‘Didn’t Convince the Employee’: Man Poses as His Dead Mother to Renew Her Identity Card in Attempt to Collect Her $60,000 Pension, Police Say
Authorities say an Italian man kept his late mother’s corpse and attempted to dress up as her in an ongoing attempt to claim her pension.
According to the Italian news outlet Corriere della Sera, the son of 85-year-old Graziella Dall’Oglio put on makeup, a wig, and his mother’s clothes in an attempt to renew her identity card when it expired as part of a scheme to continue collecting her pension.
Dall’Oglio died in 2022 in the town of Borgo Virgilio, close to the city of Mantua.
Her son worked as a nurse, but is currently unemployed. He has yet to be identified by authorities, but is reportedly 56 years old.
On November 16, a clerk at a registry office noticed that the man was in disguise when he came to renew his mother’s identity card and reported him to the local police.
“She looked very much like the woman in the photo on the ID. But there was something that didn’t convince the employee, like the hair on her neck, the heavy makeup, and it looked like beard holes were protruding from the greasepaint,” Borgo Virgilio Mayor Francesco Aporti said.
Surveillance footage obtained by La Repubblica showed the man walking into the registry office posing as Dall’Oglio, wearing a dark cardigan, a white scarf, a mid-length skirt, and a short brown wig, while strolling in the building with a cane.
Authorities say the man drove to the office, even though his mother didn’t own a driver’s license.
After he left and the authorities were notified, the registry office called him back to the office under the pretense of completing paperwork, where local police met him.
From there, they went to Dall’Oglio’s home and found her mummified body in the laundry room closet, wrapped in sleeping bags.
Her son never reported her death and continued to claim €53,000 ($60,000) of her survivor’s pension from her late husband and income from the family’s real estate and land, according to the outlet. He had collected her pension for the past three years.
He also allegedly removed fluids from her body with a syringe to prevent decomposition. An autopsy is underway to determine the cause and manner of her death.
“The woman may have died of natural causes, but the autopsy will probably determine that,” Aporti said. “In any case, they had no financial problems … It’s a very, very sad story.”
The man is accused of concealing a corpse, fraud against the state, impersonation, and forgery of a public document.
A police spokesperson told CNN that he’ll remain in a local jail until autopsy results are released.