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Crime

Rome police nab killer after legs found in trash

August 16, 2017

A 62-year-old Italian man confessed to killing his sister and trying to hide the evidence by dismembering her body, police said. Authorities had discovered the woman's legs in a Rome dumpster.

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Forensic experts wearing masks gather around a dumpster in Rome
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/A. Carconi

According to Italian police, the 59-year-old victim shared a Rome apartment with her brother, identified as Maurizio Diotallevi, authorities said on Wednesday.

Police said that "Mr. Diotallevi admitted to having committed the murder and to have tried to conceal the body." Investigative sources believe that a row about money was the motive for the crime, according to the ANSA news agency.

Read: Italian police strike at 'beating heart' of 'Ndrangheta mafia

Diotallevi was also recorded by a security camera while stopping next to a dumpster and "heaving a heavy object" into it, during the night between Monday and Tuesday. A young woman found a pair of severed legs while rummaging through the trash and alerted the police on Tuesday. She is reported to be in shock.

The rest of the body was later found in another trash container near the apartment shared by the two siblings, in the upscale Flaminio neighborhood.

"I know [the pair] well and I would have never expected such a thing," a neighbor told ANSA. "When I saw all the police outside the house I thought they were shooting a film."

dj/rc (AP, dpa, AFP)