Andrea Volpe

Background

The Beasts of Satan were a suspected satanic cult in Italy. Members of this group committed three notorious ritual murders over six years.

Andrea Volpe was an associate of the group and an Italian heavy metal band calling itself the Beasts of Satan.

The offence

January 1998 double homicide

The first incident was a January 1998 double homicide in woods near Somma Lombardo, northwest of Milan.

Chiara Marino, a shop assistant aged 19, and her boyfriend Fabio Tollis, a 16-year-old student and heavy-metal musician, were sacrificially stabbed and beaten in a drug-fueled occult rite involving sex and heavy metal music. The couple had spent a normal Saturday night drinking beer and listening heavy metal music at Midnight Pub, described as the center of the city’s metal scene, and they never returned home.

Fabio Tollis and Chiara Marino were stabbed to death by their friends Andrea Volpe, Nicola Sapone and Mario Maccione. Fabio Tollis tried to defend himself and Chiara, but there was nothing he could do.

After the killings, Maccione, Sapone and Volpe buried the corpses in a large grave in the woods and danced on the graveyard, laughing and screaming: " Now you're both zombies! Try to get out of this hole, if you dare! ".

The initial explanation drawn by authorities was that the couple had run away together for a love affair after a friend suggested this explanation. The explanation was not accepted by Fabio Tollis’s father, Michele Tollis.

January 2004 murder of Mariangela Pezzotta

The third murder was committed in January 2004.

Mariangela Pezzotta, a 27-year-old shop assistant and further girlfriend of Andrea Volpe, was first shot and later buried when she was still alive in a greenhouse into the nearby of Golasecca not far from Somma Lombardo.

Andrea Volpe was arrested shortly after with his young fiancée, a 18-year-old student named Elisabetta Ballarin.

Volpe confessed that he invited Mariangela Pezzotta for dinner but had already decided to kill her because she knew too many details about the sect and the murders of Tollis and Marino.

Volpe shot Pezzotta after a violent fight and then called Nicola Sapone, after which they realized Pezzotta was still alive. Volpe recalled that Sapone accused him: " You can't even kill a person! "

Volpe and Sapone badly tried to hide Pezzotta into the greenhouse of Ballarin’s parents’ home. Hours later Volpe and Ballarin took a heavy dose of cocaine and heroin and decided to get rid of Mariangela’s car by drowning it on a river into the nearby, but they had a car crash and were arrested.

Additional allegations within the group

Mario Maccione presented himself as "the medium" of the group and had been regarded by Tollis as his best friend. After the interrogation process and revelations, Mario Maccione confessed to having beaten Fabio Tollis to death with a hammer after Volpe and Sapone had stabbed him and Chiara Marino.

Additionally, sect members were accused of pushing their drummer, Andrea Bontade, to commit suicide because he refused to join Volpe and Sapone at Somma Lombardo and help them killing Marino and Tollis.

On September 1998, Andrea Bontade drank heavily and then killed himself by crushing with his car.

Authorities investigated whether the group had links to a wider network of Satanists in Italy.

Investigation

Fabio Tollis’s father, Michele Tollis, constructed a file on the activities and the bands in which they had played, over the course of six years.

Just a few hours before the January 1998 murder, Nicola Sapone forced Fabio Tollis to call home and tell his father he did not mean to come back home that night because he preferred sleeping with his girlfriend.

Michele Tollis noticed something strange and reached the Midnight Pub to have a word with his son, but it was too late. Fabio and Chiara had already left with their presumed friend for Somma Lombardo and never came back.

When the third murder occurred, Tollis took his findings to the police. Police used the findings to link all three murders to Andrea Volpe and the wider satanic sect.

The police investigation of the Pezzotta murder, and interrogation of Volpe using the information provided by Tollis, led to the discovery of the buried bodies of Marino and Tollis and the revelation of the sect’s existence.

Arrest

Andrea Volpe was arrested shortly after the January 2004 murder of Mariangela Pezzotta. Volpe was arrested with Elisabetta Ballarin, described as his young fiancée, and both were upset because of alcohol and drug addiction.

Volpe and Ballarin later had a car crash while trying to dispose of Mariangela’s car by drowning it on a river, leading to their arrest.

Trial

Sentencing on February 22, 2005

On February 22, 2005, Andrea Volpe and Pietro Guerrieri were sentenced in the northern city of Busto Arsizio.

Andrea Volpe was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The sentence was described as a decade longer than prosecutors requested.

Pietro Guerrieri was sentenced to 16 years.

Volpe was found guilty not only of the January 1998 murders but also of the 2004 slaying of Pezzotta.

Mario Maccione had also confessed to the murders but was cleared due to his secondary role in the crimes.

The reactions of the victims’ families to sentencing were mixed.

Michele Tollis, the father of Fabio, said: "Today justice rewarded me."

Lina Marino, mother of Chiara Marino, was outraged at the relatively light sentences Volpe and Guerrieri received due to their cooperation with prosecutors. She stated: "They are murderers. It's not fair."

Further trials and appellate history

Five more members of the group went to trial in June 2005 and were sentenced to long prison terms in early 2006.

Nicola Sapone received a life sentence.

Paolo Leoni, Marco Zampollo, Eros Monterosso and Elisabetta Ballarin received sentences between 24 and 26 years for their role in all three murders.

On 2007, the Court of Appeal confirmed the life sentence for Sapone and improved the convictions for other members:

• Paolo Leoni was changed from 26 years to a life sentence.
• Marco Zampollo was changed from 26 years to 29 years and 2 months.
• Eros Monterosso was changed from 24 years to 27 years and 3 months.
• The sentence for Elisabetta Ballarin was reduced from 24 years and 3 months to 23 years.

On May 2008, the Court of Cassazione confirmed all the Appeal’s decisions.

Outcome

Andrea Volpe was sentenced to 30 years in prison on February 22, 2005.

Pietro Guerrieri received a 16-year sentence on February 22, 2005.

Mario Maccione was cleared due to his secondary role in the crimes.

Nicola Sapone received a life sentence, and multiple other members received long prison terms, with appellate modifications confirmed by the Court of Cassazione in May 2008.

Aftermath

The crimes occurred against the background of growing concern in Italy that Satanism and the occult were becoming an attraction to Italian youth.

In February 2005, a Roman Catholic university connected to the Vatican began offering a two-month course on diabolical possession and exorcism for priests and seminarians.

In reaction to the crimes, priest Don Aldo Buonaito called for death metal to be banned, saying: "If music makes itself an instrument of nefarious deeds and death it should be stopped."

Italian police intended to create a special unit focusing on new religious sects, particularly Satanists and other violent ritualistic groups, coordinating nationwide investigations that would include psychologists and a priest expert on the occult.

Other details

On New Year’s Eve, authorities said there had been a previous attempt to kill the two victims by burning them alive in a car.

Chiara Marino and Fabio Tollis were described as being murdered six years earlier than the January 2004 murder of Mariangela Pezzotta.

The victims’ bodies were only found in woods northeast of Milan after Mariangela Pezzotta’s body was found in 2004.