Horror as village babysitter ‘buries newborn in her garden after secret pregnancy – as police find SECOND baby’: Suspect, 22, ‘went on New York holiday after burying one child… before dog dug it up’

An Italian village has been left shocked after it emerged that a local nanny is at the centre of a ‘gruesome’ child murder investigation, with the bodies of two newborn babies found buried in her garden.

The suspect, 22-year-old Chiara Petrolini, was arrested by police after DNA tests allegedly revealed she was the mother of one of the babies, a boy.

Petrolini, who has been described as a “model student,” lived in the house with her parents and was on vacation with them in New York when the gruesome discovery was made.

Police have been searching her family’s villa and garden in the quiet town of Vignale di Traversetolo near Parma since last month, when her grandmother’s dog dug up the body.

A leaked autopsy revealed the baby had been buried alive because “soil was found in the lungs.” A second body was discovered last week, but no further details have been released about the cause of death.

Further examination of the body of the first baby discovered revealed that the father was the woman’s boyfriend, a 22-year-old man known locally as Emanuele.

There are also unconfirmed reports that the second body was found after Petrolini confessed to the crime to police.

She is now being held on suspicion of child murder and has reportedly maintained that she acted alone, without anyone else knowing.

The law student is said to have concealed her pregnancy until she induced labor in the 40th week and gave birth alone in her bathroom on August 7.

She then allegedly killed the baby and hid it in the backyard. Just two days later, she and her parents went on a vacation to the US, a trip that had been planned for some time.

The day she left, Italian media reported, her grandmother’s dog dug up the baby’s lifeless body, wrapped in a sheet and hidden in a hole in the garden.

The grandmother initially mistook the body for an animal and called a neighbor, who alerted the police after making the horrific discovery.

Investigators searched Petrolini’s phone and internet searches and reportedly made the shocking discovery of a second newborn baby.

According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Petrolini is said to have looked up online how to abort ‘a second child’.

Her friends and boyfriend said they hadn’t noticed anything and had no idea she was pregnant.

Her ‘distraught’ boyfriend told Italian media: ‘I didn’t know anything, I can’t believe it.’ He insisted that if he had known, he would have been able to look after the child.

“I would have wanted that child, I could have kept him on my own. I’m 22, but I work and my mother would have helped me,” he is said to have said.

Petrolini hid her pregnancy by eating almost nothing for months, and she maintained her slim figure even when she was pregnant at full term, La Stampa reports.

A close friend of Petrolini told La Repubblica that before going on holiday the young woman “exuded a calmness that now scares me”.

“I’m still in shock,” the nameless friend said. I had to go through everything step by step, because I was [police]. I can’t get over it, it’s like the world has turned upside down before my eyes.’

Neighbor Gabriele Volpi said: ‘When news broke last month that the first body had been found, my friend showed me photos of the woman on vacation in New York.

‘I just couldn’t believe it. There she was, with skyscrapers in the background, and they had found a body in her yard.

‘I don’t know her that well, but I know her boyfriend very well. She’s a friend of my girlfriend, but I know him.

“This is a very affluent neighborhood, I can’t believe something like this could happen here.”

Local mayor Simone Dall’Orto said: ‘They seemed like a classic, normal family. The girl is a model student at university, she studies law.

‘The father is a businessman and the mother also works locally, it is the most unsuspecting family you can imagine.

‘There is an oppressive atmosphere in the village and people are already calling it a house of horrors, no one can believe it.

‘The police are still investigating. When the news of the first body was found, it was a shock, but when you hear about a second body, it is unbelievable.

“I know the family has left the house and moved out of the village. We can only hope that this chapter in our history will soon be closed.”

In a statement, the local prosecutor in Parma confirmed that an investigation has been opened into the discovery of the two bodies and that the woman is the only suspect.

It added: ‘As far as we can tell, the pregnancies took place in secret, without the knowledge of the family, the father of the first child or friends.

‘It appears that no medical institution or doctor was aware of the pregnancies, but the investigation is still ongoing.’