The remains of a 48-year-old American man executed in Texas will soon be laid to rest near the Tuscan city of Pisa .
Gregory Summers was killed by lethal injection on October 25 but US authorities are shortly expected to approve a request from an Italian elementary school to bring his body to Europe for burial .
The unusual move came about following months of close correspondence between the death-row inmate and students at the Luigi Russo School in Navacchio, a village 15 kilometres south of Pisa .
Students initially became involved in a campaign to try and save Summers, convicted of ordering the murder of relatives for insurance money in 1990 .
But after his execution, they instead started raising funds to bring him to Italy for burial, a request he made shortly before he died .
Helped by the Italian consul in Houston, Cristiano Maggipinto, and local Culture Councillor Roberto Lorenzi, the kids opened a bank account for donations, and in just a few days have raised enough money for the flight .
The body will be transported in a white coffin, chosen by Summers as a "symbol of his innocence", which he insisted upon until the end .
Students first started writing to Summers through the school's director, Maria Carmela Carretta .
"I initially came into contact with Gregory about 10 years ago, after reading his story in [Catholic weekly] Famiglia Cristiana," she explained .
"I made a donation to a campaign to raise money for his legal fees and later received a letter from him, thanking me personally. From that time on, we remained in touch" .
Summers was convicted of hiring someone to stab his parents - as well as his uncle, who lived with them - and burn their house down .
In an interview not long before he died, he said he loved his parents but was estranged from the rest of his family .
Summers was the 48th person executed in the US this year, where over 3,000 people are on death row .
Texas executes more people than any other US state, with over 370 executions carried out between 1976 and 2006 .
Meanwhile, students at the Italian school are planning to start their own anti-death penalty campaign, to raise awareness about capital punishment .
Italy has been particularly active in campaigning against the death penalty, presenting moratorium proposals at the United Nations Assembly in both 1994 and 1995 .
In July, the Italian House approved a cross-party motion urging the government to table another moratorium proposal at the UN this autumn .
Although the motion called for a unilateral resolution, the government failed to follow through on the request, citing an inability to agree with its European Union partners on the proposal .
