What happened to Danilo Restivo, where he is and what he does today
9 years have already passed since the final conviction of Danilo Restivo for the murder of Elisa Claps.
On 23 October 2014, in fact, the Court of Cassation rejected his appeal, confirming in all respects the first instance judgment and the appeal, indeed supporting the "extraordinary gravity" of the facts and the clarity shown by Restivo.
An opinion also shared by the English judges, who tried and convicted him for the murder of a second woman, Heather Barnett, calling him "a cold, depraved and calculating murderer".
The motive has always been unique: the morbid and obsessive interest in the victims, which resulted in uncontrollable anger after being rejected.
In addition to the murders, the serial killer exhibited several behaviors that led to escalation, racking up several harassment complaints in both states that convicted him.
But what happened now? Here's where Danilo Restivo is and what he does.
What happened to Danilo Restivo Danilo Restivo was convicted both in Italy and in Great Britain on charges of murder, respectively for the killing of Elisa Claps, a sixteen-year-old from Potenza, and Heather Barnett, a London seamstress.
Decades have now passed since the women's deaths and Restivo is not even close to halfway through his prison sentence, as the two sentences total 70 years in prison.
As far as Italian justice is concerned, however, Daniele Restivo has not even begun to serve his sentence, which in addition to detention also includes: Perpetual disqualification from holding public office; probation for 3 years at the end of the sentence; compensation of 700,000 euros in favor of the Claps family.
Temporally, the death of Elisa came first, killed on 12 September 1993, while Heather Barnett died on 12 November 2002.
The English investigators, however, were quicker to sentence Restivo to 40 years in prison in 2011 (after having arrested him already in May 2010) while the outcome of the Italian trial in the Supreme Court came in 2014.
In fact, it was precisely the double murder that allowed the indictment of Restivo, the only element common to the two victims apart from the way in which they were killed.
Both had locks of hair cut off, a habit that the culprit had already shown off when he was very young, every time he became so infatuated with a woman that he became obsessed with her.
Both Elisa Claps and Heather Barnett were then killed with numerous stab wounds, after having refused the sexual approach and following a long insistence, made up of anonymous phone calls, complete with ad hoc music such as the soundtrack of Profondo Rosso, and letters in which Restivo impersonated the most disparate identities.
DNA evidence then definitively incriminated him.
Where he is and what he does today Following the conviction of the Crown Court of Winchester, Danilo Restivo is in prison in England, where he is serving a total sentence of 70 years resulting from the cumulation of the Italian and British sentences.
He should be out no earlier than 2050, at the age of 78.
Over the course of these years, Danilo Restivo has not – at least as far as is publicly known – given any signs of redemption or repentance, indeed continuing to contest both sentences received.
Even before the trial he implemented countless attempts at misdirection, focusing particularly on the counter-charges against the Claps family and proclaiming his innocence.
Even after the conviction at first instance in Italy, he continued with the same inconclusive defense strategy, so much so that the defense put forward the hypothesis that Elisa's killer was an unknown third party, briefly dismissed by the judge as being "absolutely conjectural", even going so far as to accuse the Claps family of Heather's murder.
The Italian and British courts, as well as on guilt, also agreed on the personality of Danilo Restivo, portraying him as "cold and calculating" and maintaining that he had committed the crimes with full lucidity and capacity for understanding and will.
However, many of the circumstances surrounding the crimes remain dubious and unclear, despite multiple attempts to delve deeper into them.
For example, it is still unclear what complicity Restivo had in hiding Elisa Claps' body, just as his role in Jonk-ok Shin's murder is often questioned.
The latter was a 26-year-old South Korean girl, killed with elements typical of Restivo's modus operandi, although another man, Omar Benguit, was convicted of her murder and continues to declare himself innocent.
read also Elisa Claps, the story: what happened to her, how she died and who was investigated for the murder