Senegalese man held in brutal killing of American woman in Italy
FLORENCE, Italy — An American woman found dead in her Florence apartment had been brutally beaten and strangled, Italian prosecutors said Thursday. They suspect a Senegalese man she met at a disco who was detained after authorities received “decisive” DNA evidence from a condom and cigarette butt and he was found using her cellphone.
Cheik Tidiane Diaw, a 27-yearold who had arrived in Italy from Senegal in recent months, was arrested early Thursday at his brother’s apartment and is being held on suspicion of aggravated homicide, Florence chief prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo said.
Street-mounted security cameras and witnesses reported that Diaw and Ashley Olsen, 35, had left Florence’s Montecarla nightclub in the early hours of Jan. 8 and went to her home.
Once there, they had consensual sex. But sometime afterward, Olsen’s skull was fractured in two places with blows so violent they alone could have killed her, Creazzo said. She was subsequently strangled, apparently with a cord or rope.
Olsen’s naked body was discovered the following day by her Italian boyfriend, who asked the apartment’s owner to let him into the apartment because he hadn’t heard from her in a few days, authorities have said.
Creazzo said Diaw had offered “substantially admissive” testimony in response to the accusations during a preliminary interrogation that lasted until 4 a.m. Thursday. Diaw has not been charged.
Police detained Diaw after DNA analysis came back from a used condom and cigarette butt found in Olsen’s toilet, as well as biological samples taken from under her fingernails that belonged to Diaw, Creazzo said.
Investigators matched that evidence with a DNA sample taken from a cigarette Diaw smoked while being questioned at the police station, prosecutors said.
Diaw was also tied to the crime because he had taken Olsen’s cellphone, put his own SIM card in it and used it, Creazzo said.