Man, 34, held in Turin on suspicion of killing Nigerian prostitute after police discover potentially incriminating manuscript
By Tom Kington
In Basic Instinct,
Sharon Stone’s character describes a murder in a novel which is then
committed in real life. Photograph: Moviestore Collection/Rex Features
A philosophy graduate and would-be novelist who wrote a tortured
story about a young man who murdered a Nigerian prostitute in Turin has
been arrested on suspicion of carrying out an almost identical killing
in real life.
Daniele Ughetto Piampaschet, 34, has denied murdering Anthonia Egbuna, 20, and dumping her body in the river Po in November 2011, even though details of her death are eerily echoed by his typed manuscript entitled The Rose and the Lion, in which the protagonist kills a Nigerian prostitute rather than share her with other men, believing it "the only way to preserve her purity intact."
In a case reminiscent of the 1992 film Basic Instinct, police found the nine-page manuscript among Egbuna's possessions and traced it back to Piampaschet, a regular customer who had become obsessively jealous of her, investigators believe.
In letters found alongside the manuscript, Piampaschet wrote to Egbuna: "I love you but I am tired of your work ... When will you leave the streets? Please, leave them, we can earn money differently."
In his story, the prostitute, who is also called Anthonia, and the protagonist, a young man who lives in the same area as Piampaschet, spend "carefree hours" together, but the man loses sleep dreaming of her other customers, "each one dirtier and more lurid than the next."
One night he arrives to pick her up, they argue and she refuses to get into his car. Enraged, the man forces her to climb in and then strangles her behind a bush on the same street in Turin where the real-life Anthonia worked.
Piampaschet, who was formerly married to another Nigerian woman, was living with his parents and unemployed at the time of the murder. This summer he travelled to London to work as a volunteer at the Olympics.
Using mobile-phone records, police discovered he called Egbuna 1,900 times last year. The last call was on 28 November, the date police believe he killed Egbuna, whose body was recovered from the Po in February.
In contrast to Piampaschet's story, she had been stabbed 20 times, not strangled.
Investigators believe that Egbuna was sending regular sums of money back to relatives in Nigeria and had no intention of giving up her work. Piampaschet may have written his story to flesh out his fledgling plans for murder or as a warning to Egbuna.
Piampaschet's fictional protagonist is unable to face life after killing Anthonia and commits suicide. The real life Piampaschet is instead in jail, where he has claimed that the similarities between his manuscript and the murder are coincidence. "I have written about the lives of other Nigerian prostitutes and nothing happened to them," he told investigators.
In Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone's character describes an ice-pick murder in a novel which is then committed in real life, making her the prime suspect.
If convicted, Piampaschet will not be the first writer caught out describing a murder he committed. Krystian Bala, a Polish novelist, was sentenced to 25 years in 2007 for murdering a businessman seven years earlier after police investigating him spotted parallels between the murder and Bala's 2003 novel, Amok.
Daniele Ughetto Piampaschet, 34, has denied murdering Anthonia Egbuna, 20, and dumping her body in the river Po in November 2011, even though details of her death are eerily echoed by his typed manuscript entitled The Rose and the Lion, in which the protagonist kills a Nigerian prostitute rather than share her with other men, believing it "the only way to preserve her purity intact."
In a case reminiscent of the 1992 film Basic Instinct, police found the nine-page manuscript among Egbuna's possessions and traced it back to Piampaschet, a regular customer who had become obsessively jealous of her, investigators believe.
In letters found alongside the manuscript, Piampaschet wrote to Egbuna: "I love you but I am tired of your work ... When will you leave the streets? Please, leave them, we can earn money differently."
In his story, the prostitute, who is also called Anthonia, and the protagonist, a young man who lives in the same area as Piampaschet, spend "carefree hours" together, but the man loses sleep dreaming of her other customers, "each one dirtier and more lurid than the next."
One night he arrives to pick her up, they argue and she refuses to get into his car. Enraged, the man forces her to climb in and then strangles her behind a bush on the same street in Turin where the real-life Anthonia worked.
Piampaschet, who was formerly married to another Nigerian woman, was living with his parents and unemployed at the time of the murder. This summer he travelled to London to work as a volunteer at the Olympics.
Using mobile-phone records, police discovered he called Egbuna 1,900 times last year. The last call was on 28 November, the date police believe he killed Egbuna, whose body was recovered from the Po in February.
In contrast to Piampaschet's story, she had been stabbed 20 times, not strangled.
Investigators believe that Egbuna was sending regular sums of money back to relatives in Nigeria and had no intention of giving up her work. Piampaschet may have written his story to flesh out his fledgling plans for murder or as a warning to Egbuna.
Piampaschet's fictional protagonist is unable to face life after killing Anthonia and commits suicide. The real life Piampaschet is instead in jail, where he has claimed that the similarities between his manuscript and the murder are coincidence. "I have written about the lives of other Nigerian prostitutes and nothing happened to them," he told investigators.
In Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone's character describes an ice-pick murder in a novel which is then committed in real life, making her the prime suspect.
If convicted, Piampaschet will not be the first writer caught out describing a murder he committed. Krystian Bala, a Polish novelist, was sentenced to 25 years in 2007 for murdering a businessman seven years earlier after police investigating him spotted parallels between the murder and Bala's 2003 novel, Amok.
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