Valentino Ianetti said his life changed on a cold winter night in New Jersey. On Dec. 8, 2009, at around 2:30 a.m., Ianetti claimed he woke up after falling asleep on the couch, and as he walked past his bedroom, he found his longtime wife, Pamela Ianetti, in a pool of blood on their bedroom floor. Barely alive, he said she reached for a large kitchen knife near her body. Valentino Ianetti grabbed it from his wife who was clinging to life and called 911 for help.
Police and EMS arrived at his home, and the officers immediately brought him in for questioning. Valentino Ianetti told detectives Pamela Ianetti suffered from depression and took pain pills, and that she stabbed herself. Pamela Ianetti sustained 47 stab wounds, including 22 to the left side of her neck and 17 to the right side. Pamela Ianetti died from her injuries, which the medical examiner determined was homicide.
During his interviews with detectives, Ianetti insisted he did not kill his wife, but he also made comments about how there was a chance he could have been sleepwalking and stabbed her. Additionally, he admitted that he and Pamela Ianetti did not have a perfect relationship. Footage from the interrogation room showed him saying to himself, “What did I do? What did I do?”
Investigators arrested Valentino Ianetti and charged him almost immediately with murder.
A toxicology report later revealed that Pamela Ianetti had large Oxycodone in her system the night she died. A medical expert brought in for Ianetti’s defense argued there was a possibility that Pamela Ianetti might not have even felt the stab wounds due to the number of painkillers she took. He and his attorneys insisted Pamela Ianetti died by suicide because she had “hesitation cuts” on her body and not any defensive wounds.
Ianetti spent nearly four years in jail awaiting trial, but in August 2013, Sussex County prosecutors dropped the charges against him, citing reasonable doubt.
Prosecutors left the door open to bring Ianetti to trial again and file new charges against him, but he won’t see another day in court. Ianetti died April 9, 2024, at the age of 74.
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