When she failed to return home, her husband, an Italian army soldier, raised the alarm and a search was launched. Involving boats, helicopters, drones equipped with thermal scanners, sniffer dogs and various police forces, the search went on for 11 days.
Emergency personnel searched caves, cellars and abandoned buildings in their hunt for the missing woman.
But her body was finally discovered on Wednesday by a pair of television journalists who had been sent to the island to report on the story for a programme called Chi l’ha Visto (Who Saw Them?), which focuses on crime and missing people.
Questions are now being asked as to how they succeeded where teams of professionals failed.
They found the body in a grove of orange trees near the village of Serrara Fontana, on the island’s south coast.
“Sadly, we found the lifeless body of Antonella,” said one of the journalists, Francesco Paolo Del Re. “It’s the worst news that could have been expected. We’re in shock. Our hope had been that Antonella might have left the island by ferry. We didn’t expect to find her dead.”
‘Whole community is upset’
Di Massa’s corpse was located just a few hundred yards from where she had parked her Fiat Panda.
A post-mortem will be carried out to determine the cause of death.
“The whole community is upset,” said Giosi Ferrandino, the local mayor.
Gino Ballirano, the parish priest, described Di Massa as “cheerful and kind”.
