A bogus film producer suspected of killing his partner and their baby in Rome has been extradited to Italy after fleeing to Greece following their deaths.
On June 13, a 46-year-old man going by the alias Rexal Ford was detained on the Greek island of Skiathos under an Italian arrest warrant. Italian authorities had linked him to the horrific double-murder of a 30-year-old woman and her 11-month-old daughter in Rome on June 7. Ford, whom The Times in England dubbed the “Untalented Mr. Ripley,” was in fact Francis Charles Kaufmann from California.
Their naked bodies were discovered in the Italian capital’s Villa Doria Pamphili park, concealed by black bags and bushes.
Deadline now reports that Kaufmann landed at the Rome airport of Ciampino on an Italian Air Force Falcon at midday Friday after being extradited from Greece.
He is due to speak with Italian investigators next week and will be held in a secure section of Rome’s Rebibbia prison until then.
It also emerged after their bodies were found that the two deceased were Kaufmann’s 28-year-old Russian partner, Anastasia Trofimova, and their 11-month-old daughter, Andromeda.
“I am innocent. I didn’t kill them,” he said during a hearing in Larissa, Greece.
Reports suggest that Kaufmann had adopted the alias Rexal Ford to masquerade as a film producer who was scouting for shooting locations in the Italian capital. Kaufmann even reportedly falsified IMDb credits to support his ruse.
He was often accompanied by the woman he called “his wife” and the young child.
Using his alias and a fake passport, he even managed to secure $996,112 in tax credit from the Italian Ministry of Culture in 2020 for a feature that never got made. The General Director of Cinema and Audiovisual at the Italian Ministry of Culture resigned over the resulting scandal.
Speaking at a news conference in Rome, the city’s chief prosecutor, Francesco Lo Voi, remarked on Kaufmann’s alleged role in the deaths.
“It is not exactly understandable that someone who was with a woman and a baby girl, once the woman and the girl died, whom he carried in his arms, would then leave the country without calling for help, without seeking assistance,” Lo Voi said, according to CBS News. “In itself, that doesn’t look good.”
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