Extradition bid after victim’s body lay hidden in church for 16 years
Oddball killed teenager Eliza as she refused to have sex
THE brutal manner in which a twisted killer murdered a 16-year-old girl, whose body lay hidden in a church for more than 16 years, has been revealed 27 years after she died.
Italian national Danilo Restivo, 48, is serving a minimum of 40 years in the UK for the 2002 murder of his neighbour Heather Barnett in Charminster, Dorset.
He will not be eligible for parole until 2050, but the Italian authorities are seeking his extradition from the UK so he can finish his term there and serve a separate 30-year sentence for the murder of teenager Elisa Claps in Potenza.
She was reported missing in September 1993 after going to meet Restivo in thetrinita Church, but her body was not found until March 2010 – nearly eight years after Restivo came to live in the UK.
A European Arrest Warrant from Italy calling for Restivo’s extradition describes how the oddball lured the teenager to the church between 11.30am and 1.30pm before tricking her into going into the attic.
The hair fetishist tried to have sex with her, but she refused.
The warrant said: “He used violence on her and acted cruelly by hitting her repeatedly at least 15 times:three blows in the neck and in the chest, and other blows, at least 12, were received in the back thoracic region with a sharp and cutting arm thus causing her death. Then he was ruthless in handling the tortured body of the victim that was pulled to a corner of the church attic, and it was violated and desecrated by uncovering the private parts and cutting locks of hair.
“Finally he concealed the corpse (in that he covered it with various material including tiles found in the attic and other fragments) thus preventing the corpse from being found.”
The extradition request comes six years after he successfully appealed a deportation order on the grounds it would breach his human rights as he would be unable to see wife Fiamma Marsango, who has stood by him and still lives in Charminster.
Restivo’s full term imprisonment in HMP Full Sutton, nearyork, would cost taxpayers around £2million if he remains in the UK.
The extradition case, being heard atwestminster magistrates court, has been adjourned until November.
Heather, 48, was bludgeoned and had her throat slashed before being mutilated by the monster, who cut off her breasts and left a clump of another woman’s hair, that he had earlier removed, in her left hand.