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Judge tells killer with a fetish for cutting hair from women that he will never be released Danilo Restivo will spend the rest of his life in prison for the ritualistic killing of mother-of-two Heather Barnett after a judge ruled that his crime was of such “inhuman depravity” he should never be freed. Restivo, who had a fetish for cutting locks of hair from girls and women, killed seamstress Barnett at her flat in Bournemouth before mutilating her body and placing a hank of someone else’s hair in her right hand and a clump of her own beneath her left. Restivo, an Italian national, now faces extradition over the killing of 16-year-old Elisa Claps in the loft of a church in Potenza, southern Italy, in 1993. He left strands of her hair in her hands and next to her body. Restivo was found guilty in just five hours by a jury at Winchester crown court of the murder of Barnett, 48, in 2002. All 12 members of the jury chose to return to court to hear Restivo’s sentence. Some wept as they heard a victim impact statement read on behalf of Barnett’s daughter, Caitlin, aged 11 at the time of the murder, who found the body when she came home from school. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Burnett told Restivo the murder was so serious that no minimum term would be appropriate. “The seriousness of this offence is exceptionally high… the depravity of the killing, the careful planning and preparation, its sexual content and the previous killing of Elisa Claps drive me to the conclusion that the alternative starting point (for a minimum prison term) of 30 years would not be appropriate. “I can find no mitigation in this case, none have been advanced on your behalf. There is, in my judgment, no minimum period which could be properly set – you will never be released from prison.” The judge said the crime was of “inhuman depravity”, made worse by the fact that Restivo would have known his victim’s children would find her body. He said: “You knew an 11-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy would find their mother butchered on the bathroom floor. This feature of the case will haunt those who sat through it. “Why you picked Heather Barnett as your victim I do not know but it’s clear that you did so to satisfy a sadistic, sexual appetite. The evidence in this case shows you are a cold, depraved, calculated killer.” Restivo is now subject to a European arrest warrant and is expected to be extradited to Italy – where the case has attracted huge interest – to stand trial for the murder of Claps. Outside court Heather Barnett’s brother, IT teacher Ben Barnett, spoke of his relief at seeing Restivo jailed for lifeand revealed the killer attended his sister’s funeral. Undercover police observed mourners at the funeral and wake, where Restivo may even have consoled Heather’s children Terry, then 14, and Caitlin. Detectives had told the grieving family they were sure Restivo would show up at the service in February 2003 because he would get a thrill from it. Mr Barnett said: “Restivo and his wife, Fiamma, came to Heather’s funeral and the wake. They were neighbours and at that stage he was one suspect of about 10 or so. “The police approached us before the funeral and asked if they could attend to see who else turned up. They thought the murderer might come and get some gratification from it. “He would have spoken to the children, because they knew him as a neighbour. He is a callous and calculating person. “He left Heather for her children to find and made sure he was the person who tried to comfort them. I will never understand that.” Mr Barnett added: “I feel relieved; relieved that we don’t have to go through this anymore and that the police suspicions were right all along. “Our biggest fear was always that this might happen to somebody else and the evidence shows that it quite realistically could have done. I think he would have killed again. “Restivo has already had eight years of freedom that my sister never had. I’ve thought about the death penalty, but I think it’s too good for him. It seems like the easy way out. I think he’s going to have a miserable rest of his life in prison. Mr Barnett also criticised the Italian police investigation and said that, if Claps’s body had been found earlier, Heather would still be alive. He said: “The thing I find most confusing is that they should have found Elisa’s body in the place where she was suspected to have been murdered. All the evidence points to the fact she had been there from that day and I don’t know how the police could have missed it. Somebody has a lot of questions to answer. “If the investigation had been carried out properly and they proved Restivo murdered Elisa, then my sister would still be alive today.” Crime Italy Steven Morris guardian.co.uk