Conviction upheld in child slaying case

An appeals court on Friday upheld the conviction of a woman on charges she bludgeoned her 3-year-old son to death in a case that has riveted Italy for five years, officials said.

The appeals panel in the northern city of Turin, however, reduced a 30-year-prison sentence handed down to Anna Maria Franzoni in 2004 to 16 years, said the court's president, Romano Pettenati.

Franzoni's son, Samuele Lorenzi, was found bludgeoned to death Jan. 30, 2002, in the family's Alpine home. The slaying shocked Italy and captured newspaper headlines ever since.

Franzoni said she found her son in a pool of blood on her bed after she returned from walking her older son to a school bus stop near their home.

Soon after the start of the investigation, Franzoni emerged as the only suspect. Among the key evidence found at the home were pajamas of Franzoni's that were stained with her son's blood.

An autopsy showed the boy was struck repeatedly on the head with a heavy object.

Franzoni has vigorously denied killing her child, and she repeated that stance Friday before the judges, tearfully asking them to be "just."

"I hope you are just in judging me because I didn't kill my son. I didn't do anything to him," she said, according to an audiotape of her statement to the judges that was played on Sky Tg24.

It was not clear whether Franzoni would appeal the decision to Italy's highest court.

Franzoni and the child's father remained together throughout the case, and he has been a strong proponent of her innocence. He was not considered a suspect because he had left for work by the time of the slaying.