World's Most Evil Killers - Season 2, Episode 19 - Danilo Restivo - Full Episode | Forensic Files

-In 2002, in Bournemouth on the south coast of England, police were called to the scene of a disturbance
in a residential street. Two young children were distraught and being comforted by a neighbor.
When the police entered the house, they found the mother horrifically murdered. -Her body has been mutilated,
but, bizarrely, in her hands are cut head hair. It's cut head hair, but it's not her hair.
It's hair which is alien from that scene. -The murderer had conned his way into his victim's house,
attacked and killed the woman, then mutilated her body. His name was Danilo Restivo.
-Most people, when they've committed a murder, they want to get as far away from that body as possible
as quickly as possible. But this is somebody who enjoys spending time with the body and mutilating it.
♪♪ -This has a fetishistic and almost sadistic element above and beyond the usual simple motives for homicide.
-But police discovered that this was not the first time he had killed. Their investigation revealed Danilo Restivo
to be one of the world's most evil killers. ♪♪ ♪♪ -On the 12th of November, 2002,
Bournemouth police had received a 999 call from a terrified 14-year-old and his 11-year-old sister.
They had returned home from school to find their mother's body mutilated in the bathroom.
The investigating officer was Phil James. -The police were called at about 4:00 in the afternoon.
The initial response would be made by uniformed police officers as soon as they realized it was a murder.
I received a call, and I drove to Bournemouth, and I took command of that murder investigation.
-The woman was a local seamstress, 48-year-old Heather Barnett. Her children had returned home from school
and expected to find her. When they received no response to their arrival, the children searched the house
and found their mother's mutilated body. -When we look at the mutilation of Heather's body,
both of her breasts have been cut off. She's got some hair in her hand. There's a glove down by her underwear.
So what's happened here is that this offender has completely humiliated his victim.
He's taken the very kind of symbols of her femininity, her breasts, and taken that away.
So this is a very distinct signature. It's an incredibly unique thing. -The killer was Heather's neighbor,
30-year-old Danilo Restivo. When police arrived at the scene, they found Restivo and his girlfriend
comforting his victim's children. -They've been befriended by the two Italians from across the road,
who ended up becoming extremely significant to the inquiry. -Although he would soon become their prime suspect
in this seemingly random killing, police were unable to prove Restivo was responsible.
It would take another eight years till Restivo could finally be charged with Heather's murder.
Due to the extreme nature of the killing, police were determined never to let him out of their sight.
-We never left that case even as the years progressed. You worked long, hard days,
and you were always thinking about that case, you know, about the children, about the horrific scene,
and about that, always, the ongoing risk that this man, who was walking about, driving about Bournemouth,
presented to the public. -By the time Restivo was finally caught and faced trial for the murder of Heather Barnett,
the police had already uncovered connections to another murder in Italy. The sensational case made headlines across the globe.
-This was truly a horrendous and distressing murder that took away a person that was very special to many, many people.
-He was sentenced to a minimum of 40 years in prison. -I can remember after that,
after he was found guilty, later that day. There wasn't massive celebrations. It was just, "At last,"
you know, "We've done it for the family." -Restivo may have finally faced judge and jury in the UK,
but this killer's story begins in Italy in 1972. He was born in Sicily, and his family later moved to Potenza in Southern Italy.
-Potenza is a small Italian city which is quite a way away from all the other cities,
not just geographically, but also culturally. This is a city where the church is very influential.
His family were amongst the great and good of Potenza. So he grew up in quite a privileged position.
His family were quite powerful. His father was the director of the local branch of the national library.
He was quite an influential figure within the local community. If you would say his father's name,
everybody would know who that was. -It was clear from a very young age that Restivo was different from other children in Potenza.
-Well, Restivo as a child, he had glasses. He was quite pudgy. He's the kind of boy who would have been the target
for bullies at school. He was the kind of boy who would never really fit in with his peers.
But I think in those early days, he got a sense that, "I'm an outsider. I'm not one of this group,
so I'm going to make up my own rules." -He was awkward, as well, in the way he talked to women, which is --
It's hard for you to try to talk to somebody when you look awkward and you act awkward.
