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Britain's Most Evil Killers S02E10 Danilo Restivo
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00:01In 2002 in Bournemouth on the south coast of England,
00:05police were called to the scene of a disturbance
00:08in a residential street.
00:10Two young children were distraught
00:12and being comforted by a neighbor.
00:14When the police entered the house,
00:16they found the mother horrifically murdered.
00:19Her body has been mutilated,
00:22but bizarrely in her hands are cut head hair.
00:26It's cut head hair, but it's not her hair.
00:29It's hair which is alien from that scene.
00:32The murderer had conned his way into his victim's house,
00:36attacked and killed the woman, then mutilated her body.
00:40His name was Danilo Restivo.
00:43Most people, when they've committed a murder,
00:45they want to get as far away from that body as possible,
00:48as quickly as possible.
00:50But this is somebody who enjoys spending time with the body
00:53and mutilating it.
00:55This has a fetishistic, uh,
01:01an almost sadistic element above and beyond
01:04the usual simple motives for homicide.
01:07But police discovered that this was not the first time
01:11he had killed.
01:12Their investigation revealed Danilo Restivo
01:15to be one of Britain's most evil killers.
01:19on the 12th of November 2002,
01:24Bournemouth police had received a 999 call
01:28from a terrified 14-year-old
01:30and his 11-year-old sister.
01:32They had returned home from school
01:33to find their mother's body mutilated in the bathroom.
01:35The investigating officer was Phil James.
01:37The police were called at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
01:39The, uh, initial response would be made by uniform police officers
01:44from a terrified 14-year-old and his 11-year-old sister.
01:49They had returned home from school
01:51to find their mother's body mutilated in the bathroom.
01:56The investigating officer was Phil James.
01:59The police were called at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
02:03The initial response would be made by uniformed police officers
02:07as soon as they realized it was a murder.
02:09I received a call, and I drove to Bournemouth,
02:11and I took command of that murder investigation.
02:16The woman was a local seamstress,
02:1848-year-old Heather Barnett.
02:21Her children had returned home from school
02:23and expected to find her.
02:25When they received no response to their arrival,
02:28the children searched the house
02:30and found their mother's mutilated body.
02:34When we look at the mutilation of Heather's body,
02:37both of her breasts have been cut off.
02:39She's got some hair in her hand.
02:41There's a glove down by her underwear.
02:45So what's happened here is that this offender
02:48has completely humiliated his victim.
02:51He's taken the very kind of symbols of her femininity,
02:55her breasts, and taken that away.
02:57So this is a very distinct signature.
03:00It's an incredibly unique thing.
03:03The killer was Heather's neighbor,
03:0530-year-old Danilo Restivo.
03:08When police arrived at the scene,
03:10they found Restivo and his girlfriend
03:12comforting his victim's children.
03:15They'd been, uh, uh, befriended by the two, uh, Italians
03:20from across the road who ended up becoming extremely significant
03:24to the inquiry.
03:25Although he would soon become their prime suspect
03:28in this seemingly random killing, police were unable to prove
03:33Restivo was responsible.
03:35It would take another eight years
03:37till Restivo could finally be charged with Heather's murder.
03:41Due to the extreme nature of the killing,
03:44police were determined never to let him out of their sight.
03:47We never left that case.
03:50Even as the years progressed, you worked long, hard days,
03:55and you were always thinking about that case, you know,
04:00about the children, about the horrific scene,
04:03and about that always, the ongoing risk that this man,
04:07who was walking about, driving about Bournemouth,
04:10presented to the public.
04:13By the time Restivo was finally caught and faced trial
04:17for the murder of Heather Barnett,
04:19the police had already uncovered connections
04:21to another murder in Italy.
04:24The sensational case made headlines across the globe.
04:28This was truly an horrendous and distressing murder
04:32that took away a person that was very special
04:35to many, many people.
04:38He was sentenced to a minimum of 40 years in prison.
04:42I remember after that, after he was found guilty later that day,
04:47there wasn't massive celebrations.
04:49It was just, at last, you know, we've done it for the family.
04:54Restivo may have finally faced judge and jury in the UK,
05:00but this killer's story begins in Italy in 1972.
05:05He was born in Sicily, and his family later moved to Potenza
05:09in southern Italy.
05:12Potenza is a small Italian city,
05:14which is quite a way away from all the other cities,
05:18not just geographically, but also culturally.
05:21This is a city where the church is very influential.
