(ANSA) - ROME, NOV 15 - A 46-year-old Italian man on Friday confessed to murdering his 73-year-old mother in her home near Taranto on Thursday night.
    Silvana La Rocca, a retired teacher originally from Saraceno (Cosenza) was found lifeless in the garden of her small villa in Marina di Leporano with a deep wound to the abdomen.
    Her son, Salvatore Dettori, tracked down by the Carabinieri and taken to the provincial command for questioning, has reportedly confessed to having stabbed the woman and then fled.
    It is the latest in a spate of femicides in Italy.
    Former navy seaman Dettori reportedly told police: "I tore out my mother's heart".
    Investigations have reportedly revealed the existence of a conflictual relationship between the woman and her firstborn son, caused in particular by her precarious economic situation, police said. The victim was a widow and lived alone at home. Her husband, Cataldo Dettori, a former skilled worker at the ILVA steelworks in Taranto, died at the age of 54 in November 2002 in an accident at work in the steel plant, falling from a forklift.
    The other son lives in France.
    It was the latter, according to the reconstruction provided by investigators, who called a cousin late Thursday afternoon asking him to go to the house on Via Trasimeno to check on the conditions of his mother, with whom he had not been able to get in touch for hours.
    The relative made the macabre discovery, finding the woman lying on the ground, in a pool of blood, near her car that was parked in the courtyard. (ANSA).