Illegal Immigrant Who Killed American Artist During Night of Drugs and Sex After Meeting at Nightclub in Florence Is Found Guilty of Murder

A Senegalese illegal immigrant has been convicted of murdering an American woman in her apartment in Florence, Italy after they met at a nightclub.

Cheik Tidiane Diaw, 27, has been jailed for 30 years for murdering Ashley Olsen, 35, in her apartment on January 9 this year after they had sex.

Olsen, from Summer Haven, Florida, was strangled and suffered several skull fractures. Her body was found by her boyfriend.

Diaw, who had arrived in Italy from Senegal a few months earlier, admitted to police he and Olsen fought violently after a night of drugs and sex but denied strangling her and said he never intended to kill her.

Diaw told investigators they had fought when she tried to push him out of the apartment, fearing her boyfriend would be arriving.

After being pushed against the door, Diaw responded by punching Olsen in the neck and then pushing her to the ground, where she hit her head.

Police arrested Diaw after street surveillance cameras showed him walking with Olsen toward her home that night.

His DNA was found on a cigarette butt and a condom in her apartment.

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Mourners at her funeral in Florence’s Santo Spirito basilica in January were shocked when an Italian bishop, Monsignor Giovanni Scanavino, said blamed her friends for not being ‘sufficiently human and Christian’ and failing to prevent her getting involved involved in the ‘deadly tangle of alcohol and drugs’.

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