05:25His family were amongst the great and good of Potenza,
05:29so he grew up in quite a privileged position.
05:32His family were quite powerful.
05:34His father was the director of the local branch
05:37of the National Library.
05:40He was quite an influential figure
05:42within the local community.
05:44If you would say his father's name,
05:46everybody would know who that was.
05:48It was clear from a very young age
05:51that Restivo was different from other children in Potenza.
05:55Well, Restivo, as a child, he had glasses.
05:58He was quite podgy.
06:00He's the kind of boy who would have been the target
06:02for bullies at school.
06:04He was the kind of boy
06:05who would never really fit in with his peers.
06:08But I think in those early days,
06:11he got a sense that, I'm an outsider.
06:14I'm not one of this group,
06:16so I'm gonna make up my own rules.
06:19He was awkward as well in the way he talked to women,
06:22which is, it's hard for you to try to talk to somebody
06:26when you look awkward and you act awkward.
06:30Aged 21, Restivo became obsessed with a young girl.
06:36In 1993, he was a young guy,
06:40and it was clear he had an infatuation
06:42for a girl called Elisa Claps.
06:44Elisa Claps was 16, and she had said to friends
06:48that Restivo was becoming a bit of a problem,
06:51that he was chasing after her.
06:53Elisa may have been irritated by Restivo's attention,
06:58but one Sunday, she was willing to meet him
07:00at the local church.
07:02She's a good, kind person,
07:04and there are many stories of her going out of her way
07:06to help other people in the community.
07:10And I think she's somebody who feels quite sympathetic
07:13towards Restivo.
07:14She sees this lad who is an outcast
07:17who's sort of picked on and bullied by the people,
07:19and I think she feels a sense of kind of care towards him.
07:23So when he asks whether she would come and meet him,
07:27she goes along with it because she doesn't,
07:29for a million years, think that his intentions are bad.
07:34On a particular Sunday, she had arranged to meet up with him
07:38outside of the church in Potenza
07:40in order that she could say to him,
07:42look, I don't want a relationship with you.
07:45I don't want to go out with you,
07:46and can you leave me alone?
07:48Elisa was seen going to meet Restivo in the church,
07:52but that was the last time she was ever seen alive.
07:56Both Elisa and Restivo went to that church.
08:01Restivo left and returned home,
08:04and Elisa was never seen again.
08:06Concerned for Elisa's safety,
08:09her family reported her missing to the police.
08:13There were quite a lot of conspiracy theories
08:15that developed around her disappearance,
08:17and one of them related to a page in her diary
08:21which was missing,
08:23and it was thought that the words
08:25that were on that page were in Albanian.
08:28So there was this idea that she'd been kidnapped
08:30by this Albanian criminal gang,
08:32and innocent girl just completely vanishes
08:34off the face of the earth.
08:36It's rife for speculation.
08:39The local police were called by the family
08:41to investigate her disappearance.
08:44A number of inquiries were made to find her.
08:47She was never found,
08:49and she was considered a missing person.
08:52However, there were a number of complications or issues
08:56which the Italian police were not overly concerned
08:59about following up.
09:00We know, for example, that sometime after Elisa went missing,
09:05she supposedly sent an e-mail to her family saying,
09:09Hi, I've left the country.
09:11I'm not here any longer.
09:12Don't worry about me.
09:13I'm having a new life.
09:15Everything's wonderful.
09:17And just forget about me.
09:19A number of inquiries were made in relation to that,
09:22and that e-mail wasn't sent from abroad.
09:25It was sent from an internet cafe in Potenza,
09:28and it was sent at a time when Restivo was in that internet cafe.
09:33During the investigation,
09:35the local police missed some vital clues
09:38that could have quickly led them to Restivo.
09:42He had a history of taking young girls behind a curtain
09:46and up to the first floor in the church.
09:49There was an injury on his hand, um,
09:51around about the time of her disappearance,
09:53and none of this was really scrutinized.
09:55None of it was really looked into by the police.
09:59The family did not know it yet,
10:01but 21-year-old Restivo had, in fact, killed Elisa
10:05and entombed her within the walls of the church.
10:08It would take nearly 17 years for her body to be found.
10:12Restivo now had a taste for killing.
10:15But knowing he was suspected by Elisa's family in Italy,
10:19his next murder would be in the UK.
10:31Danilo Restivo would eventually be convicted
10:35of the murder of 16-year-old Elisa Claps in Italy in 1993.