-Age 21, Restivo became obsessed with a young girl. -In 1993, he was a young guy, and it was clear
he had an infatuation for a girl called Elisa Claps. Elisa Claps was 16, and she had said to friends
that Restivo was becoming a bit of a problem, that he was chasing after her. -Elisa may have been irritated by Restivo's attention,
but one Sunday, she was willing to meet him at the local church. -She's a good, kind person.
There are many stories of her going out of her way to help other people in the community.
And I think she's somebody who feels quite sympathetic towards Restivo. She sees this lad who is an outcast,
who's sort of picked on and bullied by the people, and I think she feels a sense of kind of care towards him.
So when he asks whether she would come and meet him, she goes along with it, because she doesn't for a million years
think that his intentions are bad. -On a particular Sunday, she had arranged to meet up
with him outside of the church in Potenza in order that she could say to him, "Look.
I don't want a relationship with you. I don't want to go out with you, and can you leave me alone?"
-Elisa was seen going to meet Restivo in the church, but that was the last time she was ever seen alive.
-Both Elisa and Restivo went to that church. Restivo left and returned home, and Elisa was never seen again.
-Concerned for Elisa's safety, her family reported her missing to the police. -There were quite a lot of conspiracy theories
that developed around her disappearance, and one of them related to a page in her diary,
which was missing. And it was thought that the words that were on that page were in Albanian.
So there was this idea that she'd been kidnapped by this Albanian criminal gang.
An innocent girl just completely vanishes off the face of the earth. It's rife for speculation.
-The local police were called by the family to investigate her disappearance. -A number of inquiries were made to find her.
She was never found, and she was considered a missing person. However, there were a number of complications or issues,
which the Italian police were not overly concerned about following up. We know, for example,
that some time after Elisa went missing, she supposedly sent an e-mail to her family saying,
"Hi. I've left the country. I'm not here any longer. Don't worry about me. I'm having a new life.
Everything's wonderful, and just forget about me." A number inquiries were made in relation to that,
and that e-mail wasn't sent from abroad. It was sent from an Internet cafe in Potenza,
and it was sent at a time when Restivo was in that Internet cafe. -During the investigation,
the local police missed some vital clues that could have quickly led them to Restivo.
-He had a history of taking young girls behind a curtain and up to the first floor in the church.
There was an injury on his hand around about the time of her disappearance, and none of this was really scrutinized.
None of it was really looked into by the police. -The family did not know it yet,
but 21-year-old Restivo had in fact killed Elisa and hidden her in the attic of the church.
Danilo Restivo would eventually be convicted of the murder of 16-year-old Elisa Claps in Italy in 1993,
but it would take nearly 18 years to bring him to justice. What was known by the people in the small town of Potenza
where he grew up was that as a young man, Restivo would chase after young girls in unusual ways.
-He approaches them, and when they reject him, he turns on them, essentially. And he calls them, and he plays the theme tune
of his favorite film, "Profondo Rosso," which is quite scary, quite intimidating music.
And this is a really odd thing to be doing. But what he's trying to do is trying to instill fear in these girls.
He's trying to say, "Oh, well, you've rejected me, so I'm now going to play a bit of a game with you."
And I think that really does just tell us about his underlying psychopathy. He's somebody who likes playing with people.
-Restivo became obsessed with one girl in particular, Elisa Claps. But when she rejected Restivo's romantic approaches,
he reacted in the most extreme way. Unbeknownst to her family and the police, Restivo had in fact killed her
and hidden her body in 1993. At the time, the police considered Elisa a missing person, as her body was not found.
That, along with some legal obstacles, meant the investigation in Italy was halted.
Rumors were rife that this was because of Restivo's family and their connections with the police and the authorities.
-In Italy, certain positions within a town are considered high-powered and influential.
And Restivo's father was the chief librarian, and in Italy, the chief librarian is a significant and powerful individual.
-To Danilo Restivo, it seemed like he'd got away with murder. But Elisa's family never gave up.
