Ashley Ann Olsen was an American woman living in Florence, Italy, who was strangled in her apartment in January 2016 by an illegal immigrant from Senegal.
The case drew attention as one of a number of murders committed by migrants during the European migrant crisis. [1] [2] [3] According to the New York Times , the New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany "resonated in Italy", and the police chief of Florence addressed safety worries, "assuring the public that Florence remained safe" in the wake of the Olsen murder." [4]
Olsen's murder was discussed as an example of the sexual harassment that women, especially young, foreign women, face in Italian cities, and of the victim blaming of young, attractive female murder victims for their own deaths. [5] [6]
Olsen was killed at a time of rising public concern about miscommunication regarding consent to sexual activity between migrant men and European women, and international attention was focused on the New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany that took place in a number of cities just days before Olsen was killed. [4] In January, Denmark debated a proposal to ban anyone who could not speak Danish, German or English from entering a bar or nightclub, and news discussion of the proposal included the Ashley Ann Olsen case. [7]
Olsen was the daughter of Walter and Paula Olsen, of Summer Haven, Florida. [8] [4] [9] [10] She was a 1999 graduate of St. Joseph Academy. She moved to Florence in 2014 after the breakup of her marriage to South African diver Grant Jankielsohn, [11] and with the intention of studying art and in order to live near her father, who teaches at an American school in Florence. [12] [13] [14] She was living in an apartment in the Oltrarno neighborhood of Florence when she was murdered. [15]
Olsen, 35, was found dead in her apartment in the Santo Spirito neighborhood of Florence by her boyfriend, Florentine artist Federico Fiorentini, on 9 January 2016. [12] [13] Marks on her neck indicated that she had been strangled to death. [16] [17]
Cheik Tidiane Diaw, a 27-year-old Senegalese national who had recently entered Italy as an illegal immigrant, was arrested for the crime. [4] Witnesses saw the two leave a nightclub in Florence together on 7 January. Security cameras in the street recorded them walking to Olsen's apartment in the early hours of 8 January. [4] After identifying Diaw using security camera footage, police called him in for questioning, arresting him based on DNA evidence. [1] Diaw's attorney, Antonio Voce, said that Diaw and Olsen had consumed cocaine and alcohol. [18]
The lead investigator on the case, Giacinto Profazio, was involved in the Meredith Kercher murder case, a case with which Olsen's murder is frequently compared. [12] [1] [2]
On 9 February, reexamination of security tapes by authorities showed that suspect Diaw had returned to the apartment on the night of the murder and spent a period of time inside after his first departure from it. [19]
Prosecutors asked for a life sentence, the highest penalty available in Italy. [20] [21]
The murderer, Cheik Diaw, is an immigrant who crossed the border illegally from Senegal and who arrived in Italy in 2015. [22] [8] [23] [2] According to the prosecutor, DNA analysis of a cigarette butt and a condom found by police investigators in Olsen's bathroom led to Diaw's arrest. [22]
Diaw was convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. [24]
Attorneys acting for the perpetrator appealed the verdict, but the original 30-year prison sentence was upheld in January 2018. [25]
Amanda Marie Knox is an American author, activist, and journalist. She spent almost four years incarcerated in Italy after her wrongful conviction in the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a fellow exchange student, with whom she shared an apartment in Perugia. In 2015, Knox was definitively acquitted by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation. In 2024, an Italian appellate court upheld Amanda Knox's slander conviction for falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba of murdering Meredith Kercher.
In 2021, Istat estimated that 5,171,894 foreign citizens lived in Italy, representing about 8.7% of the total population. 98 to 99 percent more of Italy's full population is (caucasioid) as 2024. These figures include naturalized foreign-born residents as well as illegal immigrants, the so-called clandestini, whose numbers, difficult to determine, are thought to be at least 670,000.
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Events in the year 2014 in Italy.
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