10:40But it would take nearly 18 years
10:43to bring him to justice.
10:46What was known by the people in the small town of Potenza
10:49where he grew up was that, as a young man,
10:51Restivo would chase after young girls in unusual ways.
10:58He approaches them, and when they reject him,
11:01he turns on them, essentially, and he calls them,
11:04and he plays the theme tune of his favorite film,
11:07Profondo Rosso, which is quite scary, quite intimidating music.
11:11And this is a really odd thing to be doing.
11:14But what he's trying to do is trying to instill fear
11:17in these girls.
11:18He's trying to say, oh, well, you've rejected me,
11:20so I'm now going to play a bit of a game with you.
11:24And I think that really does just tell us
11:27about his underlying psychopathy.
11:29He's somebody who likes playing with people.
11:31Restivo became obsessed with one girl in particular,
11:36Elisa Claps.
11:37But when she rejected Restivo's romantic approaches,
11:41he reacted in the most extreme way.
11:44Unbeknownst to her family and the police,
11:47Restivo had in fact killed her and hidden her body in 1993.
11:52At the time, the police considered Elisa a missing person
11:55as her body was not found.
11:57That, along with some legal obstacles,
12:00meant the investigation in Italy was halted.
12:03Rumors were rife that this was because of Restivo's family
12:07and their connections with the police and the authorities.
12:11In Italy, certain positions within a town
12:13are considered high-powered and influential,
12:16and Restivo's father was the chief librarian.
12:20And in Italy, the chief librarian is a significant
12:23and powerful individual.
12:25To Danilo Restivo,
12:27it seemed like he'd got away with murder,
12:30but Elisa's family never gave up.
12:32Since Restivo was the last person to have seen her alive,
12:36he was suspected by much of the town
12:39as having something to do with her disappearance.
12:42Being under observation, Restivo was unable to chase women
12:46to fulfill his unusual passions.
12:49In 2002, he turned 30 and decided
12:52to begin a new chapter of his life in Bournemouth
12:55in the south of England.
12:57I think when Restivo arrives in the UK,
12:59he is a very dangerous individual
13:01because he's never faced any consequences for his actions.
13:04He's in a country where nobody knows his history,
13:07nobody can join the dots together,
13:09so he really is like a kid in a sweet shop.
13:12He's got every opportunity to continue offending,
13:15and nobody really knows his background.
13:18Restivo met an Italian woman on the Internet,
13:22and he quickly moved in with her.
13:24They lived on a suburban street in Bournemouth.
13:27She's an older woman. She has a disability.
13:30She's more of a mother figure to him,
13:32and she treats him as if he's a son.
13:35She looks after him. She cooks his meals.
13:37So he's stepping into his well-established role
13:41as this child in a different location.
13:45Restivo's new home was opposite
13:47that of 48-year-old seamstress Heather Barnett.
13:51Just six months after moving in on the 6th of November, 2002,
13:55he went to visit Heather.
13:57He claimed he wanted her to do some work for him.
14:00Mr. Restivo had been over and asked if she would make
14:04a set of curtains for him as a Christmas present
14:07for his then-partner, and you think, well,
14:11that's a pretty strange Christmas present
14:13for a man to give a woman.
14:15Restivo had been discussing the work with Heather.
14:18However, Restivo wasn't interested in curtains.
14:21Instead, he identified Heather as his next victim.
14:25On the 12th of November, 2002,
14:29he paid his neighbor another visit.
14:33They'd gone through to the back of the property,
14:37which was her room for doing her sewing
14:40and seamstress-type work,
14:42and from there it appears that she tried
14:44to make an escape from the individual.
14:47Things were knocked over.
14:48She'd moved through into the lounge
14:50where he'd obviously caught hold of her
14:52and he'd hit her several times with a hammer.
14:54Her skull was fractured
14:56and she would have been dead in the lounge
14:59very shortly afterwards.
15:02From that point, she was dragged through the lounge,
15:06through the hallway, and into a bathroom.
15:10Restivo had brutally murdered Heather in her own home.
15:14He then placed a lock of hair in her hand.
15:17Curiously, it was not Heather's hair.
15:21Restivo's callousness did not end there.
15:25He then mutilated Heather's body.
15:29He cut the breasts off and placed them behind Heather's head.
15:33He also mutilated the rest of the body quite badly.
15:37This maybe would show that his obsession was not simply the hair,
15:44but possibly the cutting of hair and cutting itself
15:49to cut someone's skin would possibly have also excited him.
