As an Italian American woman, my mother always warned me to “never marry an Italian.” When I asked why, she half-jokingly stated that they cheat on their women and love their mothers too much. Of course, the first part of the statement is an unfair stereotype, but the latter actually holds some weight.
An archived article from the Tampa Bay Times from 2000 cited a study that stated 70% of unmarried Italian men live with their parents until age 30. Even when they did marry, they found 43% lived within a half-mile or so of their childhood homes.
At the risk of making another sweeping generalization, a new story coming out of Italy doesn’t do much to prove anything different is happening 25 years later, but it has more of a macabre twist. People recently reported that an unnamed Italian man from Borgo Virgilio went so far as dressing up as his deceased mother to collect her pension.
The 56-year-old man donned a skirt, a blouse, lipstick, and a short brown wig to imitate his 85-year-old mother, Graziella Dall’Oglio, after her ID expired so he could continue collecting the $60,000 survivor’s pension from her late husband and income from the family’s land and real estate, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
When he went in to take the photo on November 16, 2025, a clerk noticed that something was “off” about the supposed 85-year-old woman. Borgo Virgilio Mayor Francesco Aporti was contacted about the suspicions, and a full-scale investigation was launched.
“She looked very much like the woman in the photo on the ID. But there was something that didn’t convince the employee, like the hair on her neck, the heavy makeup, and it looked like beard holes were protruding from the greasepaint,” Aporti told the Italian outlet, according to People. “[We] analyzed the video surveillance footage and saw the woman arrive in a car. Alarm bells ringing: the woman doesn’t have a driver’s license … piece by piece, the picture of this unpleasant situation began to emerge.”
The son confessed to the crime and agreed to let authorities search his mother’s home. According to The Mirror, the man was a nurse and used his “skills” to mummify her body, which police reportedly found in the home. The investigation suggests she died of natural causes in 2022.
“The woman may have died of natural causes, but the autopsy will probably determine that,” Aporti said. “In any case, they had no financial problems … It’s a very, very sad story.”
