Man gets life for murder, dismemberment

(ANSA) - Milan, November 26 - 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.