Giovanni Barreca, a 54-year-old mason, confessed before the carabinieri to having killed his wife Antonella Salamone, 41, and their sons Kevin, 16, and Emanuel, 5. The mother's partly charred body was found half-buried in the garden of their house.
The bodies of the children found in their beds showed signs of strangulation. “I wanted to free them from the demon,” explained this fervent evangelical during his arrest.