‘Hollywood Producer’ Gets Life for Murdering Girlfriend and Baby

An American man who used multiple identities and claimed to be a Hollywood film producer has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering his girlfriend and their baby daughter in Rome, in a shocking case that has exposed troubling police failures and a nearly $1 million government film-funding scandal.

Francis Kaufmann, 47, was convicted Thursday, November 5, of killing his Russian girlfriend, Anastasia Trofimova, 28, and their 11-month-old daughter, Andromeda, whose bodies were discovered in Rome’s sprawling Villa Pamphili park on June 7, 2025.

The court also ordered three years of daytime solitary confinement after finding Kaufmann guilty of double homicide and concealing the victims’ bodies.

But the case has raised an especially disturbing question: Could the little girl’s life have been saved if police had acted sooner?

Prosecutors revealed that Italian officers encountered Kaufmann several times before the killings were discovered, including on June 5, when he was visibly intoxicated and alone with his daughter. Investigators believe Trofimova had already been killed, but Andromeda was still alive.

Even more troubling, a 16-year-old boy contacted police late on June 6 after spotting a man carrying what appeared to be a limp baby near the park. According to CNN, officers never dispatched a patrol car to investigate.

During closing arguments, prosecutor Antonio Verdi sharply criticized the officers’ handling of the encounters, suggesting that Andromeda might still be alive had they properly intervened.

Authorities later confirmed that officers involved in the earlier encounters had been sanctioned.

The horrifying discovery unfolded the following day when the bodies of Trofimova and her daughter were found in separate areas of the park. Neither victim carried identification, leaving investigators struggling to determine who they were.

A breakthrough eventually came through the Italian television program “Chi l’ha visto?,” which publicized details of the unidentified victims and prompted viewers to come forward with information.

Investigators pieced together the family’s movements and uncovered surveillance footage showing Kaufmann carrying his daughter toward the park before emerging approximately an hour later without her.

By then, Kaufmann had been living a life filled with questionable identities and extravagant claims.

Born Charles Francis Kaufmann, he legally changed his name to Rexal Ford in 2019. He also reportedly used the identity Daniel R. Foster in Malta, where he possessed British passport and residency documents under that name. In Italy, another identity document identified him as Matteo Capozzi.

Despite the shifting identities, Kaufmann maintained that he was a legitimate filmmaker.

“My name is Rexal Ford. I am not a killer. I am a film producer,” he declared when his trial began in February.

His claimed Hollywood connections became another major controversy after investigators uncovered his involvement in an Italian film project called “Stelle della Notte,” which received approval for roughly $1 million in government tax credits despite the movie never being produced.

The scandal sparked scrutiny of Italy’s film-funding system and contributed to the resignation of a senior Culture Ministry official.

Meanwhile, after the mother and daughter were found dead, Kaufmann fled Italy for the Greek island of Skiathos, where authorities arrested him on June 13, 2025. He was subsequently returned to Italy to face prosecution.

Throughout the proceedings, Kaufmann insisted he was innocent, while defense attorney Paolo Foti argued that prosecutors had relied on circumstantial evidence rather than definitive proof.

The judges rejected that defense and imposed the life sentence sought by prosecutors.

The ruling is not yet final under Italy’s appeals process, and Kaufmann’s attorney has indicated that an appeal may follow.

For Trofimova’s family, the conviction offers a measure of justice, but it cannot erase the devastating loss of a young mother and her daughter—or the lingering questions about whether missed opportunities to intervene could have prevented at least one of their deaths.