Drug Dealer Arrested in Florence for Ashley’s Murder

FLORENCE – An arrest has been made in the murder investigation regarding Ashley Olsen, the 35-year-old American found dead on Saturday in her apartment in the heart of Florence. The man arrested, who had been under observation for two days, is an illegal immigrant and drug dealer known to the victim, and has now been charged with aggravated murder. He was seen in the company of the young woman in the small hours of Friday morning, after they met outside the Montecarla nightclub where Ashley had spent most of the night. Surveillance camera footage then shows them go to Via Santa Monaca, where the American lived. She let the man into her apartment, where the crime may have taken place less than an hour later. DNA tests are expected to provide the missing pieces of the puzzle.

The killer strangled Ashley Olsen with a cord or computer cable. In a terrible detail emerging from the initial autopsy findings, it was confirmed that she offered no resistance. When the murderer tightened the cable around her neck, Ashley did not even try to loosen his grip. In similar cases of strangulation, the victim’s own nail marks are often found on their neck, as they injure themselves in a desperate attempt to loosen the stranglehold and breathe. “It’s an instinctive gesture, a conditioned reflex, and inevitable in cases like this,” an expert explained. The American’s neck, however, showed only bruises caused by the cable or cord. She apparently accepted the noose willingly, and failed to react even when the stranglehold had become unbearable and she was gasping for breath. Other clues, still to be confirmed by further tests over the next couple of weeks, suggest that there had been consensual sex between the victim and her murderer.