Since Restivo was the last person to have seen her alive, he was suspected by much of the town
as having something to do with her disappearance. Being under observation, Restivo was unable to chase women
to fulfill his unusual passions. In 2002, he turned 30 and decided to begin a new chapter of his life
in Bournemouth in the south of England. -I think when Restivo arrives in the UK,
he is a very dangerous individual, because he's never faced any consequences for his actions.
He's in a country where nobody knows his history. Nobody can join the dots together.
So he really is like a kid in a sweet shop. He's got every opportunity to continue offending,
and nobody really knows his background. -Restivo met an Italian woman on the Internet,
and he quickly moved in with her. They lived on a suburban street in Bournemouth.
-She's an older woman. She has a disability. She's more of a mother figure to him,
and she treats him as if he's a son. She looks after him. She cooks his meals. So he's stepping into his well-established role
as this child in a different location. -Restivo's new home was opposite that of 48-year-old seamstress Heather Barnett.
Just six months after moving in on the 6th of November 2002, he went to visit Heather.
He claimed he wanted her to do some work for him. -Mr. Restivo had been over and asked if she would make a set of curtains for him
as a Christmas present for his then-partner. And you think, "Well, that's a pretty strange Christmas present
for a man to give a woman." -Restivo had been discussing the work with Heather. However, Restivo wasn't interested in curtains.
Instead, he identified Heather as his next victim. On the 12th of November 2002,
he paid his neighbor another visit. -They'd gone through to the back of the property,
which was her room for doing her sewing and seamstress-type work. And from there, it appears that she tried to make an escape
from the individual. Things were knocked over. She'd moved through into the lounge,
where he'd obviously caught hold of her, and he'd hit her several times with a hammer.
Her skull was fractured, and she would have been dead in the lounge very shortly afterwards.
From that point, she was dragged through the lounge, through the hallway, and into a bathroom.
-Restivo had brutally murdered Heather in her own home. He then placed a lock of hair in her hand.
Curiously, it was not Heather's hair. Restivo's callousness did not end there. He then mutilated Heather's body.
-He cut the breasts off and placed them behind Heather's head. He also mutilated the rest of the body quite badly.
This maybe would show that his obsession was not simply the hair but possibly the cutting of hair and cutting itself.
To cut someone's skin would possibly have also excited him. -A few hours later, police arrived at the scene.
They were greeted by Restivo and his partner, who were looking after Heather's two young children.
-Well, the children discovered their mother's body. And not only that, but Restivo was one of the first people on the scene
and appeared to be comforting them. But this isn't particularly surprising to me.
When you have an offender like Restivo, he's quite proud of what he has done. So it's not enough for him to mutilate his victim's body.
He wants to see the impact of his actions on the people around the victim, and that is enhancing his enjoyments
and enhancing his sense of power over these people. -Other than Heather's son and daughter,
Restivo and his partner were the only people present at the scene. Restivo was very keen to point out to the police
that he'd been out all that day before discovering the distraught children in the street.
-We started to look at Mr. Restivo, but from the very beginning, we were being told
he had a strong alibi that explained where he was all day. So, immediately, you think, "Well, it can't be him."
So you start to look at other areas. And it wasn't until other issues started to develop with Mr. Restivo
that it was necessary to go back and look at his alibi and say, "How strong is this alibi?"
-Regardless of this, the police made Restivo the center of their investigation. -Because he'd been at the scene, in any case, we were interested.
We wanted his DNA so that we could either implicate or eliminate him from those inquiries.
We started to ask questions about his relationship, if he knew Heather, what involvement he had with Heather.
-It became clear that Restivo had previously met Heather to discuss making some curtains.
So when he arrived on the doorstep to kill her, he was welcomed into the house. -Mr. Restivo had spent a great deal of time
considering what he was going to do. He must have planned that murder in great detail.
-It was Restivo's meticulous attention to detail that police hoped to take advantage of
and use it to connect him to the murder. -Her body has been mutilated, but, bizarrely, in her hands are cut head hair.
It's cut head hair, but it's not her hair. It's hair which is alien from that scene.
So you're trying to understand why somebody who is going to murder somebody has brought with them hair
to a murder scene. -In Heather's left hand was a lock of her own hair. In the right, a lock of someone unknown's hair.
