[tense music]
[tense music]
[Reporter] The suburban
normality in Bournemouth
was shattered by the screams
of two teenagers.
They'd returned home from school
to find their mother
brutally m*rder*d,
her body, horribly
and bizarrely mutilated.
[Phil] At the scene
of the m*rder,
we discovered
that there was a clump of hair
in each of her hands.
[tense music continues]
[Reporter 2] There are appeals
for women to come forward
who may have had
their hair cut off
in bizarre circumstances
while out in public.
[Reporter 3] Women reported
someone secretly snipping at
their hair on public transport.
[Honor] Because he had
no consequences
to anything that he did.
Why would he not do exactly
what he wanted to?
[Reporter 3]
The motiveless k*lling
left a community
stunned and fearful,
and an investigation team
struggling for leads.
[Honor] The perpetrator
is taunting the police
to come and find them.
[tense music continues]
[Clarissa] This is clearly
somebody who has k*lled before.
[Tobias] A teenage girl
has disappeared, in a church,
[Reporter 4] A 16-year-old girl
went missing,
her body has never been found.
[Tobias] It's extremely rare
that there would only
be two murders
separated by nine years
and nothing else.
[Reporter 2] The more time
that has elapsed
since Heather was k*lled,
the greater the possibility
that they'll k*ll again.
[Andy] As I looked at him,
he was just dead
behind the eyes,
possibly the most evil man
I've ever been near to.
[tense music crescendos]
[waves lapping]
[Phil] I was in my office
at police headquarters.
It was a normal day.
It was late in the afternoon
when I received a phone call
to be told that there'd
been a m*rder in Bournemouth,
and that I needed to
make my way over
to that area to deal with it.
At the time,
I was the news editor
of the Bournemouth Echo.
We were aware that there
was a cordon put up
around a particular road
in Charminster,
an awful lot of police activity,
and, of course, the first
thing to do there is dispatch
as many reporters down
to the scene as possible.
[gentle music]
It soon became apparent that
it was a really huge story,
and it was very quickly
confirmed by the police
that there'd been a m*rder.
Obviously, we didn't know
what the circumstances were.
We didn't know
who'd been m*rder*d,
and that clearly unfolded
just quite how
shocking this case was.
[traffic rumbling]
I was told that the body
had been found
by the children of the victim.
Two young children
aged 11 and 14.
[sombre music]
The victim's children
come home from school
and her son immediately
gets this sense
that something is not
right in the house.
You know the mum's not there.
She's always there
when they get home.
They discover her
body in the bathroom.
There's a lot of blood.
The son calls the police.
In the 999 call,
this 14-year-old boy is saying
that he's found his mother,
and you can tell it's m*rder.
It's not an accident
because she's been mutilated.
The k*ller, sliced her
throat from ear to ear,
[tense music[
then cut her torso
down the middle,
then removed both her breasts
and placed them by her head.
The k*ller had done this in
quite a surgical contained way,
using probably a
surgical scalpel.
Can you imagine
whoever had done this,
allowing two young children
to come home
and find their mother mutilated?
[sombre music]
When the children found
their mother's body,
they ran out into the street,
and at more
or less the same time,
a neighbour pulled up
in her car with her partner,
and they got out to try and find
out what on earth had happened.
And the partner, a man tried
to comfort the children
and hug them in the street.
They were extremely
traumatised.
They just witnessed
the most horrific
injuries to their mother.
[sombre music continues]
Throughout the enquiry,
I met with those two children,
and chatted to them,
and tried to reassure them
that we would find the k*ller.
We found out that the
victim was Heather Barnett.
She was a 48-year-old woman,
[gentle music]
A devoted mother,
a great community person,
somebody who would do anything
for anybody
according to her neighbours
and friends.
Her nickname is Bunny
to those who knew her well.
She is a seamstress,
and she's known for not only
working in that professionally,
but also just helping
out people nearby.
You know, sewing up
clothes for them,
working on small
projects for them,
knitting them cardigans,
that kind of thing.
There's nothing
about Heather's life
or anyone
that she's affiliated with
that would suggest
that there would be any cause
or any motivation to m*rder her,
let alone to m*rder
her in such a brutal way
and to absolutely brutalise
her body in the aftermath.
[eerie music]
We also discovered a clump
of hair in each of her hands,
we identified
that one of those clumps
belonged to Heather herself,
and the other clump of hair
was something that the offender
had clearly brought to the scene
in a most bizarre fashion.
It's just beyond
anybody's understanding
why somebody
would bring head hair
with them to the crime scene.
But we thought that we
would identify that hair
and then be able
to link that back
to whoever the k*ller was.
There is clearly some
sort of either fetishisation
or fascination with
hair at play here
because this is very staged.
It's almost by placing
that hair in Heather's hand
that the perpetrator
is taunting the police
to come and find them.
[tense music]
The placing of hair
suggests almost a signature,
someone
who has done this before,
and they know what
they're doing.
We began to piece together
and interpret what that
crime scene told us.
We worked out that it was likely
that Heather answered the door
fairly early in the morning
after she'd taken the
children to school.
The cause of death
identified for Heather
is 10 blows to the back of her
head with a hammer.
That suggests to me
that Heather has invited
whoever was at the door
into the property
because she has
turned around in the hallway
and then been
struck from behind.
So that's probably
someone known to Heather
because otherwise if
it was a stranger at the door,
she wouldn't have
invited them in
and turned her back on them.
[gentle music]
After death, the offender
dragged her through the house,
through the lounge,
through the hall,
and into the bathroom where
they then mutilated her body.
It's a ferocious m*rder.
The blood spatter is
clear on the walls.
There's a sort of an anger and
aggressiveness to the m*rder
and also a ritualistic side
because there wasn't all the
blood you would expect if
the cutting had happened
when someone was alive.
So there's a sense of something
performative to the m*rder.
[gentle music]
This is not just a spur
of the moment attack.
Whoever was at Heather's door
that morning
was there specifically
with the intention to k*ll her.
[tense music]
I am desperate to find
out who this k*ller is.
I want to do well
for those two children
who've lost their mother.
The shock over the brutality
and the senselessness of
what had happened to her,
it was something that just
generated a whole, a whole thing
of disbelief in the community.
Police put on extra patrols,
and they try to issue
messages of reassurance
because if you don't know
what's happened exactly,
you don't know who's done it.
You don't know, are they local?
Are they nearby?
Is it a random k*lling?
Is it a planned k*lling?
There was, alongside this, huge
sense of shock and disbelief,
some fear as well.
[gentle music]
As the investigation
progressed,
forensic science individuals
would come in and do their work.
There was a lot of
blood around where.
Heather's body had been found,
and the m*rder*r had obviously
trodden in that blood.
So we have the footprints
coming from the bathroom
through the hall
and into the lounge,
and they reach a chair,
but that's the point at which
the footprints in blood stopped.
They never go anywhere.
They never go to the front door,
and it's as though the k*ller
has never left the scene.
[tense music]
We realised that that individual
has clearly brought
a spare set of clothes
and also a spare set of shoes.