15:56A few hours later, police arrived at the scene.
15:59They were greeted by Restivo and his partner,
16:02who were looking after Heather's two young children.
16:05Well, the children discovered their mother's body,
16:09and not only that, but Restivo was one of the first people
16:13on the scene and appeared to be comforting them.
16:16But this isn't particularly surprising to me.
16:18When you have an offender like Restivo,
16:20he's quite proud of what he's done.
16:23So it's not enough for him to mutilate his victim's body.
16:27He wants to see the impact of his actions
16:29on the people around the victim,
16:31and that is enhancing his enjoyment
16:34and enhancing his sense of power over these people.
16:40Other than Heather's son and daughter,
16:42Restivo and his partner were the only people present at the scene.
16:47Restivo was very keen to point out to the police
16:50that he'd been out all that day
16:52before discovering the distraught children in the street.
16:56We started to look at Mr. Restivo,
16:59but from the very beginning, we were being told
17:01he had a strong alibi that explained where he was all day.
17:05So immediately, you think, well, it can't be him.
17:09So you start to look at other areas.
17:11And it wasn't until other issues started to develop
17:15with Mr. Restivo that it was necessary to go back
17:18and look at his alibi and say, how strong is this alibi?
17:24Regardless of this, the police made Restivo
17:27the center of their investigation.
17:30Because he'd been at the scene, in any case,
17:32we were interested.
17:33We wanted his DNA so that we could either implicate
17:36or eliminate him from those inquiries.
17:38We started to ask questions about his relationship,
17:41if he knew Heather, what involvement he had with Heather.
17:45It became clear that Restivo had previously met Heather
17:49to discuss making some curtains.
17:52So when he arrived on the doorstep to kill her,
17:55he was welcomed into the house.
17:57Mr. Restivo had spent a great deal of time
18:01considering what he was going to do.
18:04He must have planned that murder in great detail.
18:10It was Restivo's meticulous attention to detail
18:13that police hope to take advantage of
18:16and use it to connect him to the murder.
18:20Her body has been mutilated,
18:22but bizarrely, in her hands are cut head hair.
18:26It's cut head hair, but it's not her hair.
18:29It's hair which is alien from that scene.
18:33So you're trying to understand why somebody
18:37who's going to murder somebody
18:39has brought with them hair to a murder scene.
18:44In Heather's left hand was a lock of her own hair.
18:48In the right, a lock of someone unknown's hair.
18:51This strange obsession with hair would eventually lead
18:55to Restivo's downfall.
18:57Well, many people would describe Restivo as a trickophile.
19:01He's got an obsession with hair.
19:03Paraphilia is a sexual attraction towards an inanimate object
19:07or a non-consenting party.
19:08Because when you cut somebody's hair
19:10and you take a piece of that hair,
19:12you're taking part of them,
19:14and it's making you feel quite powerful.
19:16But this is really odd behavior.
19:18It's incredibly abnormal behavior.
19:22When police searched Heather's house,
19:24they found plenty of evidence.
19:27There was a lot of blood about,
19:29and the training shoes worn by the killer
19:32left trails of blood-splattered footprints around the house.
19:39But bizarrely, although they moved around the house,
19:42they never left and went to the front door of the property.
19:48By carrying out forensic tests,
19:50could work out that the killer had moved around the house
19:55to a point in the lounge where there was a chair.
19:58And in our opinion, he had then changed his clothing.
20:03Police, however, were unable to connect Restivo to the killing.
20:08Restivo would be what we describe as forensically aware.
20:11That means they know what sort of evidence they may be leaving.
20:16So he had the foresight to change his clothes.
20:22He had the foresight to change gloves.
20:24He had the foresight to try and get rid of blood stains using bleach.
20:29He was aware of the sort of things that could be found
20:33that could link him to a crime,
20:35and he was doing what he could to prevent that happening.
20:38He comes extremely well-prepared.
20:41He has a plan. He executes that plan.
20:44And then he leaves the house in fresh clothes
20:47that aren't going to cause concern to any passers-by.
20:51The only thing out of place at the crime scene
20:54was a green towel found near the front door
20:57of Heather Barnett's house.
20:59We considered that the murderer had stopped,
21:02taken off his training shoes.
21:04Bizarrely, there was a chair and there was a green towel on it.
21:09That green towel had blood on it,
21:12but we always believed that that green towel was alien to that house.
