Charlotte Angie murder: How tattoos and body parts helped cops crack porn star case
On March 20, 2022, investigators found 15 thawing body parts of a young woman in black garbage bags in a ditch in Northern Italy but they were unclear exactly how to start the identification process. Only one thing was clear — that the person had been dead for months.
The body parts had been frozen and reasonably well preserved but the woman's face had been burned, making it impossible for the police to identify her. But seven of her 11 distinct tattoos were intact, so the police started trying to match the tattoos to any known photos, posting some on a missing persons alert.
Within a few hours, she was identified as Italian-Dutch national Carol Maltesi, an adult actress who worked under the name Charlotte Angie.
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Angie had recently started her career on OnlyFans during the pandemic and got famous quickly and started working with many international pornography production houses. The 27-year-old also traveled to many countries for shoots.
Among her tattoos, the words 'step by step' on her right ankle, 'wanderlust' on her right collarbone, and 'elegance is the...' which is not fully clear, down her back, were still visible. She also had an inverted 'V' on one inner thigh and two inverted 'V’s' on the other, which were recognizable in many of her porn films. Investigators soon found out that Angie had not posted on any of her social media accounts since January 2022, yet no one had reported her missing. Her friends told police that they assumed she was off at some exotic location for a shoot.
Last week, police released her name to find out if anyone had information about her death. Prosecutor Lorena Ghibaudo told reporters that a 43-year-old banker named David Fontana came forward when her name was announced to say that he knew her, but denied having anything to do with her disappearance.
After Fontana was questioned, the police found inconsistencies in his story and started tracking his movements. A search of his home found ample freezer space, similar garbage bags, and DNA evidence linking him to the murder. On Tuesday, March 29, police arrested Fontana in the northern Italian town of Brescia, charging him with first aggravated degree homicide, dismemberment, and concealing a corpse.
Archive video surveillance allegedly showed Fontana and Angie in her car in January 2022. The vehicle had not been seen after that until March, when it was clocked going through a toll booth in Borno in northern Italy, where the bags with her body were found.
When confronted with the evidence, Fontana confessed to killing her. He claimed that he had accidentally killed her during consensual sexual intercourse. Confused and scared, not knowing what to do, Fontana claimed he cut her up, put her in garbage bags and stored the bags in her freezer, and later moved them to his freezer. He also confessed that he used the late OnlyFans star's phone for the last three months to contact her mother and tell her that she had left porn.
Despite the confession, as many parts of the body are burned, including her face, and other body parts are missing, police are still investigating whether Fontana discarded, ate, or destroyed them.