prison and is able to get a decent job and start a new life.
Wow, thanks for your thoughtful recap on what must have been an incredibly interesting interview. Like you, I always had my doubts about Amanda Knox and Rafaelle Sollecito’s innocence….well, I too believe they were in that house. Their behavior was sketchy as all get out and their story was all over the place. Such a sad sad story all the way around. Thanks again for your great insights! Oh, by the way, Roll Call has a great article today comparing Donald Trump to Berlusconi. Fascinating read should you be interested.
I’m not sure that she lived in Florence “without a job for years”.
She was supposed to be a very active event organizer. She also went back to school.