Francis Charles Kaufmann, an American who operated under the pseudonym Rexal Ford, isn’t a character from a movie, but his crime story could easily play out on the big screen one day. He’s just been sentenced to life in prison, with three years of that in daytime solitary confinement. Read on for more details.
The Double Murder
Kaufmann was convicted for murdering his partner, Anastasia Trofimova, and their 11-month-old baby girl, Andromeda. He dumped their bodies in a park in Italy.
Public tip-offs helped to identify him after his partner was found dead. Sadly, it’s believed the baby was killed after her mom, per the Daily Mail.
Prosecutors established that Anastasia Trofimova had been strangled and it might have happened while she was asleep.
Extradited From Greece
According to the outlet, after committing the crime, Francis Charles Kaufmann “fled the country but was arrested weeks later on the Greek island of Skiathos, which famously served as the backdrop for the hit movie Mamma Mia!, before being extradited back to Italy.”
Apparently, after he fled to Greece, he hoped to make a movie there, per Roberta Bruzzone – Psicologa e Criminologa on YouTube. But his dreams of a career in movies under the name of Rexal Ford came to an end when the law finally caught up with him.
Four Different Countries
He had denied having anything to do with the deaths of Anastasia Trofimova and Andromeda, claiming she’d left him and gone off with some wealthy guy.
The interesting part of the crime includes the fact that several different countries featured in it. Reuters reported that his partner was Russian. Meanwhile, Francis Charles Kaufmann hailed from California. He was extradited from Greece to stand trial in Italy. So, four different countries featured in his road to prison.
On top of that, he’d faked a career as a filmmaker. According to Deadline, “it emerged that Kaufmann had been masquerading as a producer under a number of different aliases.”
The film project was linked to a substantial Italian tax credit. It involved a “€863,595 ($996,112) tax credit from the Italian Ministry of Culture in 2020 for a feature entitled Stelle della Notte, which never got made.“
The fallout from that ended up with a senior Culture Ministry official losing their job.
A Different Kaufman
Notably, Francis Charles Kaufmann shouldn’t be confused with Charlie Kaufman, the well-known movie director famous for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, who shares a similar name. He has zero connection to the crime or the court case in Italy.
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