And we know that they've
brought with him a hammer,
a surgical scalpel,
hair to place in Heather's hand.
It shows the level of
sophistication and preparation.
[tense music]
This creates an interesting
perpetrator profile
for the police.
They're gonna be looking
for someone
who's seemingly quite
forensically aware,
[tense music continues]
So we know where the
offender changed their clothes.
We also found a green towel.
We told the children about it,
and they said, "No,
it definitely didn't belong
to them.
Mummy didn't have
a green towel."
So, that might be extremely
significant.
Now this towel has
some blood on it,
which could be the key
to unlocking the case.
But what you do
have to remember is
that this case happened in 2002,
and DNA analysis
and blood technologies
were not as advanced
as they are now.
So, actually being able
to collect the evidence
from that towel
is not necessarily possible
in that moment,
We realised that Heather's
DNA is on the towel,
and we're hoping
that through advances in science
one day we'll be able
to identify
the m*rder*r's DNA
from that towel.
Within days, we realised
that the type of individual
who we were up against,
who was so well-prepared,
this was gonna be a
long and hard case
and a difficult one to prove.
[traffic rumbling]
[Reporter] The motiveless
k*lling of Heather Barnett
left a community stunned
and fearful,
and an investigation team
struggling for leads.
[gentle music]
Disproportionately
women who are m*rder*d,
they know their perpetrators.
Predominantly it happens
either from a partner,
an ex-partner,
or a family member.
So understandably,
the police immediately
start looking around Heather
to people she knows,
and the first place they
look is at an ex-partner.
We spoke to that individual
in a most bizarre fashion,
he wouldn't provide
us with an alibi.
He disappeared from his place
of work at the relevant time
in those first few days,
he was definitely our
number one suspect,
but we were constantly
looking at new avenues.
[tense music]
We ruled out
Heather's ex-partner,
not because he provided us
with an alibi.
It is not because
he came forward
and explained what he was doing.
It's because another individual
became our prime suspect.
[eerie music]
At the crime scene when
the police first arrive,
there is a man who lives
across the road from Heather.
He is there comforting
the children
who have just found
their mother's body,
and he's trying to be
as helpful as he can.
This so-called helpful neighbour
was 30-year-old Danilo Restivo.
In the first instance,
Mr. Restivo was a bystander
that just happened
to be a good Samaritan,
and because he met
with the children,
we wanted to get his DNA
so we could eliminate it,
and when police officers went to
the home a few days later
they spoke to him,
but they observed that there
were a pair of trainers
in a bucket of bleach.
Bleach, as we know, is
used to remove DNA traces.
And so that's
immediately suspicious,
and the police confiscate
those trailers.
[gentle music]
But when we tested
those trainers,
they didn't have the
same shoe pattern
as that worn by the offender.
When asked why
he had a pair of shoes
in bleach in the house,
he just said, well,
I'm just cleaning my shoes.
That seemed a bit strange.
[eerie music]
So one of the things
that we naturally do
is try and eliminate him
through an alibi.
So we wanted to know where
he'd been that morning.
And he explained that
he was at a college
that was providing computer
skills to individuals,
and that earlier
that morning he caught a bus
over to the college,
and he spent the day there.
He has a bus ticket
from that morning
stamped 8:44 on the bus
to go to his college.
So it seems impossible
given the time of death
that this is the man who
committed the m*rder.
[tense music]
He had to all intents
and purposes
been on his way to this site
and then had signed
in for the day.
So that was his alibi.
The police, though,
are looking for someone
who was clearly motivated
to m*rder Heather,
and so Restivo, though he's
acting somewhat unusually,
and they have some
question marks around him,
there's no clear motive
that would tie him
to wanting to harm Heather.
[eerie music]
At that stage, we knew
very little about Restivo.
He travelled from Italy
over earlier in the year,
and that was about
all we knew about him.
[gentle music]
Daniel Restivo is from
a city called Potenza,
which is the capital of a
region called Basilicata.
It's in the centre
of the deep south.
[gentle music continues]
It's this almost forgotten area
that's quite hard to get to
by train or by car.
And it's a city that repeatedly
has suffered earthquakes
through the centuries.
So it's been rebuilt.
After the 1980 earthquake,
there was a huge
reconstruction budget,
and obviously with that
large budget came corruption.
And this is a city that had
only a population of 65,000.
It's a really small city and
not everyone knows everyone,
but everyone knows
a friend of someone.
So there is a sense of this city
that in the early nineties,
it's got money,
but the actual network of power
is very, very concentrated
in the hands of very few people.
[bell tolls]
[speaking in native language]
[in English] It was
an important family.
Danilo Restivo had an uncle who
was a member of Parliament.
Restivo grew up in a family
that was well respected.
It was, in my view,
a powerful family as well.
[in native language] It's very
easy to talk about Danilo,
because he was very
well known in Potenza.
At 11 years old, he had used
violence against a young boy.
And was subsequently
reported to the police.
Then, when he was 14 years old,
he tied up two little cousins,
and he blindfolded them.
[in English] There was
this girl who was 12.
Danilo Restivo told her that he
wanted to tell her a secret
and to bring her
to a secret place.
And one day she told him
that she would like to go
to this secret place,
but she will bring her
cousin who was a boy.
And because she did not feel
comfortable enough to go,
to go there on her own.
Restivo brought
with them blindfolds
and cords in order
to tie their wrists.
For both children, it
seemed like a game.
There were two chairs
next to each other.
They had to sit on it.
Daniel Restivo was standing,
he was wearing yellow
gloves and had a knife.
The girl managed to push
Daniel Restivo away.
Restivo ran away immediately.
She managed to free herself
as well as her cousin.
Danilo Restivo's father
reportedly paid off
parents of these children.
So Restivo's father was willing
to do anything
in order to protect him,
and protect the honour
and a good name of his family.
There began a pattern which
would repeat in years to come.
There were other
occasions in which
there were young women living
opposite his family house,
and he would phone them,
and play music from
famous horror films.
He would send them
pornographic drawings,
write strange letters,
apologising
for the behaviour of his friend,
but saying
that he had this illness
that meant
he couldn't leave the house,
He didn't ever have to
deal with the consequences
of his behaviour because
of who his family were.
So even when he physically
harmed another child,
he never actually dealt with
any consequences from that.
And I think that really created
a sense of power for Restivo
because he had no consequences
to anything that he did.
So it meant that why
would he not do exactly
what he wanted to?
[wind blows]
[traffic rumbling]
[traffic rumbling]
[eerie music]
When we examined
Heather's emails,
and we found an email
that she'd written
which had said Restivo had been
over to her several days before,
and that he'd asked her
to make a set of curtains
for his partner as a present,
and that immediately
after Restivo had left,
Heather had realised that a set
of keys had gone missing.
After his visit, Heather
would no longer find that key,
and she emailed
Restivo's partner
for whom the curtains
were being made saying,
I think Danny's got my keys.
She thought that Restivo might
have taken it,
but she was worried
to the extent
that she decided, "I'm going
to have to change my locks."
