Bucks woman admits killing her boyfriend, a Chalfont pizzeria owner, then hiding his body in their bedroom for days

A Bucks County woman admitted Monday that she killed her longtime boyfriend, a popular Chalfont pizzeria owner, by shooting him in the head, and then hid his body for nearly two weeks in the bedroom of the house they shared.

Ana Maria Tolomello, 50, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the 2022 death of Giovanni Gallina, owner of Pina’s Pizzeria and her longtime beau.

After killing Gallina, Tolomello wrapped his body in bed linens and a tarp, disposed a bloody mattress from the crime scene, and hired a contractor to dig a hole in her driveway that was roughly the size of a makeshift grave, according to prosecutors. The contractor grew suspicious and alerted authorities, leading to her arrest.

She initially told investigators she shot Gallina in self-defense, saying he had been choking her in the moments before she killed him on March 16, 2022, but that story quickly unraveled.

Tolomello admitted her guilt Monday on what was expected to be the first day of her murder trial. A plea offer from Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Rees allowed her to avoid the possibility of a life sentence if convicted of first-degree murder. Instead, she is expected to be sentenced in coming weeks to 18-to-40 years in state prison.

Tolomello’s attorney, Antonetta Stancu, said after Monday’s brief hearing that the case was “complicated from the beginning,” and a challenging one to present to a jury.

“I think that she recognizes the challenges and the fact this was a fair offer in the case,” Stancu said, in explaining Tolomello’s decision.

Rees, the prosecutor, said the plea offer was reached in consultation with Gallina’s family, including his son and daughter.

“They recognize that no sentence and no conviction will result in their father coming back in their lives,” he said. “But when they factored in all the components of this plea and everything we know about this case and the defendant, they ultimately agreed this was a just outcome.”

Regulars at Gallina’s pizzeria grew concerned when the 65-year-old owner suddenly stopped showing up at the restaurant.

When people — including his family in Italy — asked Tolomello about his whereabouts, she simple told them he was “away,” and said she hadn’t seen him in some time, prosecutors said.

In truth, his corpse was in the home the couple shared.

For 13 days after the shooting, Tolomello kept Gallina’s corpse in their bedroom, wrapped tightly in bed linens and a tarp. Detectives found Gallina’s bound body in the master bedroom. Tolomello later told them she cleaned up after the crime and hauled the blood-soaked mattress away and put it in a dumpster outside Pina’s Pizzeria, according to the affidavit of probable cause for her arrest.

She called a local contractor and asked him to dig a very specific hole on her property: 7 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet deep. That would be her undoing, prosecutors said.

That contractor was the brother of a local police officer, and contacted Bucks County investigators after growing suspicious of Tolomello’s request, particularly when she declined his offer to fill in the hole and told him she would do it herself.

When investigators came to Tolomello’s house with a search warrant on the day she had planned to bury Gallina, prosecutors said, she said she knew why they were there and led them to his body.