The death of 35-year-old Moldovan construction worker Nicu Terletchi, who died on Tuesday, August 4, after falling ill at a construction site in Padua where he was reportedly working illegally, has raised numerous questions. Italian authorities are investigating six Romanian nationals for allegedly failing to provide assistance, while the investigation has uncovered a series of irregularities. Some conversations between the construction company owner and workers also appear to have been deleted, while the suspects have provided conflicting accounts of what happened, Antena 3 CNN reports.
The investigation, coordinated by prosecutor Claudia Brunino, focuses on reconstructing the nearly four-hour period between the moment Terletchi fell ill and the emergency call, Corriere della Sera reports.
Six Romanian nationals are currently under investigation for alleged homicide by omission of assistance: Viorel Roman, owner of a construction company in Saonara; his wife, Mioara Roman; his aunt, Costanda Pasare; her daughter, Claudia Nicoleta Pasare; and workers Dorica Virgil Taranu and Florin Condrea, who were at the construction site near Allegri Airport.
Terletchi had arrived in Italy from Moldova less than 24 hours before he fell ill. On Monday, he spent the night at the workers’ accommodation in the semi-detached house owned by the company owner. The following day, although he had not yet signed a legal employment contract, he went to the construction site.
At around 1 p.m., Terletchi became ill. Instead of calling an ambulance or taking him to a nearby hospital, the two workers reportedly contacted the company owner and took him back to Saonara. There, they allegedly splashed water on him and left him lying down, believing that he was drunk.
Later, Costanda Pasare and Claudia Nicoleta Pasare put him in a car, intending to take him to a hospital emergency department. However, the car stopped in the parking lot of a shopping center, where the two women immediately called the emergency services.
When the ambulance arrived, medical personnel could no longer save the 35-year-old man, who was already dead.
The employer’s conflicting explanations about why Terletchi was at the construction site without an employment contract have raised further questions. According to the initial investigation, the company owner first claimed that Terletchi had not been working at the site and had only come to inspect some work before staying in an office.
The employer later acknowledged that Terletchi had come to work for his company and had fallen ill while at the construction site, although the owner himself was not present at the time.
Carabinieri are also examining discrepancies in other accounts, gaps in surveillance footage from the residence and the alleged deletion of several WhatsApp conversations between the employer and employees. Investigators are trying to determine whether the messages were deleted, why they were deleted and when the deletion occurred.
In Moldova, Terletchi’s wife, Alina Nosei, who has two children with him, is seeking answers and wants to know why nobody provided immediate assistance to her husband. She also rejects the suggestion that he had been drinking.
“My husband was a good person, a family man. He was in Italy only to work,” she said through tears.
Investigators found two empty bottles in a backpack inside the car, but nobody claims to have seen Terletchi drinking. The autopsy has also not confirmed that he was intoxicated. Authorities have seized the car used to transport him and the backpack.
Officials are now awaiting the final autopsy results to determine whether prompt medical assistance could have saved Terletchi’s life.
Investigators and prosecutors are comparing witness statements with surveillance footage to establish why Terletchi was working without a contract, what he was doing at the construction site and what happened during the nearly four-hour delay before emergency services were called.