An Italian man confessed to the murder of his 80-year-old mother in a televised interview, telling the reporter he “couldn’t take it anymore”.
Fifty-year-old Lorenzo Carbone told the Mediaset reporter that he killed his mother because he could not manage her dementia, breaking down as he spoke in a video that quickly went viral and launched a debate about media ethics.
A tearful Carbone told the journalist that he strangled his mother, admitting that “every now and then she made me angry as she kept repeating herself”.
Carbone had been living with his mother for 15 years and said he “couldn’t take it any longer”.
“I strangled her, I don’t know why I did it.
“My mother would make me a little angry every now and then, but it wasn’t like I went completely crazy.”
He had been on the run since the day prior when the body of his mother was found in her bed by her daughter, the Guardian reported.
He returned to his home as journalist Fabio Giuffrida was filming his report. Giuffrida completed the interview and called police.
The interview, along with his arrest on suspicion of murder, was broadcast just minutes later on Myrta Merlino’s Pomeriggio5 show.
‘Rock bottom’
The decision to run the emotional confession came in for criticism from other Italian media outlets.
“What happened today on Pomeriggio5 is very serious,” Gaia Tortora, deputy director of TV channel TG La7, wrote on social media.
“This is not our job. Tearing up the code of ethics, we are hitting rock bottom.”
Newspaper journalist Ermes Antonucci asked if the interview needed to be broadcast, given Carbone’s “evident state of confusion”.
“Wasn’t it enough to call the police, as was fortunately done, and then explain what happened, without airing the video?” he asked.
“The media circus has reached a real low point.”
Myrta Merlino defended the decision to run it and said she would do the same again.
“I received a call from the correspondent a few minutes before going live,” she told Corriere della Sera.
“I had little time to decide. I only care about one thing: that it doesn’t damage the investigation. The man was wanted. The police were called and authorised me to broadcast the images of the interview.”