Whereas originally, we thought
this is an innocent man
that had been the good Samaritan
and looked after the children.
Now there were some worrying
concerning elements to this man.
You think, well,
he is got an alibi,
you know, it can't be him,
but you always need to
look a little closer.
On the face of it,
perhaps it looked
like a solid alibi,
but of course, he could
have bought the bus ticket,
got on the bus and then got off
at the next stop
and walked back home.
He says that he signed in to
this computing course at 9:00 AM
but when the police look
at the logs,
they can see
that it's actually been changed,
and he originally
signed in at 10:28
and then changed this
to 9:00 AM.
There are some confusing
anomalies in the story
that Restivo is
presenting to the police.
[traffic rumbling]
We thought this was
a ploy by him
to make out
that he got the perfect alibi.
We're very focused on
Restivo at this point.
There are just these
niggling doubts about him now.
We arrested Restivo.
[tense music]
We felt that we had a lot
of questions to put him
around his alibi,
around him visiting Heather.
Although we knew
he spoke English,
he always insisted on having
an interpreter in the room.
An officer is asking
a question in English,
it's then being translated.
That gives him a certain amount
of time in between
listening to it in English,
waiting for the translation.
[tense music continues]
He was very surly,
very confident,
and we got nowhere
with those interviews.
We weren't able to charge him.
At this point,
there is no hard evidence.
They have the trainers
that don't match the profile.
They have the keys that weren't
used to unlock the door.
So there's a lot
of unusual things,
but nothing that is
gonna be strong enough
for CPS to prosecute.
We had to bail him out
and continue our enquiries.
A very, very frustrating time.
[sombre music]
We can't quite work it out.
This is an individual that
we need to know more about
and my officers start
to do their research.
I just remember the day
the officers came in and said,
"Boss, you won't believe this,"
but Restivo has been involved
"in the disappearance
of a woman in Italy."
[suspenseful music]
You think this is
definitely the answer,
this is gonna solve our case.
Danilo Restivo was,
by the time, 21 years old,
living in Potenza
in his family's house.
He wanted to become a dentist,
so he was taking dental exams,
and then one day Elisa Claps
caught his eye.
The Claps family
were a very humble,
close-knit family.
The father ran a tobacconist.
The mother, Filomena,
worked in the land registry
in the morning and
then in the afternoon
worked in the Tobacconist.
The older son is Gildo
who was studying for law.
His brother Luciano,
the middle child,
was four years younger
and Elisa was four
years younger.
So Elisa in 1993 was 16,
and she obviously,
being the only daughter,
was the apple of
her father's eye.
He adored this young woman
who was just incredibly caring.
She was teasingly
nicknamed 'Mother Teresa'
[in native language]
Elisa was a cheerful,
kind, and selfless girl.
Truly someone to admire.
A dedicated student,
she aspired to become a doctor.
Elisa was always a
cheerful and open girl.
She would say
everything as it was,
she never told lies, she was
very sincere and very direct,
much like her father.
Therefore, she never
had anything to hide.
[gentle music]
[in English] One of the things
that her friends
and her family said about her
was that she was very trusting,
that she perhaps didn't
have the defences
that someone who's more
streetwise or cynical
might have had.
So Danilo Restivo
was courting her,
and slightly insistently
courting her.
There was one famous occasion
which she was on the beach
with her brother,
and she whispered
to her brother,
"Oh no, he has followed
me here".
And there in front of
her was Danilo Restivo
this oddball from the city
who coincidentally was
on the same beach as her.
[in native language]
Elisa felt sorry
that he was isolated
from everyone,
and was marginalised.
She was perhaps the
only girl in Potenza
who was willing
to listen to him.
[gentle music]
[in English] The 12th
of September, 1993,
Elisa had gone to church
with her best friend.
A bit of time passes
and the doorbell goes,
Gildo replies
and Elisa's friend says,
"Is Elisa here with you?"
And he says, "No, she was
with you. What do you mean?"
And she says, "Well,
we were coming out of church
and I lost track of her.
So I thought she came here."
Gildo said, "No,
that's, that's ridiculous.
Go back and check".
[bell tolls]
[tense music]
The hours pass,
and she's nowhere to be seen.
Gildo presses this friend
and says, "You know,
what's going on?"
This is very strange.
You can't lose track of a friend
just coming out of a church.
He asked her, quite abruptly,
what really happened
and where Elisa is.
She started bursting into tears,
and told him that she had an
appointment with Danilo Restivo.
[sombre music]
[in native language] She tells
Gildo that she had left Elisa
near the church,
but it's not clear.
So Gildo asked,
why did you leave her alone
"with this person,
who is known to be so strange?"
[in English] Elisa's brothers
went to Restivo's house
because they wanted
to speak with him.
Danilo Restivo said
that he met Elisa
to give her a present
to congratulate her
for her exam retakes,
but also that he wanted
to consult with her
in relation to a girl
that he liked.
He says he gave
Elisa a present,
and she went out of the church
and he stayed in
the church to pray,
[tense music]
And that's his version.
Danilo Restivo was the last
person to have seen Elisa
before she disappeared.
[bell tolls]
He has a cut on his hand.
They question him
about this and say,
"How did you get a cut
on your hand?"
And he comes up
with this frankly absurd story
about going
to see the escalators
that were being built
in the city.
[tense music]
And he says that he somersaulted
down these escalators,
cut his hand and had
to go to the hospital,
[in native language]
Luciano said that he was
very agitated, and sweating.
He was very reluctant
to give explanations.
At times he was
incoherent, spoke poorly,
and couldn't explain
himself clearly.
So much so that shortly after,
Danilo's father comes down
and silences these questions,
and takes his son back upstairs.
[tense music]
[in English] And then when
the Claps brothers try and phone
to get more information,
Restivo's father
takes the phone, says,
"My son's told you
everything he needs to,
and the phone is put down.
[receiver clacks]
And Gildo says that at
exactly that moment he knew
that something terrible
had happened to his sister.
[tense music]
The Claps family go
to look at the church,
the priest's assistant opens up,
and they say, "Well,
hang on, what's that door?"
"What's that door?"
And they say,
"No, you can't go there."
So you can imagine the family
spending their first night
without their
16-year-old daughter,
are on tenterhooks,
[in native language] The person
who should have been
the first to cooperate,
the parish priest of the Church
of the Trinity in Potenza,
inexplicably left at 3:00 PM
to go to a spa in Fiuggi.
And there had just been a
disappearance in his church.
How can you leave
to go to a spa?
And the church officially
remains closed in the afternoon.
[bell tolls]
[in English]
The Catholic Church in Italy,
especially in the 1990s,
was very powerful.
There's a famous phrase that
says, 'La Chiesa non si tocca',
that the church is
basically untouchable.
It can't be criticised,
it can't be investigated,
and what the church says goes.
[bell tolls]
The Claps family
report, her missing.
The authorities think,
well, this is
a 16-year-old girl,
she's probably eloped.
It's nothing serious,
you know, let's just
see how it plays out.