This strange obsession with hair would eventually lead to Restivo's downfall. -Well, many people would describe Restivo
as a trichophile. He's got an obsession with hair. Paraphilia is a sexual attraction
towards an inanimate object or a nonconsenting party, 'cause when you cut somebody's hair,
and you take a piece of that hair, you're taking part of them, and it's making you feel quite powerful.
But this is really odd behavior. It's incredibly abnormal behavior. -When police searched Heather's house,
they found plenty of evidence. -There was a lot of blood about, and the training shoes worn by the killer
left trails of blood-splattered footprints around the house. But, bizarrely, although they moved around the house,
they never left and went to the front door of the property. By carrying out forensic tests could work out
that the killer had moved around the house to a point in the lounge where there was a chair,
and, in our opinion, he had then changed his clothing. -Police, however, were unable to connect Restivo to the killing.
-Restivo would be what we describe as forensically aware. That means they know what sort of evidence they may be leaving.
So he had the foresight to change his clothes. He had the foresight to change gloves.
He had the foresight to try and get rid of bloodstains using bleach. He was aware of the sort of things that could be found
that could link him to a crime, and he was doing what he could to prevent that happening.
-He comes extremely well-prepared. He has a plan. He executes that plan, and then he leaves the house in fresh clothes
that aren't going to cause concern to any passersby. -The only thing out of place at the crime scene
was a green towel found near the front door of Heather Barnett's house. -We considered that the murdered had stopped,
taken off his training shoes. Bizarrely, there was a chair, and there was a green towel on it.
That green towel had blood on it, but we always believed that that green towel was alien to that house.
Our belief was that that wasn't their towel and that it had been brought there by the killer.
That towel was a constant main line of inquiry in order to try and identify the killer by his DNA.
We knew that Heather's blood was on that towel, but there was a mixed profile in that blood,
so it meant to say there was the profile of at least two individuals. -Despite their suspicions, police were not able to extract
a DNA connection to Restivo, and they were unable to bring any charges against him at this time.
Restivo felt he'd got away with murder again. ♪♪ -Restivo is somebody who's used to getting away with his crimes.
This has been something that he's been doing for a very long time, both in his native Italy and in the UK, as well.
So this is somebody who feels untouchable. He's never had to face any consequences for his actions,
so he's got no reason to believe that things are going to change. So he's just going to carry on regardless.
-By the end of 2002, police had identified Danilo Restivo as the prime suspect. They knew they were dealing with a dangerous man
and were doing all they could to gather enough evidence to arrest him. -We shortly came to the conclusion that Danilo Restivo
was the person who killed Heather Barnett. He went over there during that morning
and killed Heather Barnett, and then he knew that the persons that would find Heather
are her two children, a 14-year-old and an 11-year-old, and that they would come back and find that scene.
You know, that's beyond anybody's imagination, the cruelty to do that. -On arrival at the scene of the crime,
one of the first things Restivo had done was to supply police with an alibi for the day.
But on closer examination, what Restivo told them did not add up. -He had gone to a place for unemployed people
to learn computer skills, and the signing-in register showed that he'd signed in at a specific time.
But when we looked at it again, the entry had been altered. It had been written over.
So it said one time and also said another time. So it then indicated that perhaps that alibi
wasn't as good as first thought. -Restivo was their only suspect. When detectives began to uncover his past in Italy,
their suspicions only grew stronger. -It was about six months into that inquiry when one of the detectives working on the case
came into my office and said, "Boss, I need to speak to you. I've done a lot of research on the Internet,
and we've managed to find details of a girl who went missing in Potenza in 1993,
and there is a link to Danilo Restivo." Soon after, we started making inquiries about Elisa's death.
-But at this point, Elisa was still considered just a missing person by Italian police.
It had not reached the stage of a murder inquiry. -In the case of Elisa Claps, to start with,
there wasn't even a body. Running a murder investigation if you can't even prove somebody is dead,
let alone how they died, is clearly far more difficult. There have been successful prosecutions with no body,
but they're much rarer. -And in the UK, although there was a body, there was not enough hard evidence
to arrest Restivo for murder. He was allowed to carry on his daily life. By March 2004, 16 months after the murder,
police were convinced Restivo was a danger to the community. So they put him under surveillance.