21:18Our belief was that that wasn't their towel
21:21and that it had been brought there by the killer.
21:24That towel was a constant main line of inquiry
21:30in order to try and identify the killer by his DNA.
21:35We knew that Heather's blood was on that towel,
21:38but there was a mixed profile in that blood,
21:41so it meant to say there was the profile
21:43of at least two individuals.
21:46Despite their suspicions, police were not able to extract
21:49a DNA connection to Restivo,
21:52and they were unable to bring any charges against him at this time.
21:56Restivo felt he'd got away with murder again.
22:09In 1993, Danilo Restivo had murdered a young girl in Italy.
22:14Her body had never been found.
22:17Nine years later, he moved to the UK
22:20and killed and mutilated his neighbour,
22:23mother of two, Heather Barnett.
22:31The British police suspected that Restivo
22:33may have had some involvement in 48-year-old Heather's murder,
22:37but were unable to prove it.
22:40Restivo is somebody who's used to getting away with his crimes.
22:45This has been something that he's been doing for a very long time,
22:48both in his native Italy and in the UK as well,
22:52so this is somebody who feels untouchable.
22:54He's never had to face any consequences for his actions,
22:57so he's got no reason to believe that things are going to change,
23:00so he's just going to carry on regardless.
23:02By the end of 2002, police had identified Danilo Restivo
23:07as the prime suspect.
23:09They knew they were dealing with a dangerous man
23:11and were doing all they could to gather enough evidence
23:14to arrest him.
23:16We shortly came to the conclusion that Danilo Restivo
23:19was the person that killed Heather Barnett.
23:21He went over there during that morning and killed Heather Barnett,
23:25and then he knew that the persons that would find Heather
23:30are her two children, a 14-year-old and an 11-year-old,
23:35and that they would come back and find that scene.
23:39You know, that's beyond anybody's imagination
23:42and cruelty to do that.
23:45On arrival at the scene of the crime,
23:47one of the first things Restivo had done
23:50was to supply police with an alibi for the day,
23:53but on closer examination,
23:55what Restivo told them did not add up.
23:59He had gone to a place for unemployed people
24:01to learn computer skills,
24:03and the signing-in register showed
24:05that he'd signed in at a specific time,
24:08but when we looked at it again,
24:10the entry had been altered.
24:12It had been written over, so it said one time,
24:15and it also said another time,
24:17so it then indicated that perhaps
24:19that alibi wasn't as good as first thought.
24:22Restivo was their only suspect.
24:25When detectives began to uncover his past in Italy,
24:28their suspicions only grew stronger.
24:31It was about six months into that inquiry
24:34when one of the detectives working on the case
24:37came into my office and said,
24:39Boss, I need to speak to you.
24:41I've done a lot of research on the Internet,
24:43and we've managed to find details of a girl
24:47who went missing in Potenza in 1993,
24:50and there is a link to Daniello Restivo.
24:54Soon after, we started making inquiries
24:57about Elisa's death.
24:59But at this point, Elisa was still considered
25:02just a missing person by Italian police.
25:05It had not reached the stage of a murder inquiry.
25:09In the case of Eliza Claps,
25:11to start with, there wasn't even a body.
25:14Running a murder investigation,
25:16if you can't even prove somebody's dead,
25:18let alone how they died, is clearly far more difficult.
25:22There have been successful prosecutions with nobody,
25:25but they're much rarer.
25:27And in the UK, although there was a body,
25:30there was not enough hard evidence
25:32to arrest Restivo for murder.
25:35He was allowed to carry on his daily life.
25:38By March 2004, nearly two years after the murder,
25:42police were convinced Restivo was a danger to the community,
25:46so they put him under surveillance.
25:48Then, in May that same year,
25:51investigators got a break in the case.
25:54We followed Restivo for quite a while,
25:58and there was one specific incident
26:01that it still now chills me to think about it.
26:06He went down to an area called Throop,
26:09the edge of Bournemouth on the countryside,
26:11and on the morning in question,
26:13Restivo went down there.
26:15There were about half a dozen ladies on their own
26:18walking their dogs in this isolated area,
26:21and Restivo buried himself in a bush
26:24and was clearly watching these individuals.
26:27Everywhere he went,
26:29and the risk that he presented,
26:31we're always concerned,
26:33is today a day where he's going to kill another Heather Barnett?
26:37Is he walking around with a knife in his bag today?