And the family were insistent,
saying,
"You need to look
at Danilo Restivo.
He is surely a
person of interest."
The more the family
try and raise the issue
and say this is an emergency,
the authorities begin to think,
oh well,
the family are to blame.
So it's almost like this sort of
victim blaming goes
on from the very start
and the family start plastering
the city with, you know,
missing notices saying,
have you seen Elisa?
[in native language]
One of the police inspectors
from Potenza visits
the Restivo's house
in the afternoon,
later in the afternoon,
requesting a moment
to speak with Danilo
and find out what had happened.
Vitally, the police inspector
notices clothes hanging
from the balcony of
the Restivo house.
[eerie music]
[in English]
The policeman says,
"I'll need the clothes
on the balcony as well."
And the family say, "No, if
you haven't got a warrant,
you're not having those."
And the policeman phones,
you know, his boss and says,
can I have a warrant?
And the answer comes back, "No."
So the last person
to see Elisa Claps alive
who's had a cut on his hands,
who clothes have been washed,
and the family are refusing
to let police
take that clothing as evidence
alarm bells should have been
going off incredibly loudly.
[tense music]
The Italian police,
during the investigations,
are not entirely independent.
They have a public
prosecutor assigned,
who oversees what they do.
The public prosecutor said
that the police was not allowed
to seize the clothes.
That was the end of it.
[tense music]
[in native language] The first
24 hours of the investigation
were wasted because
no one cooperated.
[dramatic music]
[in English] Days become weeks
and weeks become months,
and the family are at
this point convinced
something horrible has happened.
And they speak
about the lack of closure,
the uncertainty.
The family felt,
as they've told it to me,
abandoned by the authorities.
They don't know
whether to mourn,
whether to hope,
they're not being
helped by the authorities.
They're up against an array
of seemingly powerful people,
and they're by themselves.
[gentle music]
The Claps family,
especially Gildo Claps,
was so disappointed by the
Italian criminal justice system,
which is why he decided
to go to Chi L'ha Visto
and tell everyone about Elisa.
[Presenter speaking Italian]
Chi L'ha Visto
is a program me in Italy
that focusses entirely on
missing persons
and unsolved crimes.
I'm a journalist and I moved
to Italy in 1999.
Chi L'ha Visto was when I
became aware of the case.
Gildo was the, the sort
of the face of the family
beside his mother.
So his mother Filomena
is this very diminutive,
hard as nails woman,
she's a lovely woman.
But when she talks about
Elisa's disappearance,
she would have this
stony granite face
and this rage at the
church and the authorities
and the Italians identified
with this suffering mother.
You know, she was
called 'Mama Filomena'
and she became this
very familiar figure,
this face that was
lined by suffering
and that viewers just
took her to their heart.
[in native language]
Whoever saw my daughter
that morning in Via Pretoria,
wherever they may have
seen her, with anybody,
we beg you to come forward
and give us information.
Filomena's testimony strikes me
because I was already
a father at the time.
She recounts in
such a direct way,
with so many details,
and you can see the brutal drama
that the Claps family
is going through.
I had just opened a
detective agency in Salerno,
so offered to follow this case.
As it was the first
case for my agency,
I don't want any money,
I don't want any anything,
I just want to try and put
an end to this disappearance,
and, at the very least,
give her the chance
to be able to
mourn her daughter,
if it turns out her daughter is,
in fact, dead.
[sombre music]
[tense music]
[traffic honking horns]
[in English]
There were repeated sightings
of Elisa outside the city.
So focus slowly starts
shifting from this one church,
and certain people said,
"Oh no, I saw her
going down the stairs."
"Oh no, I saw her getting
into a white Fiat Uno."
"No, I've seen her in Albania."
There were investigations
into various people,
and there were
sufficient chiming,
sort of rhyming hints
through these red herrings
that made them convincing.
The white Fiat Uno
kept being mentioned.
Albania kept being mentioned.
Sex trafficking kept
being mentioned.
So you know, one can understand
that investigators would think,
oh, there must be
something there.
And their heads were constantly
being turned away from
the church and from Restivo.
[in native language]
Over the years,
there have been many vultures
who have attempted to mislead
or simply try and take money
from the Claps family
by providing leads that later
turned out to be false.
[in English] These false leads
were extremely distressing
for Elisa's family.
And of course, it provided a
distraction from Danilo Restivo
and it delayed investigations.
The police had to follow
those leads,
However, credible or not.
Whether they were created
to protect Danilo Restivo,
we will never know.
[gentle music]
At the same time, Restivo
begins this itinerant,
sort of lackadaisical career,
in which again,
strange things happen.
[in native language] Family
decided to re-locate him
to various Italian cities,
the first being Rome,
mainly because he started
working for a company
that handled pest control.
[in English] He shares
a bedroom with a man who said
that he would wake up
screaming in the night.
That he would shower
for hours and hours.
That he would sort of hide
and shake
when he saw a blue light and a
siren and outside in the street,
even if it was nothing
to do with him.
[in native language]
He was generally
terrified of the police
because he had a deep
fear of being arrested.
[gentle music continues]
[in English] He was clearly
not a well being,
and he tried
to enter the fire service,
was not accepted,
and was later caught
setting light to something
because he wanted to be the
hero that could put out the fire
and show that he was worthy.
He kept doing things that
tried to persuade people
that he was something he wasn't.
[gentle music]
The news of the disappearance
of Elisa Claps
reaching all Italy,
placed some pressure on the
police and the public prosecutor
who decided then in 1994
to charge Danilo Restivo,
not for m*rder,
but the most viable charge
was for false information.
Perjury.
[dramatic music]
He had said
he had cut his hand
falling down the escalators,
and he knew the escalators
because he'd been there with
a young woman called Paula.
And police obviously
went to speak to Paula,
and she said, "I've never
been there with him.
Why would I go to a
building site on a date?"
So he's clearly revealed
as someone who's not
telling the truth.
[in native language] What did
the Claps' family feel
at the trial for Danilo
Restivo's false testimony?
A great anger.
And also, a great sense
of being powerless.
[tense music]
[in English] Danilo Restivo
was found guilty of perjury,
and given one year and
eight months sentence,
but as often happens in Italy,
it was suspended.
So he didn't spend
any time in jail.
It discredited him.
But it's one thing
to say he's lying,
it's another thing to
discover the truth.
So it's not really much of
a victory for the family,
[suspenseful music]
Elisa's family, is certain
that he's responsible,
but Danilo Restivo
once again is free.
In my view this gave
the impression to Danilo Restivo
that he was omnipotent,
he was invulnerable,
and he could get
away with anything.
[gentle music]
The years go by,
and the family are
trying to keep the story
in the national news
and yet at the same time
having no, no sense of privacy,
no sense of mourning, grieving.
And I think getting
to know the family,
one sees this sense of a David
and Goliath battle
of people who are from
a very humble background,
and yet they're giving
and generous and kind.
[in native language] We hope
that someone
will come forward in some way
and give us a tangible
sign of Elisa's existence,
that she is alive.
