‘Hair in hand’ case: Danilo Restivo guilty of Heather Barnett murder

Man with fetish for cutting locks of hair from women faces extradition over earlier killing of teenager in Italy A man with a fetish for surreptitiously cutting locks of hair from girls and women has been found guilty of murdering a British seamstress and now faces extradition over the killing of a teenager in Italy. Danilo Restivo was convicted of killing his neighbour, Heather Barnett, at her Bournemouth flat and mutilating her body before placing a hank of someone else’s hair in her right hand and a clump of her own beneath her left. During his seven-week trial at Winchester crown court, Restivo, an Italian national, was also accused of killing 16-year-old Elisa Claps in the loft of a church in Potenza, southern Italy, and leaving cut strands of her own hair in her hands and next to her body. Both women suffered wounds to their chests but the jury was told the killer’s “hallmark” was to leave cut hair at the scene. Restivo admitted he had a “fetish” for cutting hair from women and girls in the UK and Italy, often while they travelled on buses. The court was told he had cut the hair of 15 women in the UK and nine in Italy. Restivo, 39, was born in Sicily and lived in Potenza before moving to Bournemouth in Dorset in May 2002. Police quickly came to believe Restivo had killed Barnett, 48, in November 2002 and kept him under intense surveillance amid fears he would strike again. But it was not until Claps’s body was discovered in the church loft where she had been killed in 2010 – 17 years after she vanished – that the British authorities felt they could make a case against Restivo largely based on the similarities of the two ritualistic murders. The Italian authorities want Restivo extradited to face trial over the murder of Elisa Claps. Officers may also quiz him about other unsolved murders in Italy. In the UK the Criminal Cases Review Commission has been watching the Restivo trial because the legal team for a man called Omar Benguit convicted of killing a student, Jong Ok Shin, in July 2002 three streets from Heather Barnett’s home claim that Restivo could also be guilty of that attack. Shin was also stabbed to death. Crime Italy Europe Steven Morris guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 29, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.