Then in May that same year, investigators made a break in the case. -We followed Restivo for quite a while,
and there was one specific incident that -- It still now chills me to think about it.
He went down to an area called Throop at the edge of Bournemouth on the countryside,
and on the morning in question, Restivo went down there. There were about half a dozen ladies on their own
walking their dogs in this isolated area, and Restivo buried himself in a bush and was clearly watching these individuals.
Everywhere he went and the risk that he presented, we were always concerned, "Is today a day
where he's going to kill another Heather Barnett? Is he walking around with a knife in his bag today?"
-When we look at Restivo's behavior when he's under surveillance, this is the height of summer.
He's walking 'round with gloves on. He's got his hood up. He's got waterproof trousers on.
He's filmed changing his clothes, and the police see that he's observing women from a distance, as well.
He's very clearly out hunting for women. -Afraid that he was getting ready to kill again,
the police moved in. -I arranged for two uniform officers to go down, check him out.
Mr. Restivo was wearing two sets of clothing. He had one set of clothing, and then, he had another set on top
and a nylon, waterproof jacket, so very similar to Heather's murder where he took two sets of clothing with him
and changed into one. He's down there in the same. -The police stopped Restivo and searched his bag.
-In his rucksack, he had gloves. He had a filleting knife. He had other material in there,
and it was just horrific. So he was brought in. He was arrested, but he explained everything perfectly.
He said, you know, "I'm wearing two sets of clothing because I was exercising, and I want to lose some weight, and it helps me perspire."
And I can't remember the explanation for the knife, but it was, "Oh, I've been somewhere,
and I just happened to still have it in my bag," or just bought it or something.
And again, extremely concerning, but as far as the Crime Prosecution Service were concerned, it wasn't that final piece of the jigsaw,
and it didn't prove Restivo had killed Heather Barnett. -Again, Restivo could not be charged with murder.
Police needed more evidence to pin him to the killing of Heather Barnett. -I think Restivo became aware of the idea
that the police were interested in him and that he could have been connected to the murder.
But he had an explanation for every part of his bizarre behavior. He felt that he was in control of that information,
and he actually did envision himself carrying on and committing further crimes. -The police changed tack.
They appealed to the public for more information. This time, they focused on the hair
belonging to an unknown person found in Heather's right hand. Appeals were broadcast in the UK
and in Restivo's hometown of Potenza and across Italy. -And then you suddenly get a call,
and they say, "Hi. I'm such-and-such from Potenza. Danilo Restivo cut my hair once.
I was sat in a cinema, and he was sat in the row behind, and he took some of my head hair and cut it and took it away."
And then somebody else would say, "Oh, yeah. That happened to me. Danilo Restivo was well known for cutting women's hair."
And when we came back, and we started to ask the same question -- Had people in Bournemouth
had their hair cut -- women started to come forward to say, "Yeah. In fact, I was on one of the Bournemouth yellow buses,
and I had some hair cut, and I looked 'round, and there was a guy sat behind me,"
or, "I went to the hairdresser's once, and she said, 'You've got a big chunk of hair missing
from the back of your hair. When has that happened?'" -Restivo actually developed a paraphilia for hair.
This may have been some originating situation where he felt, you know, sexually excited, et cetera,
over contact with hair. His victims had their hair cut often from behind. He wasn't in the social world.
He was in a very focused, obsessive world. -In June 2004, the police questioned Restivo again.
This time, they asked him specifically about his hair cutting activities. The investigators were hoping to connect Restivo
to the hair found in Heather's hand at the murder scene two years earlier. -We put Danilo Restivo on an identification parade,
and in two instances, those woman picked Danilo Restivo out as the man who had sat behind them on a local bus,
cut their hair, and then got off the bus. So we always knew he had a hair fetish.
We knew that he'd brought alien head hair into the murder scene and left it in Heather's hand.
-Restivo said that when he held these women's hair in his hand, he said, "Everything is visible,"
and that he could see everything. It's making him realize, "I can take a piece of these women, and I can possess them."