Gildo was very, very active
in the search for his sister.
It is thanks to him that
the law on missing persons
was changed.
Gildo truly deserves a
statue erected in his honour.
[in English]
Thanks to this law change,
you could report a
disappearance immediately,
and not wait 24 to 48 hours.
So the law is significant,
it brings to more
efficient investigations.
Gildo Claps would not stop,
same as his mother.
You know, I get goosebumps
thinking about it
because they were
and are an extraordinary family.
[gentle music]
And still, at this point,
there's no knowledge of what
actually happened to Elisa.
She's still missing, you know,
they don't know where she is,
if she's alive,
what's happened to her.
They're living this
sense of uncertainty
and hopelessness, really.
[sombre music]
We learnt that
Elisa had gone missing.
Restivo meets Elisa,
goes to hospital
with a cut hand,
she's never seen again.
As far as I'm concerned,
he's responsible for her m*rder.
And was he responsible
for the m*rder of Heather?
[sombre music]
It is clear that
he was capable
of murdering Heather Barnett.
The problem was
the lack of evidence.
What the CPS needed
at the time was
concrete, direct evidence
to link Danilo Restivo
with Heather Barnett's body.
We decided that one of
the possible solutions
was to bug his house.
We would listen to it
when I made appeals
to the TV
or in the local newspaper,
[tense music]
Phil James wanted us to
write a front-page lead
linking the death
of Heather Barnett
to the disappearance
of Elisa Claps
in Potenza in Italy
nine years before.
And the reason he wanted us
to do that
was he wanted Restivo to know
that they knew about Elisa.
They had placed listening
devices in his home,
and they wanted to listen
to what reaction there was.
So we did publish that story
[tense music ends]
That was on the front page
two or three days later.
It produced very little,
it gained us nothing really,
other than interestingly that
he spoke to his father on
one occasion on the phone,
and they discussed that
maybe it would be a good idea
to k*ll Phil James.
Me.
Clearly, it's very disconcerting
when you think that
an individual
may be considering k*lling me.
You know, we always knew
that Restivo was very clever
but also very ruthless.
If he thought the answer
to getting away with this m*rder
was to k*ll me,
then he was gonna do it.
This isn't someone who's
done something terrible,
feels remorseful
and is clearly not someone
who is alarmed
at the concept of death
or m*rder, he doesn't care.
Ultimately, his own goals,
whatever they may be,
is what matters to him.
He doesn't matter
about the consequences
because again, this is someone
whose entire life
has not dealt
with any consequences.
And so here we are again.
He's calling up his father
and asking him to fix
the mess that he's made.
[suspenseful music]
Two days after we had
published the headline,
two gentlemen came into the Echo
front office and asked for me,
one was Gildo Claps,
the brother of Elisa
and an Italian TV journalist.
Gildo said, I spend
time every single day
and I have done that every
single day since 1993,
looking at the internet
to see where Restivo is.
So to look at the
Daily Echo story
and find that Restivo
has been linked
to a m*rder*r in
the United Kingdom.
He was in shock, I think,
and got on the first plane here.
Gildo goes to see
Heather Barnett's flat
[sombre music]
And obviously realises that.
Danilo Restivo is living
opposite.
And he sees him in
an upstairs window,
and by his own admission,
slightly flips out,
and starts shouting and says,
you know, "I'm gonna
always track you down.
I know what you've done."
[sombre music continues]
He, at that point,
realises it's no longer
just something that's happening
in Potenza.
This is an international story.
In the last week,
detectives involved in
the enquiry here in Bournemouth
have flown out to Potenza
in Southern Italy
to assist police there
and see if they can
learn anything new
about the possible links
between these two cases.
[tense music]
Elisa has been
missing since 1993,
so, it's been 10 years,
nothing's happened,
and she's still
a missing person.
[in native language] The Claps'
family and I had the opportunity
to speak with the English police
when they travelled to Italy
to meet everyone involved
in the investigation.
Obviously, through Gildo,
they also asked to meet me,
to come to my agency.
They wanted to understand
the various steps I had taken
over the years of investigation.
[in English] I meet on several
occasions with Marco
who is clearly, clearly worried
he was desperate
to solve the case,
and taking quite
some risk to himself.
But at least I found somebody
that will talk to me
and tell me about Elisa Claps
and her disappearance.
[in native language]
When we meet the English police,
we felt enormous hope
because we finally realised that
the net was closing on Restivo
and that, with this mistake
he had made in k*lling Heather,
a noose could finally be
tightened around his neck
and he could finally be put in
jail and never released again.
[gentle music]
[in English] I am trying
to relate this
to the m*rder of Heather.
The Claps family kindly
give me DNA and hair samples
so that I can figure out,
is this the connection?
Is this gonna solve my case?
Because
that hair in Heather's hand,
has he brought that from Italy
and is it Elisa's?
[gentle music continues]
There is this code of silence,
which is called 'omerta'.
It is known among the mafia,
but also in relation
to the clergy.
We arrived in Italy a few
weeks after we'd run the story.
We tried to speak to
people on the streets,
and they didn't really
want to talk to us.
There was a real sense
that that sort of silence thing
wasn't an imagination,
it was reality in Potenza,
There were people who
refused to collaborate,
and they refused to talk.
I find this absolutely appalling
because even if
when they knew the truth
they, they didn't want
to get involved.
When we were there, we found
out that was Restivo's father
was the head
of the library service.
So we just went to the library
and asked to speak to him
and introduced ourselves.
And surprisingly, he invited
us into his, into his office
and through an interpreter,
we just asked him about his son.
What sort of person was he?
Did he think he
had k*lled anybody?
Was he responsible for the
disappearance of Elisa Claps?
Did he have anything
to say about
the case of Heather Barnett?
He said he didn't
think about it.
He wasn't in
contact with his son,
and he didn't believe
that he was responsible
for anything to do with the
disappearance of Elisa Claps.
[tense music]
We compare the
Claps family, DNA
to the hair found at the scene.
I thought that's the end
of the case, we've solved it.
It's gonna be easy.
We can connect Restivo to
the Claps family.
We can connect Restivo
to Heather,
and that's the answer.
But it's not Elisa's hair,
and it's not anyone
from the Claps family.
[gentle music]
That was a major disappointment.
[bright music]
So by this stage, Dorset
police are convinced
that we now have a man living
in Bournemouth
who's k*lled two people
and who has clearly
the potential to k*ll more.
We're very frustrated.
We can't prove the of fence
against him.
This is a man that we
just can't let roam the
streets of Bournemouth.
And so for days,
weeks and years,
we monitor Restivo.
Restivo went to an area
known as Throop Mill,
just on the outskirts
of Bournemouth.
And we observe him
hiding in the bushes,
moving about covertly,
watching women
walk their dogs.
I'm in my office
and I get a phone call to say,
"Boss, we are very worried.
This individual is
acting very strangely."
[tense music]
I don't want Restivo to know
that we're following him.
