Thursday, April 5, 2007

Italian Investigators Having A Devil of a Time

Police and prosecutors in northern Italy are wrestling with a mystery that brings together a 22-year-old man with memory loss, evidence of devil worship and a blood-drenched apartment.

On March 19, a dishevelled young man wandered into a Carabinieri police station at Vercelli, between Turin and Milan. He said he had no idea who he was, or why he was there.

Rewind to three days earlier: A landlord in the town of Bergamo-- more than 70 miles away from Carabinieri, breaks into one of her apartments. The tenant had not paid his rent and she wanted to know if he was still there. What she found was a scene out of a horror flick--the place was a complete mess, with signs everywhere that it had been used for a satanic rite. There were upturned crosses, and the walls and floor were smothered with over two dozen bizarre symbols written in blood. Police forensic experts estimated that as much as seven pints of blood had been used to create the symbols.

It was only a week or so later that police established that the apartment-- and the blood found splattered on its walls-- belonged to the mysterious young man who had turned up at the Carabinieri police station.

He has since been identified as Daniele (investigators have not released his last name) who, until recently, worked in a nearby factory. His family said his only real hobby was UFOs.

They told police that, last September, he had suddenly broken with his family and friends. He left his job and spent his savings, but kept in occasional contact with his parents, whom he now says he cannot recognize.. According to a report in the daily Corriere della Sera, psychiatrists who have examined Daniele are convinced he is not feigning amnesia. Doctors have found that he has a recent inch-long scar on his right arm, and a series of smaller puncture wounds on other parts of his body. There is no evidence that Daniele has taken drugs, and the puncture marks do not correspond to those left when blood is extracted via any medical procedures.

Among the puzzles vexing investigators are how a man who had lost seven pints of blood could have made his way 70 miles across country - and what happened to him during the three days that he was missing.

Domenico Chiaro, the prosecutor who has taken up the case, has said he is treating it as a case of attempted murder. But he and the police are hampered by a number of factors. The hard drive in Daniele's computer is missing, as is the SIM card of his mobile phone. As for the young man himself, all he can offer them is the faint recollection of an abbey-- nothing more.

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