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In September 2016, at the age of 31, Tiziana Cantone was found dead in her aunt’s home in Mugnano near Naples, Italy.

She had been fighting to have a sex video removed from the internet, and so when her body was discovered in circumstances suggesting that she had taken her own life, no autopsy was carried out and the investigation wasn’t taken any further.

But now, after almost five years, prosecutors in Naples are opening a murder inquiry into Cantone’s death and ordering the exhumation of her body.

An image of Tiziana Cantone (left), shows her in a loving embrace with her mother Maria Teresa Giglio (the pair are also seen above):

Image: quotidiano.net

Via the BBC, the public prosecutor’s office of North Naples said an official investigation was now necessary, as they had found new evidence:

[There were] inconsistencies with the original finding, including traces of DNA collected at the scene believed to belong to two men…

The year before her death, Cantone had sent a sex video of herself to four friends, including a former boyfriend, via WhatsApp, reported The Guardian:

The video was soon shared online and uploaded on to pornographic websites, attracting almost 1m views around the world.

A phrase that Cantone said in the video made it onto printed T-shirts, smartphone cases and other items to be sold: “You’re filming? Bravo.”

This was a big part of the mocking and humiliation that Cantone suffered in the 18 months before her death.

She tried to escape the abuse by quitting her job, moving to Tuscany, and changing her name.

Later on, Cantone also won a “right to be forgotten” ruling, which ordered the video to be removed from sites and search engines, including Facebook.

But this cost her €20 000 (around R335 000) in legal costs and by the time the ruling was made, the video had been copied and republished thousands of times anyway:

“She was suffering from everything she saw and heard and in particular from the outcome of the legal proceedings, because she believed justice had not been done,” her mother said following her death.

Cantone’s mother is adamant that her daughter did not kill herself.

The exhumation of Cantone’s body, ordered by deputy prosecutor Giovanni Corona, will take place in early June.

[sources:bbc&theguardian]