26:42Well, when we look at Restivo's behavior
26:44when he's under surveillance,
26:45this is the height of summer.
26:46He's walking around with gloves on.
26:48He's got his hood up.
26:50He's got waterproof trousers on.
26:52He's filmed changing his clothes,
26:54and the police see that he's observing women
26:57from a distance as well.
26:58He's very clearly out hunting for women.
27:03Afraid that he was getting ready to kill again,
27:06the police moved in.
27:08I arranged for two uniform officers to go down, check him out.
27:12Mr. Restivo was wearing two sets of clothing.
27:15He had one set of clothing,
27:17and then he had another set on top,
27:19and a nylon waterproof jacket.
27:22So very similar to Heather's murder,
27:24where he's got...
27:25He took two sets of clothing with him and changed into one.
27:28He's down there in the same.
27:30The police stopped Restivo and searched his bag.
27:35In his rucksack, he had gloves.
27:38He had a filleting knife.
27:40He had other material in there,
27:42and it was just horrific.
27:45So he was brought in.
27:47He was arrested,
27:48but he explained everything.
27:50It was perfectly easy.
27:51You know, I was wearing two sets of clothing
27:54because I was exercising,
27:56and I want to lose some weight,
27:58and it helps me perspire.
28:00And I can't remember the explanation for the knife,
28:03but it was, oh, I've been somewhere,
28:04and I just happen to still have it in my bag.
28:06I've just bought it or something.
28:08And again, extremely concerning,
28:12but as far as the Crown Prosecution Service were concerned,
28:16it wasn't that final piece of the jigsaw,
28:18and it didn't prove Restivo had killed Heather Barnett.
28:23Again, Restivo could not be charged with murder.
28:27Police needed more evidence to pin him
28:29to the killing of Heather Barnett.
28:33I think Restivo became aware of the idea
28:36that the police were interested in him
28:39and that he could have been connected to the murder,
28:42but he had an explanation for every part
28:45of his bizarre behavior.
28:47He felt that he was in control of that information,
28:50and he actually did envision himself carrying on
28:53and committing further crimes.
28:56The police changed tack.
28:58They appealed to the public for more information.
29:01This time, they focused on the hair belonging
29:03to an unknown person found in Heather's right hand.
29:07Appeals were broadcast in the UK
29:10and in Restivo's hometown of Potenza and across Italy.
29:15And then you suddenly get a call, and they say,
29:17Hi, I'm such-and-such from Potenza.
29:20Daniel Restivo cut my hair once.
29:23I was sat in a cinema, and he was sat in the row behind,
29:26and he took some of my head hair and cut it and took it away.
29:29And somebody else was saying,
29:31Oh, yeah, that happened to me.
29:32Daniel Restivo was well-known for cutting women's hair.
29:35And when we came back and we started to ask the same question,
29:38the question had people in Bournemouth had their hair cut.
29:41Women started to come forward to say,
29:44Yeah, in fact, I was on one of the Bournemouth yellow buses,
29:48and I had some hair cut.
29:50And I looked round, and there was a guy sat behind me.
29:53Or, I went to the hairdressers once, and she said,
29:57You've got a big chunk of hair missing from the back of your hair.
30:00When has that happened?
30:01Restivo actually developed a paraphilia for hair.
30:06This may have been some originating situation
30:10where he felt, you know, sexually excited, et cetera,
30:13over contact with hair.
30:15His victims had their hair cut, often from behind.
30:19He wasn't in the social world.
30:21He was in a very focused, obsessive world.
30:24In June 2004, the police questioned Restivo again.
30:30This time, they asked him specifically
30:32about his hair cutting activities.
30:35The investigators were hoping to connect Restivo
30:38to the hair found in Heather's hand
30:40at the murder scene two years earlier.
30:44We put Daniella Restivo on an identification parade,
30:48and in two instances, those women picked Daniella Restivo out
30:53as the man who had sat behind them on a local bus,
30:57cut their hair, and then got off the bus.
30:59So we always knew he had a hair fetish.
31:02We knew that he'd brought alien head hair into the murder scene
31:08and left it in Heather's hand.
31:11Restivo said that when he held these women's hair in his hand,
31:15he said everything is visible and that he could see everything.
31:20It's making him realize, I can take a piece of these women,
31:23and I can possess them.
31:26He's got a real kind of a grandiose sense of himself,
31:30a real kind of elevated sense of his own power here.
31:34But all this evidence was circumstantial
31:37and was still not enough to convince the courts
31:40that Restivo could be charged with Heather's murder.
