Elena Di Nola

"Your father and I were a mistake from the beginning."

- Elena to Rafael "Where is the chip?!"

- Elena reveals her true colors as Mutter Elena Di Nola is a character from the American telenovela Jane The Virgin. She briefly appears as a minor character in Season One, before returning as the surprise main antagonist of Season Two, managing to temporarily eclipse the series' main antagonist, Sin Rostro, as the big bad.

Biography
Elena was born in 1958 and began building her criminal empire in her early 20s. Around 1982, she married Emilio Solano, and it is believed that he knew about her criminal activities, and assisted her in stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of art. He also set up a small business the same year he married her, which Elena used as a money laundering scheme.

Elena fell pregnant, but lost the baby (possibly deliberately), and around the time she would've given birth, she and Emilio adopted Rafael, and pretended as though he was their biological son. Elena left family on Rafael's fourth birthday. She would later say that this was because she felt she was wrong for Emilio, and cheated on him and that he subsequently gave her $10 million to leave his family and never return.

After she left the family, she remarried and had a son, named Derek, who was Rafael's "half-brother." The man she married already had a daughter named Clara Ruvelle, making her Clara's step-mother. Elena murdered Clara and Derek's father shortly after Derek was born, as he had discovered that she had become a criminal overlord named "Mother".

Season 1
In 2015, Rafael wonders who his mother is after his father is murdered by Rose Solano, who was revealed to be a criminal mastermind known as Sin Rostro. He reaches out to Elena 27 years later to see if he can forgive her for what she did. When she meets him, she tells him about how Emilio offered her ten million dollars to never come near the Solanos again, and she took it. She also reveals that Rafael has a half-brother named Derek. Enraged, Rafael tells her to leave. Luisa comforts him saying that she never really liked Elena to begin with. At the end of Season One, Rose kidnaps Jane Villanueva's newborn son Mateo, to hold him hostage for a flash drive that contains records of the criminal customers that came to Sin Rostro for illegal plastic surgery operations.

Season 2
Detectives Michael Cordero and Susanna Barnett are investigated the rivalry between Rose/Sin Rostro and a mysterious crime lord that goes by the name "Mutter" (german for "mother") who was ruthless, murderous, and completely controlled the Miami criminal underworld for several decades, and used blue silk chords as a calling card. Their investigation is fruitless, as Mutter covered their tracks very well. Luisa is kidnapped by Mutter's henchmen, and she believes that they are Rose's henchmen, meaning she was in no real danger, since Rose was in love with Luisa. However, Mutter's men begin torturing Luisa, and taking pictures of her, revealing that she's actually been kidnapped by someone who hates Rose and is aware that Rose and Luisa were having an affair. Luisa is later dumped at a bus stop, alive. In Chapter 30, Elena returns to Miami and visits Rafael, apparently to apologize for ruining his family. Rafael invited Elena inside and the two briefly converse. In Chapter 31, Detective Michael Cordero deduces that Elena Di Nola is actually Mutter. At the same time, Rafael notices that Elena's letters are tied with a silk blue chord, allowing him to deduce that his mother is Mutter, but before he can react, Elena attacks him with a sedative, demanding to know the location of the flash drive that Rose was after. He tries to tell her that Rose has it, but she denies this, indicating that the trade for Mateo and the drive was unsuccessful. Police find Rafael unconscious, and Elena gone. Elena is seen begrudgingly forming an alliance with Rose/Sin Rostro to get the flash drive back. It is revealed that Rose is actually Elena's step-daughter Clara Ruvelle.

Luisa agrees to lure Rose out of hiding by "being in a car accident" and getting sent to the hospital. Rose sneaks into the hospital disguised as a doctor and visits Luisa, but Susanna Barnett arrives to arrest her, only to be shot by Rose, who escapes. Immediately after Rose escapes, she is murdered by Elena/Mutter, who strangles her to death with a blue silk chord, leaving police baffled as to what Elena's plan is. Derek begins working for Elena, and under her instructions, befriends Rafael. After a night of partying, with Derek, Rafael becomes drunk, and commits insider trading- a federal offense. Derek and Elena use this information to blackmail Rafael into giving them the Fairwick hotel, allowing them to gain access to $200 million, which was hidden under the hotel by Rose. Derek double-crosses Elena, apparently working for Rose, who is still alive by sending a woman who had plastic surgery to look like Rose to be killed by Elena. Derek leaves Elena tied up in the Fairwick basement, allowing police to finally arrest her for her crime spree dating going back nearly 38 years. Derek apparently conspired with Rose against Elena as revenge for murdering their father.

Season 3
In Season Three, Luisa is seen reading Rose's list of murder victims to Rafael and Michael. Shockingly, she finds both Derek and Elena's names on the list. Michael asks for surveillance on Elena, but the guards find her gasping for air, apparently having been poisoned. As she dies, she points to her prison Bible and croaks "my son." It was assumed that Rose killed Elena as revenge for killing her father. In her Bible, Rafael finds a series of clues that eventually reveal that he is not Elena and Emilio's biological son.

Trivia

 * She is portrayed by Fabiana Udenio.
 * She was born in Orvieto, Italy.
 * The exact number of people she killed is unknown, although she is responsible for two confirmed murders.
 * The narrator describes her as a "homicidal maniac" and a "serial killer."
 * She died in the autumn of 2016.