Lawyers for Finnegan Elder and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, who received Italy’s toughest punishment for a 2019 fatal stabbing, hope to prove that their clients did not deserve such long terms.
Bay Area moms testify in Rome trial, sons charged with killing police officer
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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) A dramatic day of testimony in the trial of two Bay Area college students, charged with the murder of an Italian police officer. Their mothers took the stand, and faced the victim s widow in court.
It was a very long day in court, a full nine hours. ABC7 I-Team reporter Dan Noyes reached both mothers by text; they say it was an exhausting day, but they are glad their sons sides are finally getting heard.
The judge allowed no video to be released from court today, but photos in the video above capture the widow holding her husband s picture, Marin s Heidi Hjorth spotting her son Gabriel Natale Hjorth in a live feed from prison and wiping away tears, San Francisco s Leah Elder testifying about her son, Finnegan.
After the go-between told police about the rendezvous, Cerciello Rega and his patrol partner headed to the meeting place themselves.
Testifying for the defense, Leah Elder depicted her son as having a troubled youth, marked by bad dreams that would set him running through the house during the night or waking up crying. She said that when he was a teenager he “felt severely depressed” after suffering the amputation of a finger following a workplace accident.
“That s when he seemed utterly hopeless. It was hard to watch this as his mom,” Elder told the court. The mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, said she resigned and moved after she started receiving threats over the city’s face mask mandate.
3 months old Theyâre telling me I killed a cop : mother retells US student s phone call at trial
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Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth are on trial for the death of Mario Cerciello Rega in Rome
Finnegan Lee Elder, left, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth both face life sentences. Photograph: Remo Casilli/AFP/Getty Images
Finnegan Lee Elder, left, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth both face life sentences. Photograph: Remo Casilli/AFP/Getty Images
AgenceFrance-PresseinRome
Thu 17 Dec 2020 17.23 EST
Last modified on Thu 17 Dec 2020 17.36 EST
The US student who admitted stabbing a policeman in Rome last year was shaking and crying inside a police station after learning the attack was fatal, his mother has testified at his trial.
Moms of Americans jailed in Italian police slaying testify
by Frances D Emilio, The Associated Press
Posted Dec 17, 2020 4:27 pm EDT
Last Updated Dec 17, 2020 at 4:42 pm EDT
Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, right, connected from the jailhouse to the courtroom, is greeted by his mother Heidi Hjorth, during a hearing in the trial in which he is accused of killing paramilitary police officer Mario Cerciello Rega, in Rome, Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020. Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth both from California are accused of murdering the police officer during a summer vacation in Italy in July 2019. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, Pool)
ROME The mother of a young man from California on trial in Rome in the fatal stabbing of an Italian police office testified Thursday that her son had struggled with depression and a year before the slaying jumped from a pier near the Golden Gate Bridge in an attempt to kill himself.