A death in Florence, a life of drama
AMERICAN’S STORY RIPE FOR MEMOIR
Two weeks ago, Ashley Olsen was considering a passage of the book Eat, Pray, Love. It was about the relationship between the writer, Elizabeth Gilbert, and her boyfriend: “We were already separated, that was official, but there was still a window of hope left open that perhaps someday (maybe after my travels, maybe after a year apart), we could give things another try. We loved each other. That was never the question.”
Olsen’s own boyfriend, Federico Fiorentini, was an Italian artist. The two lived in Florence, where the 35- year- old native of Summer Haven, Fla., had moved in April 2014. “I got a oneway ticket to Italy!” Olsen cheerfully announced on her Facebook page.
It had been a few days since Fiorentini last heard from her when he arrived at her apartment this past Saturday, concerned because she wasn’t answering his calls. After getting a key from her landlord, he found Olsen’ s naked body immobile on her bed, according to the Telegraph. There were bruises and scratches around her neck.
Fiorentini told investigators he moved Olsen into the living room and desperately tried to revive her, but she was already dead. An autopsy determined that Olsen had been strangled by a rope or cord, an Italian prosecutor told The Associated Press Tuesday. There were no signs of a struggle nor any external indications of a sexual attack.
The murder has inflamed the international community in Italy, where a British student was found dead in 2007. Local investigators on the case were heavily criticized abroad after it was discovered that they had botched it, convicting the victim’s boyfriend and roommate before exonerating him just last year and pinning the crime on another man.
For onlookers, Olsen’s murder is gripping not only because of the mysterious — and dramatic — circumstances of her death, but also because of the cinematic way that she lived.
Hers was a story ripe for the kind of memoir — like Eat, Pray, Love — that inspires movies: a young American woman moving to a farflung, picturesque corner of the globe — and loving it.
She arrived in the Tuscan capital in June, and soon the sandy beaches in her photographs were replaced with colourful cobblestone paths, the bathing suits eschewed for woollen scarves wrapped around hair newly dyed blond.
The young woman, who studied fashion, seemed to take well to Italian life, quickly ensconcing herself in the local expatriate and artist communities. Her father, Walter Olsen, is an architect and watercolour teacher at Florence’s Bianca Cappello Art Academy.
Olsen’s Instagram was filled with artful photographs of Italian streets; her in stylish sunglasses and oversized coats; and above all, her beagle and constant companion, Scout. ( Scout was in the apartment when Olsen was found dead.)
But amid these filtered snapshots of esthetic whimsy — one picture just shows her holding one half of a grapefruit — were also more contemplative posts, primarily about love.
There was one showing flashing neon lights that read: “the future will be confusing.” Another that captured dripping graffiti that proclaimed: “Love stories suck! But we could still cuddle.” And of course, the photo of the page from Eat, Pray, Love.
The last Instagram Olsen posted before her death was one of a graffiti that says “Kiss me hard before you go ... ,” an eerie pronouncement as Fiorentini tried to resuscitate her when he discovered her body, according to the Telegraph.
A different set of posts has given the authorities pause, however. CNN reports that police are looking into Instagrams in which Olsen suggested she had a stalker. These pictures may very well have been in jest — how else would Olsen have obtained photos from her own stalker? — but prosecutor Giuseppe Creazzo told CNN that “no one” and “no track has been excluded.”
The autopsy indicates Olsen died sometime between last Friday morning and early Saturday afternoon. Friends last saw her early Friday at a popular nightclub in Florence. Fiorentini, who is not a suspect, has an alibi that was verified by witnesses, according to CNN.
According to the Guardian, Olsen’s friends published a letter in an Englishlanguage biweekly in Florence expressing their hope for justice.
Remembering Olsen as a “rare and kind-hearted spirit,” they wrote, “We have seen the messages of love pour out from her hometown in Florida and we know that, across two countries, people who knew and loved her are in shock. ... While we mourn her passing, we place our trust fully in the Italian authorities to investigate this tragic episode.”