A 58-year-old office worker killed her 62-year-old husband by hitting him over the head with a rolling-pin near the Tuscan city of Arezzo before trying to kill herself, police said on Tuesday.
The tragedy unfolded on Monday when Clara Vannini repeatedly struck Enzo Canacci from behind at their home in the town of Terranuova Bracciolini, delivering the blows to the back of his head.
The couple's 25-year-old daughter told police she found her father lying motionless in a pool of blood in the corridor outside the kitchen when she returned home late on Monday after an evening out with friends.
The woman's mother was lying in a daze on the living-room sofa after apparently trying to end her life by swallowing several sleeping pills.
Vannini reportedly confessed her husband's murder to paramedics who pronounced Canacci dead at the scene.
Canacci had one of his wife's scarves wrapped around his neck but it was not immediately clear why. Vannini may have tried to strangle him or to staunch blood pouring from his fractured skull after she bludgeoned him with the rolling-pin, according to investigators.
Canacci, was a well-known and popular figure in Terranuova Bracciolini. An employee of Italian electricity company Enel, he was formerly president of a local blood donation charity.
Canacci suffered a stroke in 2014 that left him partially paralysed on the left-hand side of his body and had difficulty walking.
Investigators were probing the possibility that Canacci's disability could have caused domestic stress and tensions with Vannini.