So the easiest answer is to
send uniform officers down there
with an explanation that
there's been thefts in the area,
cars have been broken into,
we've seen you,
what are you doing down there?
Local officers check him out,
and they find that he's
wearing two sets of clothing,
which is very interesting.
And he's got gloves,
he's got a balaclava in the car,
[tense music continues]
He's got various
other implements,
but he's also got
a filleting knife.
He's carrying a filleting knife.
He must be aware that
people are watching,
and yet that still
doesn't deter him
because he feels like he can
get away with anything.
And so even though he knows
that he's a person of interest
in Heather's m*rder,
he's out for more.
And he's clearly out
there with the intention
of harming other people.
The decision is, well,
what do we do about that?
Do we arrest him again?
But all that's gonna do is
not take us anywhere in
relation to Heather's m*rder.
We already know he's a danger.
[tense music continues]
So I make the decision
that we won't do anything
on that occasion.
We'll let him go.
Just another frustrating day.
You know, we know that
he's k*lled two people.
We just don't have
that evidence.
It's, it's just so hard to,
you know,
you want to protect everybody,
you want him locked up.
It's just not going our way.
At that point, I was talking
to Gildo Claps fairly regularly.
Interviewing or just,
just having informal
conversations around the case,
and he's clearly more
convinced than ever
that Restivo was, is guilty
and determined to do
anything he can to,
to bring him to justice.
As I remember the family felt,
what else do you need?
You know, what more?
All the common-sense
points in this way,
but as we know,
to convict someone, you need
to go beyond reasonable doubt.
There's all sorts of
circumstantial evidence,
and yet police don't seem
to have enough to act on.
So after 2004,
from a public point of view,
things went quiet,
but clearly there
was an awful lot
still going on
behind the scenes.
There was still work going on
in Italy on the Elisa case.
Some of that we reported,
some of it we weren't able
to report,
but we did our
best to keep the story alive.
We needed to keep the
pressure on the story as well.
It's at a time where we
need to find more evidence,
and one of the best
ways usually is
to make appeals to the public.
He's brought somebody's hair
with him
to the scene of a m*rder,
and he's deposited it and left
it in that individual's hand.
Undoubtedly, that's gonna
be the link to Restivo.
It wasn't Elisa's hair,
but that's still one of my
primary lines of enquiry.
[sombre music]
I'm convinced there are
still other people out there
that have had their hair cut
that have not yet come forward.
And the appeal to them is,
please come forward and tell us.
It might sound
strange going on TV
and saying that we're
dealing with a m*rder,
and has anybody had their
hair cut in Bournemouth
and in unusual circumstances,
but it was necessary
and it did work.
The police had
nearly 500 calls
and that yielded quite
a lot of information,
and it also brought
forward a number of victims
who had had their
hair cut on buses.
I noticed that my
hair was coming out,
and then I turned back around,
and he quickly ran off the bus.
It's very odd and
very creepy, I think.
[traffic rumbling]
After identification parades,
two individuals
picked out Restivo
as the individual
that had cut their hair
in the Bournemouth area.
This has been going on so long,
and suddenly, you are uplifted
by somebody coming forward,
and providing some evidence
that does support your case.
If it's their hair
in Heather's hand,
we were finally, hopefully,
resolving that case.
We'd all get closure.
So we tested the
hair in the hand on
probably half a dozen
victims that came forward.
[tense music]
It was none of their hair.
We just could not identify
the individuals whose hair
was in Heather's hand.
But when we did those
appeals, a lady came forward
to speak about an individual
that was seen at the bus stop
the day of Heather's m*rder.
And she identified that
individual as Restivo.
On CCTV they can see that he
is walking
from the direction
of Heather's house
towards the bus stop at 9:24 AM.
But remember he told the police,
and showed them a bus ticket
of him being on the bus on the
way to his course at 8:44 AM.
So this shows that Restivo lied
about his whereabouts
and the timings.
This throws up, again,
some significant questions,
but it's still not quite
enough for a secure conviction
because it doesn't place him at
the scene of Heather's m*rder.
We know that he's lied.
We know that he's not
where he's supposed to be,
but that's still not
a secure foundation
for a conviction of this type.
So yet again, we've
added another little
piece of that jigsaw.
The picture is a
little more complete,
but it's still not sufficient
for the Crown Prosecution
Service to say.
Restivo is guilty
of Heather's m*rder,
and yet again
we have to continue on,
and Restivo stays at large.
[suspenseful music]
In 2007, it was my time
to retire from Dorset Police.
I'd worked
for five years on this case.
This was my life.
It was so vitally important
to me that I solved this case,
both for the children
of Heather,
but also for the Claps family.
The case haunted me.
It was, it had become my life,
and it was very
difficult to leave it
and not lead that investigation.
However, I was gonna stay
within the police family,
and I was going to investigate
the cold case reviews
of historic murders and r*pes.
So I was gonna stay
within that team,
and it gave me the
ability to carry on
and be part of
that investigation.
[in native language] Danilo
had become a challenge,
especially for me,
as I remained the Claps family
investigator for many years
and I never abandoned this case,
even though I never expected a
case like this to last so long.
Many things were done,
some that can be talked
about, others that can't.
He was certainly a person
who was continuously
under our
investigative scrutiny.
[tense music]
[in English] In 2008, I was
still working
within Dorset police
and suddenly in one day we're
told that that green towel,
which we always knew had the
potential to be that solution.
Science had advanced at last.
They're able to pull the two
separate blood profiles
from the towel that was found
in Heather's house.
They can see that there's
Heather's blood profile,
and the second profile
they're able to identify
is most likely that of Restivo.
However, even though
it's likely Restivo,
they can't say a hundred
per cent certainty.
It wasn't that perfect
one billion to one profile,
and as far as the CPS
were concerned,
it might cause an element
of doubt,
and that's why they didn't
prosecute at that stage.
By God is it, you know,
frustrating.
[gentle music]
One day Gildo Claps
is driving back from Naples
and a friend of his,
a journalist, phones and says,
"There's a lot of movement
outside the Santissima
Trinit Church."
Which of course is where Elisa,
his sister, was last seen.
[dramatic music]
Gildo and his brother
go to the church.
It's this labyrinthine
staircase up to the fourth floor
in this tiny space
under the roof of the church.
Gildo just can't go in there.
It's a sense of horror
and claustrophobia,
and he leaves and Luciano sees
what's really not much more than
a silhouette on the floor
of these skeletal remains
and decomposition of the body.
[gentle music]
Later the body is confirmed
as that of Elisa Claps.
[bell tolls]
[sombre music]
That's their beloved sister
that after 17 years
has been found in the building
where they said
she always would be found.
[sombre music continues]
It is very difficult to
appreciate what
a family must feel
on finding, after 17 years,
the body of your daughter
or sister.
As well as horror,
there's also a sense of relief.
You know, as Filomena
always said, you know,
I want a tomb where I can take
a flower for my daughter.
And in all this time, she never
went back in a church.
[gentle music]
The way in which
Elisa's body was discovered
is there was a leak
in the church.
