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Bodies of Two Teenagers Missing Since 1998 Are Found in Italian Woods, Tied to the "Beasts of Satan"

Fabio Tollis and Chiara Marino vanished on a night out near Milan. Prosecutors say members of a satanist group killed them, years before the murder that exposed it.

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Illustration of forensic investigators kneeling by taped-off ground in a green woodland, a shovel against a tree. Not an actual scene from the case.

For six years, no one knew what had happened to Fabio Tollis and Chiara Marino. In June 2004, Italian media reported that their bodies had been found in a pit in the woods near Varese, and prosecutors blamed a satanist group.

Carabinieri from Varese found the bodies of Tollis, 16, of Cologno Monzese, and Marino, 19, of Corsico, in a pit about seven feet deep in the woods at Somma Lombardo, la Repubblica reported on June 5. "The two were killed in the course of a satanic ritual," said Antonio Pizzi, the chief prosecutor of Busto Arsizio. The couple had left Tollis's home on January 17, 1998, heading for a flea market in Milan. That evening they phoned their parents to say they would be home by 1 a.m., and were never seen again. Tollis, a drummer in a small band, was a follower of satanic rock music, and the search for the couple had followed that lead to concerts in Liguria and later to Campania.

The breakthrough came from the inquiry into the murder of Mariangela Pezzotta, 27, who was killed on January 24, 2004, at a chalet in Golasecca. Three people were in jail over her death: her former boyfriend, Andrea Volpe; his new girlfriend, Elisabetta Ballarin; and Nicola Sapone, a friend of Volpe's who played guitar with him in a satanic heavy rock band. The group called itself the Beasts of Satan. According to la Repubblica, Volpe and another member, Pietro Guerrieri, confessed to the double killing. Investigators were told that Tollis was killed because he refused at the last minute to take part in Marino's killing. Sapone, 27, was described as the group's ringleader, and investigators believed Pezzotta may have been killed after learning of the 1998 murders. They also reopened files on four other deaths.

On January 31, 2006, the Court of Assizes in Busto Arsizio convicted Sapone and four others. Sapone received two life sentences; Paolo Leoni and Marco Zampollo were sentenced to 26 years, Eros Monterosso to 24 years and Ballarin to 24 years and three months.

The Guardian reported that the bodies were unearthed in May, while la Repubblica said on June 5 that they had been found in recent days.

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