31:43This man is truly evil.
31:46He prepared some time in advance to kill this lovely single lady
31:55who's bringing up two lovely children.
31:58He killed her in the most horrific manner, mutilating her body,
32:03and knowing the most evil part of him is he knew
32:08that the people that would find their mother mutilated
32:12in the worst possible way was her two young children.
32:17Are you telling me that somebody who could do that is not evil?
32:22Restivo was released yet again without charge.
32:26To prove him guilty, the police needed to connect Restivo
32:30to the crime scene.
32:32Their hopes rested on the green towel with blood splatters
32:36that was found in Heather's hallway the day she was murdered.
32:40But to make the case against Restivo,
32:43they had a major hurdle to overcome.
32:46The forensic technology and the forensic advances weren't there,
32:51but we kept going back to that green towel and saying,
32:54how can we develop or separate out that mixed profile?
32:59And it did take a number of years before forensic science advanced,
33:04and we were able to do that.
33:07Police would finally connect Restivo directly to Heather's murder,
33:13but it would take the discovery of a body in Italy
33:16to bring this murderer to justice.
33:24In 2002, Danilo Restivo had murdered and mutilated his neighbour in Bournemouth.
33:35And it was suspected he had also killed a girl from the same small town
33:40in his home country of Italy.
33:43But in that case, a body had never been found.
33:46By 2008, it looked like Restivo had got away with both murders.
33:54What lies behind Restivo's motivation to kill and mutilate women
33:59is a sense of power.
34:01So he does so in the most extreme way,
34:04in killing them and mutilating them and using their hair
34:08as something that he has that's part of them.
34:11Police in Dorset had already found a connection between Restivo
34:16and several cases of women having had their hair cut off
34:19by a stranger in public.
34:21But it was a murder in Bournemouth in November of 2002
34:25that was their primary focus.
34:28In 2008, police re-examined a bloodstained green towel
34:33that they had found in the house of murder victim,
34:36seamstress Heather Barnett.
34:38Critically, the towel had two different types of DNA on it.
34:43It took some years for DNA analysis to progress to the stage
34:49where the material on the green towel,
34:52which we said Restivo had left at Heather Barnett's address,
34:55could be analysed and produce a profile
34:57which could be put forward as evidence.
35:02Then in 2008, we find that magic solution,
35:06and it's that final bit of that jigsaw where scientists say,
35:11look, we can now separate out those two bits of DNA,
35:15we can now separate heathers out,
35:19and we can identify whose DNA that is.
35:22And that DNA separated out from that towel
35:27belongs to Daniello Restivo.
35:29Finally, the investigators felt they had enough evidence
35:33to charge Restivo with the murder of Heather Barnett.
35:37To make certain, they also needed to tie Restivo
35:40to the murder of 16-year-old Elisa Claps back in Italy in 1993.
35:46But with no body found,
35:48all they had were their suspicions.
35:51Elisa was still classed as a missing person.
35:54Then in March of 2010, a remarkable discovery was made
35:59that would seal the case and Restivo's fate.
36:03At the stage when Restivo was first charged,
36:06Elisa Claps' body had not, in fact, been found,
36:09and so he proceeded purely on the UK evidence.
36:12However, on the 17th of March, 2010,
36:16Elisa's body was discovered in the loft in the church in Potenza,
36:20where, in fact, it had been since she disappeared
36:23on the 12th of September, 1993.
36:26When Elisa's body was found in the church
36:30that Daniello and Elisa had met outside of and had been in,
36:35it was decided that myself and another officer
36:38would immediately fly over to Italy
36:41to try and work with the Italian police,
36:44because we wanted to look at the similarities
36:47between the murder scene of Elisa and our murder scene,
36:52because, as far as we were concerned,
36:54Daniela Restivo had murdered both individuals.
36:57We were allowed to go down to Salerno,
37:01which is the main city near Potenza.
37:03We were allowed to see the videos
37:05and we were allowed to speak to some of the scientists,
37:08and lo and behold, there were things like hair in Elisa's hand,
37:13the same as there were in...in Heather's case,
37:16and it started to make a bit more sense.
37:21So, Restivo's signature is quite evident in both cases.
37:25So, both of the women have hair in their hands.
37:28Both of them have their trousers pulled down.
37:31So, this is quite a distinct thing in itself.
