Nearly thirty years after his horrific crimes, Donato Bilancia remains Italy's most notorious serial killer.
Bilancia, dubbed the 'Monster of Liguria' and the 'Riviera Killer' for his terror in the region in the late 1990s, murdered a shocking total of seventeen people in just six months.
He randomly targeted women and murdered four prostitutes in the Liguria region and two unsuspecting train passengers. This led to panic across Italy and headlines that a 'train killer' was on the loose.
He also murdered a total of nine men and two of their wives, from whom he stole before mercilessly shooting dead as the women screamed.
After his eventual arrest, the deranged killer was examined by at least a dozen psychologists, who discovered that he was motivated by loneliness, hatred and resentment, and that he was plagued by sexual disorders.
He told a psychiatrist that he had wet the bed into adolescence and was traumatized by his mother airing his mattress on the balcony of their house for all the neighbors to see.
His father also publicly humiliated him by stripping him naked in front of his three little cousins during a family holiday so they could laugh at his small penis, despite this being the result of lower limb atrophy.
The torment these events caused him stayed with him into adulthood, reaching a breaking point after his only brother committed suicide.
Michele Bilancia threw himself under a train with his four-year-old son in his arms a day after separating from his wife, who had filed for divorce and custody of the child.
Psychologists said Bilancia's loss of his brother and young nephew fueled a contempt for his sister-in-law – and by extension, all women.
“It is one of the darkest, most compelling, most frightening, but perhaps also most educational stories about the dark side of human nature,” said journalist and documentary director Pino Corrias of Bilancia's infamous killing spree.
Donato Bilancia murdered a shocking total of seventeen people in just six months
Bullets used by Donato Bilancia, the Italian serial killer who hunted his victims in the Liguria region
The sick killer followed 29-year-old babysitter Maria Angela Rubino into a train toilet and shot her dead
His criminal career began, it seems, with the theft of some panettone, and he was a petty criminal from his teenage years after leaving school.
Bilancia was convicted of theft and armed robbery during his 20s and 30s, but the killer wouldn't engage in the kind of bloodthirsty violence for which he became known until the age of 47.
In the late 1990s, his already fragile mental state reached a breaking point after he was betrayed by his only friend, and Bilancia “learned to kill,” as one judge put it.
A gambling addict, his first murders were committed against the owner of a gambling den and a friend who helped frame him with a rigged card game.
He lost approximately £185,000 (220,000 euros) and took revenge by strangling gaming operator Giorgio Centenaro on October 16, 1997.
Death was originally due to natural causes and was believed to be a heart attack – something that is said to have embittered the selfish Bilancia, who saw it as the first step in his career as a serial killer.
Still bent on revenge, Bilancia's next two murders were of Maurizio Parenti, 42, whom he had considered a close friend before learning of his deception, and of his 24-year-old wife Carla Scotto.
The couple had just returned from their honeymoon on October 24 when Bilancia visited their home.
The depraved killer described how he taunted the couple and forced them into their bedroom to get money from a safe for him before shooting Parenti as Scotto watched and then shooting her in the chest.
Bilancia murdered Maurizio Parenti, 42, and his 24-year-old wife Carla Scotto (photo)
His first murders, he later said, gave him a taste for murder. Just three days later, he murdered another man and woman in their home.
Bilancia followed jeweler Bruno Solari to his house with the intention of robbing him, and shot dead both him and his wife Maria Luigia Pitto when she started screaming.
He then robbed and murdered currency exchanger Luciano Marro in the picturesque coastal town of Ventimiglia on November 13.
The killer waited until January 25, 1998 to take his next victim: a night watchman named Giangiorgio Canu. He is said to have targeted night watchmen because he 'didn't like' their profession.
In March he murdered two women, Albanian national Stela Truya, 25, and Ukrainian Ljudmyla Zubskova, 23, who worked as prostitutes in towns on the Ligurian coast.
Two days after killing Zubskova, and a few months after killing Marro in Ventimiglia, he murdered another money changer named Enzo Gorni in the same town.
Ukrainian Lyudmyla Zubskova, 23, who was working as a prostitute in a coastal town when she was murdered by Bilancia
Four nights later he murdered two more night watchmen – Massimiliano Gualillo and Candido Randò – in the city of Novi Ligure.
They had tried to stop him when he also tried to kill a transgender prostitute named Lorena Castro outside a remote villa in Novi Ligure.
Believing she had been killed, he left the scene, but his intended victim incredibly managed to play dead and escaped the shooting with her life.
Her testimony from the hospital allowed the first identification of Bilancia and provided information about his car – reportedly a dark Mercedes with a baseball cap on the back of it.
Tessy Adodo, a Nigerian sex worker, was 27 years old when she was murdered by Bilancia
His next murder would take place on March 29 of Nigerian woman Tessy Adodo, who was 27 years old and also worked as a prostitute.
This marked a turning point for investigators, who recognized that the gun used in the fatal shooting – a Smith & Wesson caliber 38. – was the same weapon used in previous murders.
But the ruthless Bilancia continued to strike and on April 14 killed another sex worker, a Macedonian woman named Kristina Valla.
Just two days earlier, a murder occurred that was the first to bring Bilancia's crimes to public attention and would later earn him the nickname “the Train Killer.”
Albanian national Stela Truya, 25, was murdered by Donati. She worked as a prostitute in Liguria
On April 12, 1998, on the La Spezia-Venice Intercity, he stalked 32-year-old Elisabetta Zoppetti into the bathroom, broke through the door and shot her dead, escaping before anyone could see.
The brutally random murder took place on Easter Sunday, and Zoppetti, a cancer nurse from Milan, tragically left behind a four-year-old daughter.
Just days later, on April 18, he chose another victim to kill in the same manner on another intercity train.
The sick killer followed 29-year-old babysitter Maria Angela Rubino into the toilet room and made her kneel in a “Nazi-style” execution, according to il Fatto Quotidiano.
He then shot her in the head before horrifically abusing her corpse by masturbating on it.
An officer of the Carabinieri, Maurizio Gualdi, holding a photo of Donato Bilancia
The last murder that Bilancia admitted took place on April 20 at a gas station on the Genoa-Ventimiglia highway.
He robbed and murdered clerk Giuseppe Mileto after refusing to give him credit for a tank of gas.
Bilancia was eventually caught through his car. A man who sold him his vehicle was inundated with fines after the career criminal – who failed to transfer ownership – repeatedly dodged toll payments.
The man reported him to the Carabinieri – who, after Lorena's tip, were looking for a car with the same description.
Detectives tracked him to several bars, collected his DNA from coffee cups and used cigarettes, and were able to obtain a positive ID.
Detectives followed him to several bars and collected his DNA from coffee cups and used cigarettes
Bilancia was sentenced to 13 life sentences and 28 years in prison in April 2000, and died in prison
Bilancia was finally arrested on the morning of May 6, 1998 in front of the San Martino Hospital in Genoa. He offered no resistance.
When he sat down before the prosecution, the serial killer proudly admitted all his crimes.
“If you want me to tell you my story, we have to start at the beginning,” he said. “And the beginning is not one murder, not eight murders, but seventeen.”
In doing so, he admitted to all murders, including the first one that was initially thought to have had a natural cause.
For his unspeakably depraved crimes, Bilancia was sentenced in April 2000 to 13 life sentences and 28 years in prison.
The judge ordered that he never be released, and he died of Covid in prison in 2020 at the age of 69.
