Three murders in Rome in a few hours. The victims were three women who, according to what has been learned, were prostitutes. The first double crime around 11 on Thursday 17 November in via Augusto Riboty. Here two Chinese citizens were stabbed to death. At 13 the third victim, Marta Castano Torres, a 65-year-old Colombian, was found lifeless and in a pool of blood in via Durazzo.
She was killed with a stab wound through the chest. She hitting, probably, only one hand. A “prostitute killer” currently wanted by the police. On the other hand, the time frame and the distance – about 800 meters divide the two crime scenarios – do not discard this track.
The Prati district has thus become a large crime scene with the investigators of the mobile team and the forensic specialists at work to reconstruct the puzzle and give a name and a face to whoever killed the three women.
VIDEOS | In Prati at the crime scene: residents in shock for the triple homicide
The double murder of the two Chinese women
The long trail of blood began in via Riboty. The alarm was raised around eleven o’clock by the porter of the building which crosses Piazzale Clodio, the road to the courthouse in Rome. On the second floor landing, the body of one of the two Chinese women. The victim was naked, in a pool of blood, outside the apartment. An element that would suggest that the victim was trying to escape from the aggressor.
Alerted, state police investigators rushed to via Riboty and found the second victim. Also a Chinese woman, found inside an apartment. The attention of those who investigate was struck by the fact that no one would have heard screams in the building. Among those present was also a mover who was working together with a colleague.
The two were carrying a refrigerator in the elevator: “I didn’t see or hear anything. We went up on foot and down the elevator. It must have happened in those minutes. We certainly didn’t hear any shots,” he told RomaToday. And actually the murder weapon would be a knife.
VIDEOS | Dead Chinese women, images from the double crime scene
The murder of Marta Castano Torres
Around 13, about two hours after the double murder of the two Chinese women, the third victim was found. This time in via Durazzo, at number 38. Marta Castano Torres, a 65-year-old Colombian, was killed with a blow that hit her full in the chest. A fatal blow. According to police findings, her body was lying in her bed. In this case, the alarm was raised by an acquaintance of the victim who found herself facing the macabre scene after opening the door of the apartment in the basement, of a building that crosses with via Gomenizza.
The trail of prostitution and the only killer
All three victims were prostitutes, as confirmed by investigative sources. Not only. The three women were all stabbed to death: an element which, in addition to the proximity of the places where the three murders took place, the Prati district of the capital, supports the hypothesis that it may have been the same perpetrator. State police investigators have already been working since Thursday afternoon to analyze the images of the surveillance cameras and the telephone records of the victims.
The goal, on the one hand, will be to intercept anyone who has entered and left the buildings in via Riboty and via Durazzo. Furthermore, to narrow the circle, the mobile phones of the victims will be analyzed to understand if their killer had made an appointment with them. Those who live in the neighborhood are in shock. For everyone, Prati is “a quiet area, a few meters from the courthouse”, even if someone had noticed the prostitution ring in apartments.
