A court on Thursday sentenced
a man to life in prison for the murder and dismemberment of an
elderly esthetics professor in Milan last summer.
Gianluca Civardi was found guilty of strangling and
stabbing retired esthetics professor Adriano Manesco, 77, in his
home in Milan in August last year and then dumping his body.
His accomplice Paolo Grassi was sentenced to life in prison
after being found guilty in July in a separate trial.
Grassi told the court during Civardi's trial that he began
planning the murder in 2014 along with the defendant, who had
never met the intended victim.
"Civardi told me he wanted to know what it was like to kill
someone before he died," he said.
He added that they planned to steal the professor's savings
and move to Thailand or Brazil "because we didn't find our lives
fulfilling any more".
"Civardi started to strangle Manesco in the living room,
while I searched his computer for his credit card numbers," said
Grassi, a former employee at a boarding school.
"I pulled the curtains so no one could see us. I wasn't
feeling well and I tried not to look at the blood".
Afterwards they abraded Manesco's fingertips to prevent
his identification, dismembered his body and put it in a
suitcase they had brought to the professor's flat for that
purpose.
Then they left it in a dumpster at Lodi station.
They were arrested in Piacenza just hours after the murder,
after they were seen getting rid of the clothes they had been
wearing during the crime.
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