Killed Nino Calabrò (26 years old from Barcelona) e Francesca Di Dio (21 years old from Montagnareale) with a bat and a kitchen knife. The 22 year old from Palermo Andrea Cardinale he is responsible for the double murder committed last December 21st in an apartment on Thornaby road, in north-eastern England.
Yesterday, in front of Teesside Crown Court, the boy admitted all his responsibilities, pleading guilty to manslaughter.
Judge Paul Watson sentenced him to an “indefinite hospital order” under the Mental Health Act, with a restraining order. As reported by the major English tabloids, Watson defined Cardinale’s gesture a «manifestation of his paranoid schizophrenia». Diagnosis supported by the evidence found by three forensic psychiatrists, according to which the young man would suffer from “acute paranoid schizophrenia”. Prof. also shares the same opinion. Donald Grubin of Newcastle University, consultant for the court, according to which “Cardinal’s unrecognized psychosis” was so acute that his culpability for the murder would be “minimal”.
A highly disturbed personality, on which English investigators had already shed light during the reconstruction of some episodes immediately preceding the double murder. On the night of December 21st the boy had stayed up late for search the internet for ways to break voodoo spells. Web searches also included “knife shops nearby” and “how to make bombs.”
According to the reconstruction of the public prosecutor Nick Dryshortly afterwards the break-in into the open room of the two engaged couples Nino and Francesca would take place. Armed with a bat and knife, with his face covered by a balaclava, Andrea Cardinale pounced on Nino, beating him to death“The extent of the damage,” pathologist Louise Mulcahy told the court, “suggests that he would not have survived more than half an hour.” Meanwhile, Francesca ran from the room to safety. CCTV cameras captured Cardinale chasing the girl upstairs, then dragging her into the basement. «The attack on Francesca – added Dr. Mulcahy – caused bleeding and lack of oxygen to the brain.” After killing the couple, Cardinale went to a nearby petrol station, where he purchased some diesel with the unsuccessful intention of setting fire to the apartment.
All the details in the Gazzetta del Sud – Messina edition on newsstands tomorrow