Murder inquiry over death of Italian woman after sex video battle

Prosecutors in Naples have opened a murder inquiry into the death of a young woman believed to have killed herself after fighting to have a sex video removed from the internet, and ordered the exhumation of her body.

Tiziana Cantone was found dead at the home of her aunt in Mugnano, near Naples, on 13 September 2016. The magistrate working on the case at the time immediately classified the 31-year-old’s death as suicide and an autopsy was not carried out.

In April 2015, Cantone had sent a sex video of herself to four friends, including a former boyfriend, via WhatsApp. The video was soon shared online and uploaded on to pornographic websites, attracting almost 1m views around the world.

The words, “You’re filming? Bravo”, which were spoken by Cantone to the person recording the video, fuelled the humiliation she suffered in the 18 months before her death, with her image printed on T-shirts, smartphone cases and used to mock her in parodies.

Cantone, who resigned from her job and moved to Tuscany to escape the humiliation, won a “right to be forgotten” ruling ordering the video to be removed from various websites, including Facebook, and search engines. However, she was also ordered to pay €20,000 in legal costs.

Cantone’s mother has never believed that she killed herself. According to reports in the Italian media on Friday, the scene of Cantone’s death presented inconsistencies that made investigators discard the suicide theory.

Rai News reported that traces of DNA found matched that of two men.

The exhumation of Cantone’s body, requested by Giovanni Corona, the deputy public prosecutor of north Naples, will take place in early June.