Woman convicted of killing pizzeria owner in Bucks County, Pa. – NBC10 Philadelphia

A Bucks County woman has been convicted of shooting and killing her partner, who owned a pizzeria in Chalfont, Pennsylvania.

On Tuesday, June 25, Anna Maria Tolomello, of Hilltown Township, was sentenced to 18 to 40 years in state prison. Tolomello, 51, pleaded guilty in April 2024 to third-degree murder charges involving the death of his partner, Giovanni Gallina, 65, on March 16, 2022.

According to police, Tolomello had previously admitted to investigators that she had shot Gallina — her common-law husband — in the head and that she had kept his body wrapped in a tarp and a quilt in a bedroom of their home in Hilltown Township.

According to authorities, she then had a hole dug in her property in order to “bury one or more objects.”

Tolomello and Gallina owned Pina Pizzeria in Chalfont, according to court documents.

Tolomello's crimes came to light, according to court documents, after a witness told police that Tolomello contacted them three days after Gallina's death to ask them to dig a hole near her driveway so she could can “bury one or more objects” in his garden.

Working with police, this witness dug a hole at Tolomello's home – she paid $350 in cash for the service – and was recorded telling the witness that her partner was “away” when he was asked where he was, according to court documents.

Later, during a search of Tolomello's home, police said, officers discovered Gallina's body — wrapped in bloody sheets and her head covered by a black trash bag — in a bedroom, according to court documents .

According to law enforcement, police believe that by the time Gallina's body was discovered by authorities, it had been hidden in the home for 13 days.

Initially, Tolomello told police she shot Gallina in the head in self-defense when he tried to strangle her on their bed, according to court documents. His defense team had also previously made the same argument.

However, prosecutors said Gallina was shot in the back of the head.

Court documents also claim Tolomello told police she threw the mattress in the pizzeria's dumpster, tried to clean the blood off the home's carpet, wiped the gun to remove fingerprints and had gotten rid of waste and unspent bullet casings.