Rain was coming through
the roof of the church
and workmen were sent up
to go and try and fix it.
And they went in and saw...
a body.
The family are convinced
that the church authorities
always knew that she was there.
So all that time of suffering,
as if it weren't enough,
had been elongated
because the church didn't know
how to deal with the discovery.
[sombre music]
Elisa's funeral was
a huge event in Potenza.
[gentle music]
Here is a city
that felt its sort of reputation
had been sullied
by this terrible crime,
and it was a chance
for the, sort of,
city to be with the family,
and kind of protest against
what had happened
to her and the family.
[gentle music continues]
[in native language]
I was informed
of the discovery of Elisa's body
while I was at work,
in my office.
I received the first phone
call from Luciano Claps
and then from Gildo.
And so we started to take
every action possible
to understand exactly
how this had happened.
The evidence emerged
following the forensic
analysis of Elisa's body.
I participated in the autopsy,
as the crime scene photographer.
She sustained at
least 13 stab wounds.
She received the first
three documented stabbings
with a pointed and edged weapon,
we suspect they were scissors.
Her jeans were unzipped,
her underwear was cut,
her bra was cut,
and she was still
wearing her sandals.
Her trousers were
slightly lowered,
exposing the lower part of her
body that touched the ground.
Elisa's body was found
in this position,
completely skeletal.
[tense music]
[in English] There were
small stones
in the grooves of the soles
of the shoes of Elisa,
which suggests that she was
alive when she got there.
There were, what were
called by the pathologist,
proliferous remains
in the palms of her hand,
strands of hair in her hands.
Her hair had been
cut in such a way
that it was a precisely
clean cut
in a way that not even
a barber can manage.
And the only way people
could recreate a cut similar
was to have hair
that was so soaked in blood
and that had dried
and congealed and that
actually the hair had been cut
possibly 20 minutes
after the m*rder.
And most tellingly, her jumper
was divided into quadrants.
And in one of those quadrants,
Danilo Restivo's DNA was found.
So it seemed finally
here was the body
that was revealing her m*rder*r.
[gentle music]
You know, this was 17 years
since Elisa's disappearance
and her body is in the church
where she went missing.
Whoever would presume
that's ever gonna happen?
Did they not search the church?
It helped greatly with our case,
but surely that was the
most significant feature
for the Claps family case,
and that surely it was obvious
that Restivo was guilty
of k*lling Elisa Claps.
The similarities between both
crime scenes,
Elisa Claps and Heather Barnett,
is that both of them
had hair next to them.
Their bras were cut,
and their trousers
were pulled down.
The hair represents the
Danilo Restivo's signature.
It is not a coincidence
that both the hair
element was found.
It is very unusual for
someone to cut hair
and place it there postmortem.
So finally, it appears that
there is enough evidence
to link the Danilo Restivo with
Heather Barnett's m*rder.
We were able to go back to
the CPS to explain perhaps
that this was the final
piece of that jigsaw,
and hopefully,
we could then charge Restivo
with the m*rder of
Heather Barnett.
I was convinced that
at this stage the CPS
just had to charge.
They have their levels that
they need to reach
in order to feel confident
approving the case,
but they just had to charge him.
This is now eight years since
the m*rder of Heather Barnett
and 17 years since the
m*rder of Elisa Claps.
[gentle music]
[Reporter] Dorset police have
sealed off a house
in Bournemouth.
Soon afterwards,
they bring out a 38-year-old man
under arrest on suspicion of
the m*rder of Heather Barnett
eight years ago,
the man is believed
to be Danilo Restivo.
Now, at last in 2010,
the Crown Prosecution Service
in the UK
finally think there's
enough evidence
to be able
to charge Danilo Restivo
with Heather's m*rder.
You know,
what a wonderful feeling.
We've reached that position
where he has been charged
and all that evidence,
all those pieces of
that jigsaw puzzle
are gonna come out in court,
and we're going
to be able to finally
prove that he was responsible,
and show to the public
of Dorset,
and to Heather's kids.
And to the Claps family that
we've been working really hard.
We gathered all this evidence
and now hopefully he's
gonna be convicted.
[gentle music]
The Claps family
have two reactions.
One is relief
that he's been arrested,
frustration that he's been
collared by
the British authorities
rather than
the Italian authorities.
But also,
I remember them saying to me,
"In Britain, we think if he goes
to prison, he'll stay there.
Whereas in Italy there are
often so many get out clauses,
and he may slip out again."
You know,
we've got to succeed now.
[tense music]
It was a really important
pre-trial hearing
some weeks before the trial,
at which the prosecution said
they wanted to bring
in the evidence from Italy
of the disappearance
and m*rder of Elisa Claps.
The judge gave permission.
To allow that kind
of evidence is very unusual,
but in this case,
it was justified
because it allowed them to
compare both crime scenes
as practically identical.
With the admission of
all that Italian evidence,
it doubly increases our
knowledge, understanding
that picture of who Restivo is,
and that he's guilty of
effectively two murders.
[tense music]
[tense music]
The m*rder trial began and the
Claps family came over,
partly because
they wanted to see him
and say that they
were still there.
And also because Gildo was
called to give evidence.
When the case came to trial
in Winchester Crown Court.
And I was sat up in
the public gallery
with Filomena, the mother,
and Gildo, the brother.
She said, "I've got
to get down there,
I've got to get down there.
He has to see me."
And when Restivo came in to the,
you know, into
the box of the defendant,
"she stared at him and said,
I'm still here. I'm still here."
So that sense of someone
who had crusaded
and given up her
life to get justice,
and she was still there,
was an extraordinary scene.
[tense music]
Restivo pleads
not guilty at trial.
He's had his whole life
being able to get away
with these horrific crimes,
having them covered up.
And so there's a chance
that he just thought,
this will just be another
one of those cases,
and I'll be able to
walk away from this.
On the other hand,
sometimes you have perpetrators
who kind of want
the spectacle of it,
and I think him
saying not guilty
was perhaps just another way for
him to sort of reassert power
and control over the narrative.
I'm not surprised that
he pleads not guilty.
This is a man who thinks he's
cleverer than everybody else.
He's very blas about it.
He's very surly.
I think everybody was
surprised when Restivo decided
that he himself
would give evidence
because we only felt
that he'd only ever
tie himself up in knots,
and he definitely didn't
do his case any good.
[gentle music]
Restivo emerged as this
softly spoken, high-pitched,
"I'm the good man
in all of this,
and I'm misunderstood,
and I'm the victim."
And absolute hypochondriac.
He spoke about his tendonitis,
and his thyroid problems,
and his sinuses,
and endless medical conditions
to the point in which the
courtroom was giggling.
He was this sort
of figure of fun,
and repeatedly he looked
up to the public gallery
and said, "Where's my family?"
So you get this
sense of this person
who is finally being
abandoned by everyone.
[eerie music]
You obviously hope as a writer
that you are going to get
the key to someone's character
and that you are going
to suddenly understand
what this hair thing is.
But it was almost like
there was just this void of
where a human being should be.
