Members Of Italian Satanic Heavy Metal Cult Sentenced For Killings

January 31, 2006

Reuters is reporting that five Satanic cult members received heavy prison sentences on Tuesday for killing the singer of their amateur heavy metal band and two other women in brutal ritual murders that shocked Italy.

Nicola Sapone, one of the leaders of the Beasts of Satan heavy metal cult, was sentenced to life behind bars for the double homicide in 1998 of singer Fabio Tollis and his girlfriend Chiara Marino.

The group had apparently believed that Marino, who was stabbed to death under a full moon, was the personification of the Virgin Mary. She was 19.

Tollis, 16, took a fatal hammer blow to the head after trying to prevent her murder.

Sapone covered Tollis's mouth with a chestnut husk to silence him and also slit his throat in what Italian media called "an orgy" of bloodletting. The band pushed the dead bodies into a pit and urinated on them.

Four other followers of the band received sentences of between 24 and 26 years.

The convictions were the latest for members and followers of Beasts of Satan, and followed the high-profile conviction of band leader Andrea Volpe, who received a lighter, 30-year sentence after leading authorities to the bodies and confessing to the killings.

Band members were also convicted for murdering Volpe's ex-girlfriend Mariangela Pezzotta in 2004. She was shot in the mouth and her body mutilated.

The Satanic killings sparked fears in Italy of a spread of devil cults, and the Vatican last year started a course for Roman Catholic priests on Satanism and exorcism in response to what the Church said was a worrying interest in the occult, particularly among the young.

Find more on
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).