He's got a real, kind of, a grandiose sense of himself, a real kind of elevated sense of his own power here.
-But all this evidence was circumstantial and was still not enough to convince the courts
that Restivo could be charged with Heather's murder. -This man is truly evil. He prepared some time in advance
to kill this lovely single lady who's bringing up two lovely children. He killed her in the most horrific manner,
mutilating her body and knowing -- The most evil part of him is he knew that the people that would find their mother
mutilated in the worst possible way was her two young children. Are you telling me that somebody who could do that
is not evil? -Restivo was released yet again without charge. To prove him guilty, the police needed to connect Restivo
to the crime scene. Their hopes rested on the green towel with blood splatters that was found in Heather's hallway
the day she was murdered. But to make the case against Restivo, they had a major hurdle to overcome.
-The forensic technology and the forensic advances weren't there. But we kept going back to that green towel and saying,
"How can we develop or separate out that mixed profile?" And it did take a number of years
before forensic science advanced, and we were able to do that. -Police would finally connect Restivo
directly to Heather's murder, but it would take the discovery of a body in Italy
to bring this murderer to justice. ♪♪ -What lies behind Restivo's motivation to kill and mutilate women
is a sense of power, so he does so in the most extreme way -- in killing them, mutilating them, and using their hair
as something that he has that's part of them. -Police in Dorset had already found the connection
between Restivo and several cases of women having had their hair cut off by a stranger in public.
But it was a murder in Bournemouth in November of 2002 that was their primary focus.
In 2008, police re-examined a blood-stained green towel that they had found in the house
of murder victim seamstress Heather Barnett. Critically, the towel had two different types of DNA on it.
-It took some years for DNA analysis to progress to the stage where the material on the green towel,
which we said Restivo had left at Heather Barnett's address, could be analyzed and produce a profile
which could be put forward as evidence. ♪♪ -Then in 2008, we find that magic solution,
and it's that final bit of that jigsaw where scientists say, "Look. We can now separate out those two bits of DNA.
We can now separate Heather's out, and we can identify whose DNA that is." And that DNA that separated out from that towel
belongs to Danilo Restivo. -Finally, the investigators felt they had enough evidence
to charge Restivo with the murder of Heather Barnett. To make certain, they also needed to tie Restivo
to the murder of 16-year-old Elisa Claps back in Italy in 1993. But with no body found, all they had were their suspicions.
Elisa was still classed as a missing person. Then in March of 2010, a remarkable discovery was made
that would seal the case and Restivo's fate. -At the stage when Restivo was first charged,
Elisa Claps' body had not in fact been found, and so we proceeded purely on the UK evidence.
However, on the 17th of March, 2010, Elisa's body was discovered in the loft in the church in Potenza,
where it, in fact, it had been since she disappeared on the 12th of September, 1993.
-When Elisa's body was found in the church that Danilo and Elisa had met outside of and had been in,
it was decided that myself and another officer would immediately fly over to Italy
to try and work with the Italian police, because we wanted to look at the similarities
between the murder scene of Elisa and our murder scene, because as far as we were concerned,
Danilo Restivo had murdered both individuals. We were allowed to go down to Salerno,
which is the main city near Potenza. We were allowed to see the videos, and we were allowed to speak to some of the scientists.
And lo and behold, there were things like hair in Elisa's hand, the same as there were in Heather's case,
and it started to make a bit more sense. -So, Restivo's signature is quite evident in both cases.
So, both of the women have hair in their hands. Both of them have their trousers pulled down.
So this is quite a distinct thing in itself. Here is a case where the offender has spent time
with both of these victims. But the crucial difference for me is that whilst Elisa's body was hidden,
Heather's body was displayed. He'd got to the point in his offending here where he's saying, "Hey. Look at me."
So this is somebody who's evolved over time, and it's really, really concerning.
This is somebody who's not going to stop unless they are caught. -The UK police could not charge Restivo
in relation to the murder of Elisa Claps, as the crime was committed in Italy and so out of their territory.
But connecting Restivo to the murder of Elisa solidified their case in regard to the murder of Heather Barnett.
