Early life[]
Simone Cassandra was born in 1974 in Bad Windsheim, a small town in Bavaria, to a family of Italian emigrants engaged in blacksmithing.[1] He had a childhood devoid of affection because of his father Enzo, a very serious man who was violent towards his children - his mother was unable to intervene, as she suffered from depression and had attempted suicide on at least three occasions due to being raped by her distant uncle at age 14. Shortly after Cassandra's birth, the family returned to Italy and settled in Norma, a town in the Province of Latina.[1]
At school, he had few friends due to his introversion and aggressive behavior, and regularly had be to treated at a local mental health center due to his issues. This treatment did not go as planned, as Cassandra avoided taking his prescribed medication and acted out violently, punching a girl he knew and killing one of the house cats by smashing its head with a stick. Reportedly, Cassandra had an IQ of 45, considered barely above the threshold for human intelligence.[1]
As he grew up, Cassandra earned himself the nicknames "'O Matto" and "Rambo" because of his restless and suspicious attitude, and his habit of speeding through the village streets on a beat-up moped.[2] Once he became of age, he served in the Air Force, after which he helped his father with the blacksmithing business.[2] In 1989, Cassandra's cousin Carlo Cappelletti was convicted alongside Maria Luigia Redoli for the murder of a man named Luciano Iacopi, for which both would be sentenced to life imprisonment. Later on, the two cousins' crimes would be noted in local media.[3]
Murders[]
At barely 21 years old, Cassandra was hired to steal chickens on a large scale at the behest of 66-year-old farmer Francesco Belmonte. Belmonte paid him and an accomplice, Emanuele Giordano, over 15,000 liras for each theft. However, in June 1995, a huge theft was pulled off against the farmer, who had 150 chickens stolen from him. Belmonte immediately suspected that Cassandra was responsible, threatening to kill the young man for stealing his chickens.[4] On 17 July 1995, Cassandra lured Belmonte to an old abandoned house outside Norma on the pretense that he had a young female friend ready to prostitute herself, but instead killed the old man by hitting him on the head with an iron bar. After the murder, he threw the corpse down a well.[1]
Shortly before the murder, Cassandra was told by Giordano's 17-year-old brother Franco that he had seen him together with Belmonte. This led Cassandra to convince himself that he should be killed as to avoid witnesses.[4] A few days later on 29 July, Cassandra asked Franco to help him fix a faulty radiator in a shack. As Giordano was reaching for a wrench, Cassandra bashed his head in with an iron bar and threw his body down the same well where he disposed of Belmonte's body.[1]
Cassandra was known and admired by several children in the area because of his peculiar and over-the-top attitude. One of them was 11-year-old Edoardo Novata, who on 27 August met Cassandra in the village square and revealed to him that several people had seen him in the company of Belmonte and Giordano before they disappeared, saying that he would likely end up in jail.[1] Cassandra begged the young boy not to tell anyone, but realized that Novata likely intended to hand him over to the carabinieri. That same evening, after 9 PM, while conversing with Novata in front of a tobacconist's, Cassandra got the young boy into his car so they could go steal some pipes. While Novata was unscrewing the pipes, Cassandra hit him on the head with an iron bar, killing him on the spot.[4] He then transported the body to another well that was narrower and deeper than the previous one, where he threw the young boy's body.[4]
About an hour and a half after the murder, Cassandra came across Anna Novata, Edoardo's sister, who was looking for her brother. When asked if he had seen Edoardo, Cassandra responded that he had supposedly seen him with some friends outside the village, supposedly smiling in an eerie manner while doing so. However, when she questioned said friends, Anna realized that Cassandra was the last person seen with her brother - when she went to knock on his door, she was turned away by Cassandra's father Enzo.
Arrest, trial and imprisonment[]
On the evening of 29 August, Cassandra planned to kill his former accomplice Emanuele Giordano in a meeting between him and a financier friend from Sicily. The meeting did not occur because his moped broke down, and then Cassandra, left alone with the financier, spontaneously confessed to killing Belmonte and Franco Giordano, even pointing out where he hid the bodies.[4] Although the financier was unable to see the bodies due to the darkness, he nonetheless alerted the carabinieri and had Cassandra arrested. Cassandra confessed to the crimes on the next day, but remained silent when asked about Novata. In the end, he directed authorities to both of the wells, remaining impassive at the sight of little Edoardo's corpse.[1]
Cassandra was later charged with three counts of murder and concealment of a corpse, and tried in a summary judgment.[5] The trial hinged on the defendant's mental illness, and he was initially sentenced to 10 years of psychiatric care after he was judged to be severely mentally impaired. This sentence was amended on appeal, with the court ruling that whil he suffered from paranoid psychosis, he was still lucid while carrying out the crimes.[6] As a result, Cassandra's sentence was changed to 26 years imprisonment and 3 years of intensive psychiatric care.[7]
Following his conviction, Cassandra served his sentence at the Rebibbia Prison. After a number of successful reductions of his sentence, he was released in December 2015, and his current whereabouts are unknown.[7]
Victims[]
| Name | Age | Date of Death | Cause of Death |
|---|---|---|---|
| Francesco Belmonte | 66 | 17 July 1995 | Bludgeoning |
| Franco Giordano | 17 | 29 July 1995 | Bludgeoning |
| Edoardo Novata | 11 | 27 August 1995 | Bludgeoning |
Timeline[]
Bibliography[]
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Notes[]
- ↑ Present-day Germany
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Gianluigi Nuzzi (27 June 2022). The Killer Who Didn't Understand What Killing Meant (Italian). La Stampa. Archived from the original on February 11, 2025.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "We all called him 'the devil, the fool' (Italian). L'Unita (1 September 1995).
- ↑ Mario Neri (18 January 2019). Circe's former lover now works as a street cleaner: "I know she's dead, but I don't talk about it" - Video (Italian). Il Tirreno. Archived from the original on March 22, 2025.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 The fear of being reported pushed him to bludgeon to death an elderly man and two boys (Italian). La Stampa (1 September 1995).
- ↑ Triple homicide in Norma (Italian). L'Unita (10 September 1995).
- ↑ For the experts, the Norma murderer is incapacitated (Italian). L'Unita (8 February 1996).
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Norma Serial Killer Simone Cassandra to be Free in December (Italian). Il Caffé (20 April 2015). Archived from the original on September 19, 2023.