Pizza parlor owner kills partner then hides body in bedroom, Pennsylvania police say

The owner of a Pennsylvania pizza parlor asked for a hole to be dug in her driveway and for “tricks” related to a skunk smell in her garage about a week before the body of her dead business and romantic partner was found wrapped in a tarp in her bedroom, according to a criminal complaint filed with the Hilltown Township Police Department.

Anna Maria Tolomello, 48, of Chalfont, Pennsylvania, is charged with criminal homicide, possession of a weapon with criminal intent, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse in the killing of her husband and co-owner of the pizza parlor, Giovanni Gallina, 65, according to police.

On Tuesday, March 29, police spoke with Gallina’s son, Phillip Gallina, who lives in Italy and told officers that he had not been able to reach his father since March 16 and that the two usually talk every day.

Tolomello told Phillip Gallina that his father had gone out of town on business and left his cellphone at the pizza shop the couple owned in town, according to the criminal complaint.

The same day, police interviewed a cooperating witness who told them that Tolomello had asked on March 19 for help digging a hole her driveway. She told the witness that she wanted the hole to be about 7 feet long, 3 feet wide and 3 feet deep and initially told police she was planning to bury a dog, according to the complaint. Around that same time, she also asked another person for “any tricks” related to a skunk in her garage or whether a certain store sold incense.

Officers went to Tolomello’s home on March 29 to execute a search warrant and found a bundle the same size as an adult male wrapped in a blue tarp and a comforter in a bedroom in the home, according to the complaint.

Tolomello waived her right to remain silent and told police that she had shot Giovanni Gallina on March 16 while he was strangling her in bed, according to the complaint. She also acknowledged that the hole she wanted dug in her driveway was for Gallina’s body and her inquiry into the skunk odor was about covering up the smell from his decomposing corpse, the complaint says.

Tolomello also told officers that she disposed of the bloody mattress in the dumpster outside the couple’s pizza shop, cleaned up the blood on the carpet that spilled while she was moving the body and wiped fingerprints off the Smith & Wesson revolver she used to shoot him, according to the complaint.

Later, upon inspection of the bundle found in Tolomello’s bedroom, investigators discovered the body of a dead male the same age as Gallina with a bullet wound in his head, according to the complaint.

Chalfont is about 30 miles north of Philadelphia.

This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 12:46 PM with the headline "Pizza parlor owner kills partner then hides body in bedroom, Pennsylvania police say."