-Even though he'd never been tried in Italy for that crime, we adduced all the evidence
in relation to Elisa Claps' murder in order to prove him guilty of Heather Barnett's murder.
-Finally, in May 2011, Danilo Restivo went to court, charged with the murder of Heather Barnett.
-We've arrested Danilo Restivo on a number of occasions, and we've always also lived with the concern
that he's also so dangerous he's likely to kill again. And eventually, the case is solved,
and we've got that magic solution. We've got that final piece of the jigsaw. -It had been a long battle, but in the end,
the murder Restivo had committed in 1993 and thought he had got away with was to be the deciding factor
when he faced judge and jury. -The police were having quite a hard time of it getting enough evidence together
to be able to meet that threshold to be able to secure a conviction. But then when Elisa's body was discovered,
you've got these two women, thousands of miles and 17 years apart, but they're connected by one thing, and that's Restivo.
-He had always thought he was cleverer than everybody else, but now that didn't matter.
He wasn't cleverer than everybody else. He wasn't cleverer than us. We had beaten him. We'd solved the case.
And because the evidence was so powerful and overwhelming, it did make him look like an idiot
in terms of some of his responses, whereas before, he could show that bluster, and he could say, "It's not me."
Well, when he said that now, it was meaningless, because the evidence was overwhelming,
and it did prove it was him. -The jury unanimously found Restivo guilty of Heather Barnett's murder.
Of course, they could not return a verdict in relation to Elisa Claps, because Restivo is an Italian subject,
and, therefore, could not be charged with her murder. The jury retired and returned the verdict on the same day,
and thereafter, Restivo was sentenced. There is of course satisfaction that justice has been done,
but I think really an overwhelming feeling of sadness that two people that died wholly unnecessarily
to satisfy his lust for killing. -Heather Barnett was a local woman in Bournemouth.
She was a mother to two children, and that's one of the things that I find quite annoying
about cases like Restivo. When you've got such a grotesque and such a unique murderer,
there's a tendency to forget the victims, and they become known as the victims of Restivo.
These two women, Elisa and Heather, were individuals in their own rights. They had lives. They had families.
They had futures, and that was callously taken away by Restivo. -In June 2011, Restivo was given a whole life sentence
for the murder of Heather Barnett. He later appealed and was given a life sentence
and ordered to serve a minimum of 40 years. Meanwhile, in Italy, in November 2011,
a court in Salerno found Danilo Restivo, in his absence, guilty of the murder of 16-year-old Elisa Claps
in 1993. -With someone like Restivo with that very specific MO, with two cases so far apart
and so similar, there has to be more. We need to look very carefully into the past of Danilo Restivo,
because he must have struck elsewhere. -Since his imprisonment, Restivo's name has been linked
with other murders, but no charges have been brought. However, the horrific murders of both Elisa Claps
and Heather Barnett have shown that Danilo Restivo is one of the world's most evil killers.
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Danilo Restivo murdered two women nine years apart: sixteen-year-old Elisa Clapps in Italy and Heather Barnett in Bournemouth.

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, Cary Stayner, Leonard Lake, Dorothea Puente and more.

Brief Summary

Danilo Restivo murdered Heather Barnett and Elisa Claps, showcasing a disturbing pattern of violence and obsession with hair.

Key points

The Horrific Murder of Heather Barnett. In November 2002, police found Heather Barnett brutally murdered in her home, with shocking details surrounding her death.
Elisa Claps Disappears. In 1993, 16-year-old Elisa Claps vanished after meeting Danilo Restivo, leading to years of speculation.
Restivo's Disturbing Obsession. Danilo Restivo's obsession with hair and his violent tendencies reveal a chilling pattern of behavior.
Restivo's Alibi Falls Apart. Detectives uncovered inconsistencies in Restivo's alibi, raising suspicions about his involvement in Heather's murder.
Restivo's Arrest. Danilo Restivo was arrested with incriminating evidence, but explanations left police concerned.
Discovery of Elisa's Body. The discovery of Elisa Claps' body in 2010 sealed Restivo's fate in the murder case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is somebody who enjoys spending time with the body and mutilating it.

0:52WatchJul 20, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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