37:35Here is a case where the offender has spent time
37:38with both of these victims, but the crucial difference for me
37:41is that whilst Eliza's body was hidden,
37:44Heather's body was displayed.
37:46He got to the point in his offending here
37:48where he's saying, hey, look at me.
37:50So, this is somebody who's evolved over time,
37:53and it's really, really concerning.
37:55This is somebody who's not going to stop unless they're caught.
38:00The UK police could not charge Restivo
38:02in relation to the murder of Elisa Claps,
38:05as the crime was committed in Italy
38:07and so out of their territory.
38:10But connecting Restivo to the murder of Elisa
38:13solidified their case
38:15in regard to the murder of Heather Barnett.
38:18Even though he'd never been tried in Italy for that crime,
38:21we had used all the evidence
38:23in relation to Elisa Claps' murder
38:25in order to prove him guilty of Heather Barnett's murder.
38:29Finally, in May 2011, Danilo Restivo went to court
38:35charged with the murder of Heather Barnett.
38:39We've arrested Danilo Restivo on a number of occasions,
38:42and we've always also lived with the concern
38:45that he's also so dangerous he's likely to kill again,
38:48and eventually the case is solved,
38:50and we've got that magic solution,
38:52and we've got that final piece of the jigsaw.
38:54It had been a long battle,
38:57but in the end, the murder Restivo had committed in 1993
39:02and thought he had got away with
39:04was to be the deciding factor
39:06when he faced judge and jury.
39:09The police were having quite a hard time of it,
39:11getting enough evidence together
39:13to be able to meet that threshold,
39:16to be able to secure a conviction,
39:19but then when Elisa's body was discovered,
39:21you've got these two women thousands of miles
39:24and 17 years apart,
39:25but they're connected by one thing,
39:27and that's Restivo.
39:29He had always thought he was cleverer than everybody else,
39:32but now that didn't matter.
39:35He wasn't cleverer than everybody else.
39:37He wasn't cleverer than us.
39:38We had beaten him, and we'd solved the case,
39:41and because the evidence was so powerful and overwhelming,
39:46it did make him look like an idiot
39:48in terms of some of his responses,
39:50whereas before, he could show that bluster
39:52and he could say, it's not me.
39:54Well, when he said that now, it was meaningless
39:56because the evidence was overwhelming
39:58and it did prove it was him.
40:01The jury unanimously found Restivo guilty
40:04of Heather Barnett's murder.
40:06Of course, they could not return a verdict
40:07in relation to Elisa Claps
40:09because Restivo is an Italian subject
40:11and therefore could not be charged with her murder.
40:14The jury retired and returned the verdict
40:17on the same day,
40:19and thereafter, Restivo was sentenced.
40:22There is, of course, satisfaction
40:24that justice has been done,
40:26but I think really an overwhelming feeling of sadness
40:29that two people had died wholly unnecessarily
40:32to satisfy his lust for killing.
40:36Heather Barnett was a local woman
40:38in Bournemouth.
40:39She was a mother to two children,
40:41and that's one of the things that I find quite annoying
40:44about cases like Restivo.
40:46When you've got such a grotesque
40:48and such a unique murderer,
40:50there's a tendency to forget the victims,
40:53and they become known as the victims of Restivo.
40:56These two women, Elisa and Heather,
40:59were individuals in their own right.
41:01They had lives, they had families, they had futures,
41:04and that was callously taken away by Restivo.
41:09In June 2011, Restivo was given a whole life sentence
41:14for the murder of Heather Barnett.
41:16He later appealed and was given a life sentence
41:19and ordered to serve a minimum of 40 years.
41:22Meanwhile, in Italy in November 2011,
41:27a court in Salerno found Danilo Restivo in his absence,
41:31guilty of the murder of 16-year-old Elisa Claps in 1993.
41:37With someone like Restivo, with that very specific MO,
41:43with two cases so far apart and so similar,
41:49there has to be more.
41:52We need to look very carefully
41:55into the past of Danilo Restivo
42:00because he must have struck elsewhere.
42:03Since his imprisonment,
42:05Restivo's name has been linked with other murders,
42:08but no charges have been brought.
42:13However, the horrific murders of both Elisa Claps
42:16and Heather Barnett
42:18have shown that Danilo Restivo
42:20is one of Britain's most evil killers.
42:43of the world's most evil killers.
42:50One of the most evil killers,
42:52is that Danilo Restivo,
43:06the world's most evil killers.
43:08Fourth attack is the best place in the world of Africa,