So it's almost the opposite
of understanding who he was.
There was almost
like a nothingness
at the centre of him.
He does admit that he has this
fetish with hair,
but says that he
can't smell the hair.
So he used to like cutting
off the hair
just to be able
to feel it and touch it,
and then he'd get rid of it.
But actually, what he's
providing is some very severe,
if circumstantial evidence,
he is showing
that he does have a hair fetish.
And these two women
that have been m*rder*d,
in very close proximity to him,
both had hair in their hands.
It's certainly a coincidence
that a jury
and prosecutors are not going
to look past.
The prosecution said that
the m*rder of Heather
had been pre-planned.
Essentially, him asking her to
make curtains for his partner
was just a ruse
to get into her house.
He had always planned
to k*ll her
and that morning, he clearly
went equipped with some weapon.
[tense music]
He just wanted
to k*ll someone else.
And Heather just happened
to be the person
who he decided he was going
to k*ll because he could.
What he did consisted in
uncontrollable urges.
They were based on impulse.
Opportunity
made it possible for him
to satisfy his needs.
The evidence from Winchester
Crown Court
was that Daniel Restivo
had persuaded Elisa
to go to the very top
of the church,
and the motive is guesswork.
One assumes
that she rejected him,
tried to back him down,
and he lost his temper
and went berserk.
But you know,
you don't really go on a date
with a pair of scissors
and a knife in your pocket.
So most people would think
that there was premeditation
and that he was intending
to do this.
Who knows?
[gentle music]
They have in common,
both of them,
the act of over k*lling.
Elisa Claps Received nine
stab wounds in the back
and Heather Barnett,
she received 10 hammer blows
on the head.
That act of over k*lling
is a psychological clue
that indicates rage.
Even though there's no
evidence of any sexual assaults
or self-gratification
at the scene of the murders,
there was a prior case
where he was observed
to have been masturbating
in a cinema
having cut a woman's hair
without her knowledge.
And so I do think it's clear
that there's some sort of link
between his sexual gratification
and hair cutting,
and these murders.
If you have a sexually
motivated perpetrator,
they're at very high risk
of repeating that act,
or in fact even escalating
that act
to continue to get
that sexual gratification.
And so identifying
this potential sexual link
just makes it even
more important
to secure this conviction
and to ensure that Restivo
is kept away from the public
for a very long time.
[gentle music]
Well, after sitting
for seven weeks
and deliberating for four hours,
the jury found
Danilo Restivo guilty
of the m*rder of Heather Barnett
in Bournemouth in 2002.
I was in court when Restivo
was found guilty
of the m*rder
of Heather Barnett.
A very satisfying
and emotional day
that we'd waited nine years for.
All I can remember is this
huge sense of relief
within the courtroom
from everybody concerned
that finally justice
had been done,
and particularly for the victims
and their families.
[in native language]
Danilo Restivo
is now convicted in England,
it's a strange twist of fate
in a story where destiny
has so often played a part.
What are you feeling
at this moment?
It's an incredibly powerful
emotion, as you can imagine.
[gentle music continues]
[in English] 18 years,
this family
who had never given up,
who had said,
we will bring him to justice
after almost two decades,
finally saw that he had
been convicted of m*rder.
When the judge sentenced
Danilo Restivo,
he defined him as a cold,
depraved and calculated k*ller.
And for this reason, the judge
imposed life imprisonment
with a whole life tariff.
[tense music]
Subsequently
to the British trial,
in Italy he was put on trial
for the m*rder of Elisa Claps.
And found guilty there as well.
Finally, Italian Justice
clicks in,
and we can complete the jigsaw
and finally see justice
for everybody.
[in native language] Finally,
the word 'end' has been put
to so many years
of investigation,
but my investigation
isn't what matters.
What matters is finally
giving a body
to the family who loved Elisa,
where they can place flowers
and mourn her,
and, above all, also the fact
that the person
who is responsible
has received his sentence.
[gentle music]
[in English] There was a sense
from the family
that they'd been vindicated.
There was finally written
judicial sentences
that recognised what they'd
been saying all along.
That she'd never
left the church,
and that Restivo was guilty.
Because he'd been convicted
first in Britain.
He's now serving his sentence
in a British jail.
And on appeal, his sentence
was slightly reduced.
Danilo Restivo's sentence was
reduced to a minimum of 40 years
because the sentencing charge
took into account the of fence
of k*lling Elisa Claps.
And that is something that
the sentencing judge was not
allowed to take into account.
In 2051 Danilo Restivo
will be released from a prison
here in the UK,
and will be transferred to Italy
to serve his 30 years.
[sombre music]
There are lots of mysteries
that remain,
we'll never know whose hair was
in Heather Barnett's right hand.
We'll never know who
in the church knew about Elisa,
the family are
convinced the church knew
that she was there
all this time.
[gentle music]
We know that Restivo k*lled
Elisa Claps in 1993.
In 2002, he ended up in the UK.
Who knows what happened in
that intervening period.
There's a lot of speculation
that Restivo
committed other crimes
between 1993 and 2002.
And I think given his profile,
that's entirely possible
because if this is a sexually
motivated perpetrator
who we know was consistently
doing these minor of fences
of cutting women's hair,
I do think it's
entirely possible.
Restivo got away with
a number of minor crimes
through his youth.
But getting away
with Elisa's m*rder in 1993
must have only
emboldened him further.
He knew
that he could get away with
essentially anything
at this point.
If you can get away with m*rder,
then what else is there
to stop you?
The more this case is
publicised
and the more there is awareness
about who he was,
where he lived, how he behaved,
the more I think it's possible
that other murders will,
in due course, be linked
to Danilo Restivo.
It just seems, on the balance
of probability,
very probable
that he committed other murders.
I'm afraid the only way we'll
ever get certainty on that
is from Restivo himself.
And he's never...
he's never spoken.
I think Restivo is unique.
He comes across
as a bumbling fool
who can't string
two words together,
looks extremely strange.
But clearly underneath that
there is a very cunning,
resilient individual
with great preparedness
and great forensic awareness
that clearly thought he was
cleverer than everybody else.
Restivo never
changed his story.
[dramatic music]
You know, the Claps' family
dislike him intensely,
but they don't really blame him.
They blame the family.
You know, they know
that he m*rder*d their daughter,
and they feel very strongly
about that.
But they put the blame
on the family
who didn't educate him,
never got him treatment.
Despite all this incremental
cruelty and sadism,
that eventually gets to m*rder
and another m*rder, and
probably more than those two.
[gentle music]
Both Elisa and Heather were
just kind people.
They were willing to be kind
to this socially-isolated man,
and they took pity on him,
and they were nice.
And it's ultimately,
unfortunately, that kindness
that led this heinous character
of Restivo
to taking their lives.
[gentle music fades]
The tragedy in all this,
obviously, is that
had Restivo been apprehended
and convicted in the 1990s,
Heather Barnett
would still be alive.
She just had the misfortune
to live opposite
this wrong 'un.
[dramatic music]
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Hair Fetish k*ller (2026)
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