It all began in 2016 when Gisella Cardia purchased a statue of the Virgin Mary from a religious site in Medjugorje, Bosnia. She then brought the statue back to her home in Trevignano Romano, Italy.
Not long after, Cardia started making extraordinary claims, stating that the statue not only shed tears of blood but also delivered messages to her, that she believed were divine.
However, in 2023, prosecutors in Civitavecchia launched an investigation, accusing Cardia of fraud. It was suspected that the blood found on the statue might not be divine but rather belonged to an animal—specifically, a pig.
To uncover the truth, forensic experts conducted DNA tests on samples taken from the Virgin Mary statue. The results have now come to light, providing new insights into the controversy.
According to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, laboratory tests detected traces of Cardia’s DNA within the blood that stained the statue.
Despite this revelation, her lawyer argues that this evidence alone does not prove fraud. The key issue, she insists, lies in whether the DNA found is a single profile or a mixed sample.
Solange Marchignoli stated: “From a scientific point of view, the DNA stain deserves further investigation.”
“We are waiting to know if it is a mixed or single profile: if the profile is single, it means that it is only Cardia’s and she put it there, so in this case we would go to trial, but if, as expected, the profile is mixed, it means that the DNA found on the statue also contains Gisella’s DNA, which we expect because she used the statuette, kissed it and handled it.”
Meanwhile, the Diocese of Civita Castellana conducted its own thorough inquiry into the events and ultimately concluded that the occurrences were not of supernatural origin.
In May 2024, Bishop Marco Salvi, speaking on behalf of the Diocese, issued an official statement: “After an appropriate period of careful discernment, having listened to the testimonies coming from the [diocesan] territory and making use of a commission of experts, made up of a Mariologist, a theologian, a canonist, a psychologist, and with the outside advice of some specialists, having considered the figure of Mary in the Tradition of the Church and in the living faith of the people of God, after fervent prayer, decrees the events in question to be non-supernatural.”