Ashley Ann Olsen Enjoyed Life in Italy's Art Community and Exploring with Her Dog Before a Night at the Club Turned Deadly

When a Floridian living in Italy was murdered, the Florence community responded with an outpour of sorrow. Then the victim shaming began. 

By all accounts, 35-year-old Ashley Ann Olsen was enjoying a new lease on life. The Florida native ended a marriage in the States and moved to Florence in 2012, where she was immersed in the art scene and nightlife. Her Instagram account was filled with postcard-perfect images. 

Her father, Walter Olsen, is an art professor at the Interior Design Studio and Analytical Drawing in Florence, and Ashley moved there to be closer to him. 

She was known to frequent Montecarla, a club near her apartment in the Oltrarno neighborhood. On January 7, 2016, Olsen was hanging out with friends there when she met a young Senegalese man named Cheik Tidiane Diaw. Her friends eventually left, but Olsen stayed with Diaw. CCTVs caught them walking toward her place and entering the apartment. 

The following day, after unsuccessfully trying to reach Olsen on the phone, her boyfriend, Federico Fiorentini, stopped by her apartment. Olsen didn’t answer the doorbell, but her beloved beagle, Scout, did, barking incessantly. Fiorentini got the landlady to let him in. He found Olsen naked on the floor and lost his mind, according to the landlady who was interviewed by the Italian magazine Oggi: “He threw himself on her to revive her.... The body was cold, but he did not understand that there was nothing to do. He tried in every way, first with the mouth-to-mouth then with heart massage.”

With the help of surveillance footage and evidence left at the scene, investigators honed in on Diaw. He was arrested when analysis found that DNA from a condom and cigarette butt in Olsen’s bathroom matched his. He eventually confessed to joining Olsen at her apartment, claiming they had consensual sex. He told interrogators, “She told me to leave and that her boyfriend was coming and she pushed me to the door.” Diaw said he reacted by punching her in the head and screaming, “You have treated me like a dog.”

Diaw claimed Olsen fell back, got up and pushed him again. He pushed back, and she fell and struck her head on the tile floor. He insisted that she was alive when he left and had no intention of killing her. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison on December 22, 2016. 

Olsen was widely known as “La Americana” with the little dog, a vibrant free spirit who was as likely to skateboard as appreciate fine wine. Her Instagram motto was “Live free or die.” 

The community was shocked by her death, especially because the murder rate in Florence is practically nonexistent. 

Police deduced that Olsen and Diaw were under the influence of alcohol and cocaine. Stories circulated that Diaw may have choked Olsen as part of a sex game gone wrong. An autopsy concluded that Olsen suffered two head fractures and had been strangled with an object such as a cord or rope.

As more details surfaced, the tone of locals and the press changed. Articles mentioned “habits of the night,” “cocaine-fueled sex” and “preference for Africans.” Neighbors and local media relied on information from a leaked transcript of Diaw’s questioning by investigators.

Olsen’s family responded with an open letter: “We feel it now is necessary to speak publicly because the statements made by the accused and the press have depicted Ashley in a way that is far from the truth. Some of the reports in the media and statements made by the man accused of taking her life (who was not an acquaintance of hers) are contrary to Ashley’s morals, beliefs and personality as we know her.”

Criminologist Alex Iszatt is not surprised by the reaction. 

“Crimes that involve sex are treated differently by the public and the media, particularly when the victim is a woman,” she tells A&E Crime + Investigation. “Sexual context tends to override all other details, and once consensual sex is reported, attention shifts away from the act of violence and onto the victim’s behavior. In this case, sympathy turned to hostility because people struggled to reconcile two truths at once: That she had agency over her sexual choices, and that she was still entirely blameless in her murder.”  

Olsen’s death also ignited fear to travel abroad among Americans. Despite crime statistics being much lower in the most popular overseas travel destinations, Americans have been increasingly concerned for their safety. TravelAge West surveyed more than 300 travel advisors in July 2025 and found that more than 80% said clients expressed concerns about international travel.

That fear is unwarranted. Americans are just as likely to die from drowning while visiting their favorite resort as from homicide, per the U.S. Department of State.

Still, being murdered abroad presents an additional complication for the family of a victim.

“When an American is killed in another country, the psychological impact on loved ones is shaped less by geography and more by loss of control. Families are suddenly dependent on a legal system they do not understand, operating under unfamiliar rules, timelines and communication styles,” Iszatt says. “Loved ones cannot tell what is routine, what is concerning or what progress looks like, and that uncertainty compounds grief and often produces anger, mistrust and a feeling of being shut out of their own loved one’s case.” A 2022 Quartz headline summed up one's chances of death while abroad: The risk of dying on vacation is actually really, really low.