Hair Fetishist Guilty of Murder

Danilo Restivo a suspect in several similar killings
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 30, 2011 2:05 AM CDT
Hair Fetishist Creep Guilty of Murder
Danilo Restivo talks to the press.   (milacataldo)

An Italian who committed a bizarre hair ritual murder has been convicted by a British court of killing a young mother of two, and may be responsible for several similar deaths. Danilo Restivo will be sent today to prison for life for killing neighbor Heather Barnett nine years ago in England. He mutilated her body and stuffed a hank of hair he hacked from her head in one of her hands, and the hair of another woman in her other hand. He's now a suspect in another murder of one of his neighbors in Bournemouth and that of a 16-year-old Italian girl, whose body was discovered just last year hidden in a church and clutching a clump of her own hair. He also faces questioning in similar murders in southern France and Spain, reports the Guardian.

Barnett's horribly mutilated body was left on the floor of her bathroom for her children to find when they returned home from school. Her son, 14, recounted how his 11-year-old sister "went absolutely ballistic" as she opened the bathroom door. When he peered in, he said, "I saw her lying on her back. I saw blood absolutely everywhere and I thought, 'Oh, no.'" When police arrived they found Restivo, playing the part of the concerned neighbor, comforting the children. (More crime stories.)

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