Mother superior of a convent in Chiavenna that specialised in helping juvenile delinquents, she was stabbed to death in a satanic sacrifice by three teenage girls on the night of 6 June 2000.

Teresina Elsa Mainetti was born on 20 August 1939 in Villatico,[1] a frazione of Colico, Lecco, Italy, and was baptised aged two days.

[3][4] Around 22:00 on 6 June 2000, Mainetti left her convent in Chiavenna and went to a local public square to meet a girl who had recently requested an appointment via telephone, claiming to have been raped and impregnated and to be considering an abortion.

The three girls, aged 16 and 17, lured Mainetti down a nearby street to a secluded area outside a park where they ambushed her, stoning and shouting abuse at her before taking turns in stabbing her with a kitchen knife that De Giambattista was carrying.

[18] On 23 October 2005, Alessandro Maggiolini, Bishop of the Diocese of Como, opened the diocesan phase of Mainetti's beatification process at the Collegiate Church of Saint Lawrence in Chiavenna.