‘The Saint’ leaves Italian town after case opened into statue’s ‘tears of blood’

A woman nicknamed "the Saint" has mysteriously vanished from a small lakeside town near Rome where pilgrims have flocked for years to pray before a statue of the Virgin Mary that she claimed shed tears of blood.

Maria Giuseppe Scarpulla, originally from Sicily, and her husband reportedly fled Trevignano Romano last week after a private investigator triggered a judicial investigation against her based on his alleged finding that the blood stains on the statue came from a pig.

The bizarre story began in 2016 when Scarpulla, known to her followers as Gisella Cardia, bought the statue at a Catholic pilgrimage site in Medjugorje, Bosnia. Upon returning to Italy, she claimed the Madonna wept tears of blood and was communicating messages to her.

The statue was placed in a glass case in a park overlooking Lake Bracciano, where on the third day of each month hundreds of pilgrims - many in search of a cure for serious illnesses - would go to pray and hear the latest divine messages received by Scarpulla.

Scarpulla, who in the past had been convicted of bankruptcy fraud, created a foundation through which she collected donations, which she reportedly said would go towards setting up a centre for sick children.

Amid growing media interest in the site - an area of land in the park reportedly bought with donations - and complaints from locals over the monthly influx of pilgrims, a local bishop, Marco Salvi, announced in March that the church would investigate the phenomenon surrounding the Madonna statue.

Suspicions over the claims did not stop an estimated 300 pilgrims from across Italy flocking there on 3 April for the monthly ceremony, during which Scarpulla claimed she had received another message from the Virgin Mary.

"Beloved children, this is the moment and time for choice," she reportedly said. "I ask you as a grieving mother: choose God. Children, the threads of darkness are gripping you."

Two days later, the private investigator, Andrea Cacciotti, told the Italian press he had filed a complaint to local police and to prosecutors in the nearby port city of Civitavecchia because "too many people felt they'd been scammed".

The local Corriere della Sera newspaper reported on Tuesday that prosecutors had started an investigation after complaints from people who allegedly had been scammed.

Cacciotti's claims that the blood came from a pig are yet to be confirmed. He said he would ask the judiciary to freeze Scarpulla's accounts.

Scarpulla was reportedly seen packing up her car and leaving Trevignano Romano on Thursday. Some say she has gone abroad, or to her native Sicily, or that perhaps she has sought refuge in a monastery.

A message on her website says meetings with the faithful are "temporarily suspended".

Her lawyer, Anna Orlando, said she had simply gone on holiday. "This is sensationalism at all costs," Orlando told Corriere della Sera. "The witch-hunt is galloping and nobody seems willing to ascertain facts. I can only say that we will defend ourselves."