The escort serial killer. Right, it’s news that a serial killer targeting escorts has been roaming the streets of Rome. He has already killed three women.
The escort serial killer in Prati has a face. It’s captured in the frames of cameras installed in the appointment houses of the three victims. His words, the likely false name he used to book paid sex hours, are found in a dating chat and on phones. He left his DNA on a doorbell, furniture, beds, and on the bodies of the three women he stabbed. All traces that step by step are leading investigators to his arrest. So much so that a police officer says, “We have a lot of material; we hope to close the case soon.”
The Dating Chat
The killer contacts his victims in a chat on a dating portal. It is here that he schedules an appointment for Thursday morning with Martha Castano Torres. She is the first victim, killed at 65 between 8:40 and 10:00 on Thursday. This was determined by the coroner, who cross-referenced his findings with police information. Martha was not a prostitute, but her need to earn more to raise her now-eighteen-year-old daughter, who lives in Colombia, pushed her to compromise with herself. Thus, she opened the door to the man who slashed her throat in the appointment house in the basement of Via Durazzo 38. They had agreed on a price between 50 and 70 euros. The sexual encounter took place; he killed her on the bed.
The DNA
On the bed and on Martha’s body are the biological traces of the killer who slit her throat. Evidence that is already in the hands of investigators, along with the fingerprints the man left on furniture, doors, and even on the doorbell’s push-button panel. Another piece of evidence seized by the Mobile Squad.
The Cameras
No fingerprints, however, were found on the doorbell grill at Via Augusto Riboty 28. This building is 850 meters away from the first. Same neighborhood but a more elegant street. On the first floor of the 1950s condominium is the apartment where clients were received and where two women of apparent ages 25 and 45 were stabbed. They were also prostitutes, also contacted through phones via a dating portal. In the house, rented seven years ago, there is a hidden camera behind a vase that is fully operational. It is the one that captured the killer’s face. Images that are now being compared with those recorded in Martha’s garçonnière, as she too had installed a camera to protect herself from violent clients.
The Weapon
The two Chinese women are nameless victims. There are no documents in that house across from the courthouse. Today, the autopsy on the three prostitutes could clarify every doubt about their identities and also reveal the number of stabbings. The knife used, which has never been found, has a long and very sharp blade. It is the dagger that also pierced the bodies of the Chinese women in Via Riboty. First, the throat of the 25-year-old who was in bed with the killer. And immediately afterward, the body of the friend who arrived to defend and save her from that ruthless man. There was a struggle before the other fatal stabbings. The evidence is the apartment found turned upside down around 11:00, after the alarm raised by the building’s doorman.
The Blood
The youngest of the two nameless Chinese women did not die inside the house. She dragged herself after the first stab to the throat to the landing, seeking salvation. She attempted to reach the elevator. The killer surprised her from behind and delivered the final stab to her left side. It is on the wall and on the rust-colored marble that blood traces remain. It is not excluded that those stains also belong to the killer, perhaps injured when confronted by the older victim.
The Phones
In his escape, fearing that the body on the landing would attract the attention of neighbors busy with a move, the killer made one of his many mistakes. He did not take with him the victims’ cell phones. He also made a mistake two hours earlier, leaving Martha Torres’ phone at home. Inside it are his messages written to the prostitutes. And while those messages may not be what ultimately incriminates him, the IP address of the phone or tablet from which he initiated his deadly plan is. Inside the three phones under examination by experts are the clients’ lists and the names of those who knew those tormented women.
The Witnesses
All those names are witnesses called to recount what they know about the victims’ lives. At the Rome police headquarters, there is a parade of at least fifty people, starting with Martha’s sister and continuing with Davide, the doorman from Via Riboty, the owners of the rented apartments, Chinese individuals accompanied by police, and then a Cuban girl who states in front of the police headquarters, before being questioned: “I went out with a man who could be the killer.”
The Escort Serial Killer may be running out of time.
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