Rome's court of assizes sentenced Mark Antony Samson to life for killing Ilaria Sula.

Tuesday's life term is the first-instance judgment. These accounts do not report an appeal. Adnkronos reported the defense had argued the killing was a crime of impulse and that the aggravating factors should come off. The court kept premeditation. Adnkronos and Corriere della Sera say it also kept futile motives and the relationship.

LaPresse reported Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, that at the end of the first-instance trial, Rome's Third Court of Assizes found Mark Samson guilty of the murder and concealment of the body of Ilaria Sula and sentenced him to life imprisonment. ANSA's English desk reported the Rome Assize Court sentenced Mark Antony Samson, a 24-year-old Italo-Filipino architecture graduate, to life for murdering his ex-girlfriend. Adnkronos reported the Third Court of Assizes of Rome reached that life sentence after three hours in chambers and accepted what the Rome prosecutor's office had asked. Corriere della Sera reported the Court of Assizes announced it after three hours in the bunker courtroom at Rebibbia. ANSA's Italian desk reported the same three hours and the same acceptance of the prosecution's request. He was not in court, LaPresse, ANSA, Adnkronos, and Corriere della Sera reported. Corriere della Sera reported his lawyers, Paolo Foti and Alessandro Pillito, were the counsel named at the reading. Adnkronos spelled the second lawyer Alessandro Pillitu.

What the judgment recognized is not printed as one list. Adnkronos reported the judges recognized voluntary homicide and concealment of a corpse, plus the aggravating factors of premeditation, futile motives, and the romantic relationship with the victim. Corriere della Sera reported he was charged with voluntary homicide aggravated by premeditation, futile motives, and the romantic relationship, and that concealment of a corpse was also charged. ANSA's English desk reported he was charged with aggravated murder, including premeditation, and with concealment of a corpse. ANSA's Italian desk reported the court recognized the aggravating factor of premeditation in addition to concealment of a corpse. Futile motives and the relationship are in Adnkronos and Corriere della Sera. They are not in those two ANSA ledes. Adnkronos reported that in earlier hearings Foti and Pillitu had asked the court to drop the aggravating factors and to recognize generic mitigating factors, that they argued it was a crime of impulse that grew out of anger and tension, and that they pointed to his cooperation after the confession. ANSA's Italian desk quoted prosecutor Maria Perna, in rebuttal, saying this was not a crime of impulse, that Samson, who was not in court, had never repented, and that he kept thinking Ilaria Sula deserved that end. Adnkronos reported the same point from Perna, that he never repented because he continued to think she deserved that end, and that he had not told the truth all the way through because he kept lying so he would not have to admit premeditation. A life term after that hearing is the first-instance judgment. These stories do not report a notice of appeal.

The accounts of the killing do not use the same date, the same wounds, or the same container. LaPresse reported she was killed on March 25, 2025, with three stab wounds to the throat, and that her body was put in a suitcase and thrown down a ravine in the Capranica Prenestina area, where it was found on April 2. Adnkronos reported she was killed on March 25 of last year in the apartment on via Homs, in Rome's African quarter, with three stab wounds to the neck, and that the body was left in a suitcase at the bottom of a ravine in the Capranica Prenestina area. Adnkronos reported the body was hidden in rough ground between Capranica Prenestina and Guadagnolo, found on April 2, 2025, and that Samson confessed and showed investigators where he had left it. ANSA's English desk reported he told police in April 2025 that he murdered her on the morning of March 26 after she spent the previous night at his flat. It reported he said she came to the via Homs apartment on the evening of March 25 to give him back some clothes, stayed because it was too late for a night bus, and that they had recently broken up after a few months. ANSA's English desk reported the court sentenced him for stabbing her to death and throwing her body, placed inside a sack, off a cliff. A sack, in that ANSA English account, and a suitcase, in LaPresse, Adnkronos, and ANSA's Italian desk, are not the same word. Corriere della Sera reported the killing was on the morning of March 26, 2025, in his room in the African quarter, that the prosecution reconstruction was a breakfast tray brought in with a knife among the utensils, three stab wounds to the back, and then punches once she was on the ground, and that he was arrested on April 4 after the body was found. ANSA's Italian desk reported Perna's account that she was stunned with punches and then stabbed. Three wounds to the throat or the neck, three wounds to the back followed by punches, and punches followed by stabbing are three descriptions.

ANSA's Italian desk reported the killing was in the apartment where he lived with his family on via Homs, that Sula was a student at La Sapienza, that she was struck with several stab wounds, and that the suitcase was dumped in a ravine about 40 kilometers from the capital. It reported a message from his phone to a friend, "Either she comes back to me or I kill her," and described that line as evidence the knife attack was planned. It reported his confession put the attack on the morning of March 26, after she stayed over because there were no more buses, and that he said he brought her breakfast and struck her after reading messages from another young man on her phone. It reported he cleaned the scene with help from his mother, whom that story names as Nors Man Lapaz and describes as later accused of complicity in concealing the body. Adnkronos spelled the mother Leonora Soleman Manlapaz and reported she has already plea-bargained a sentence of two years for complicity in concealing the corpse. Corriere della Sera reported the mother was sentenced to two years for concealment of a corpse and did not print the plea-bargain word or that full name. Accused, in the ANSA Italian story, and a two-year sentence, in Adnkronos and Corriere della Sera, are not the same procedural step. ANSA's Italian desk and Adnkronos quoted her father, Flamur Sula: "Justice has been done, but the real life sentence is ours, mine and my wife's. He is still breathing. My daughter is not breathing anymore. This is an important moment for justice. I have always had faith in justice, and I have not been abandoned." ANSA's Italian desk quoted her mother, Gezime: "Girls have to be respected. They have to be given love, not violence. I think my daughter deserves to be up there in peace now." Corriere della Sera reported Flamur and Gezime, assisted by lawyer Giuseppe Sforza, said, "No sentence will bring our daughter back," and that the defendant's parents had returned to the Philippines, so no one was there for him. Tuesday's life term is the judgment those courts announced. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.