Disturbing Details Found Inside Italy's Beasts Of Satan Murder Cult
The concept of an organized sect of ceremonial killers taking lives in the dark crevices of life is disturbing enough, but when you attach the title "Beasts of Satan" to them, it takes things to a whole new diabolical threshold. It was around the turn of the century when a group of unsuspecting young adults in Italy carried out some of the most vicious and sadistic killings in the country's modern history. According to All That's Interesting, the Beasts of Satan collectivized within the heavy metal music scene and bonded over a shared indulgence in drugs and deviant sex. While it's generally not uncommon for teenagers to experiment in various troublesome activities, the Beasts of Satan took things to new depths of malice.
The popular hub for metalheads in Milan during the late '90s/early 2000s was a bar called the Midnight Pub. It was here where the small union of young people who would eventually carry out heinous acts of homicide and torture spent most of their time. By then, the notorious blood scandals that took place among a group of Norwegian black metal musicians was widely known; in the early 1990s, the black metal band Mayhem and certain associates made a name for themselves through various acts of murder and arson, as NME reports. Just a few years later, Italy was doomed to get its own up close and personal look at youthful angst gone wrong (via Sword and Scale).
Who were the Beasts of Satan?
Andrea Volpe, the presumed leader of the Beasts of Satan, became the pivotal focus of the investigation later on. A 2004 issue of The New York Times reported about how Volpe (who was 27 at the time of his arrest and conviction) and a group of his friends would often congregate to play music together, but things took a turn for the worst when evidence of sadistic foul play began to surface — foul play that involved "drug-fueled Satanic sacrifices." Along with other members of the group, like Mario Maccione and his band Ferocity, the troubled troupe of young adults would later earn their namesake after it was confirmed that they'd murdered at least three individuals, one of whom they reportedly buried alive (per All That's Interesting).
"The Beasts of Satan and their friends are also suspected of encouraging the suicide of a former associate. Drugs are known to have figured prominently in their activities and it is not clear whether they did more than flirt with black magic," The Guardian reported following the trial. The truth of the matter would start to unspool itself when Andrea Volpe, Pietro Guerrieri, and other BOS affiliates were made to answer for their crimes years after they'd been carried out. Perhaps it was a case of misguided frustration, or perhaps there was something deep-seated in each of them that was indicative of a sickness beyond reckoning. Tragically, innocent blood would be shed before these questions could be properly answered.
Murders of Fabio Tollis and Chiara Marino
On January 17, 1998, the Beasts of Satan would claim their first victims. Fabio Tollis,16, and his girlfriend Chiara Marino, 19, showed up at the Midnight Pub for an evening of music and partying with their friends. The group relocated later on to a wooded area outside the town of Somma Lombardo, where they took the party to new heights, consuming large amounts of drugs and alcohol together in a place where no witnesses or suspicious oversight could interfere with their activities. Unbeknownst to Tollis and Marino, their "friends" had bigger plans. The couple was about to become the focus of their cruel and hellacious depravity (via All That's Interesting).
Andrea Volpe revealed to Tollis that he and the others planned to sacrifice Marino in a ceremonial murder and that he would be made to watch. According to All That's Interesting, Volpe reportedly orchestrated the killing in order to intimidate Tollis because he saw his presence within the group as a threat to his perceived leadership. When Tollis tried to intervene, several members overpowered him and beat him savagely with a hammer. Chiara Marino was descended upon by other members of the party who held her down and plunged a knife into her chest. Both were dead within minutes. According to Sword and Scale, Mario Maccione had instilled in the minds of the others that Marino was the Virgin Mary reincarnated and that she should thus be offered up to Satan.
Disposing of the bodies
It wouldn't be for another six years that police would locate and identify the bodies of Fabio Tollis and Chiara Marino. According to All That's Interesting, Volpe and the other Beasts of Satan prepared a large grave and engaged in further desecration of their friends' corpses shortly before burying them. One member, Nicola Sapone, allegedly seized a handful of chestnut leaves and used them to clog the throats of the two freshly dead teens. He then dipped a cigarette in a pool of their blood and declared, "Now you're both Zombies! Try and get out of this hole, if you dare!" as he puffed on it.
As The New York Times reports, investigative efforts commenced as soon as the two lovers were reported missing, though they wouldn't actually locate their bodies until Volpe, Sapone, and other members of the group would lead them to the exact site of burial in 2004.
Murder of Mariangela Pezzotta
The last known individual to die at the hands of the Beasts of Satan was Mariangela Pezzotta. According to Sword and Scale, Pezzotta was a 27-year-old store clerk and former paramour of Andrea Volpe who, upon being summoned to his home one evening in January of 2004, was shot in the throat by Volpe himself. Volpe and his fiancé Elisabetta Ballarin, 18, then drove the bleeding woman to a remote location near Ballarin's parents' home where they rendezvoused with Nicola Sapone (per All That's Interesting).
Sapone observed that Pezzotta was still breathing despite taking a bullet to the neck. He seized a spade from a nearby greenhouse located on the property and started beating her fiercely over the head with it. The trio then took the bleeding woman into the woods and buried her — by most accounts, while she was still alive. According to All That's Interesting, she was killed because Volpe suspected that she intended to contact the police about the murders of Fabio Tollis and Chiara Marino.
Arrests and convictions
In an effort to cover up their tracks, Andrea Volpe followed Elisabetta Ballarin as she drove down the highway in Mariangela Pezzotta's car. They later told police that they planned to run it into a river, but Ballarin was heavily intoxicated and accidentally crashed the vehicle before they could. They broke under rigorous questioning and took the officers to the exact spot where Pezzotta had been buried alive, but she was dead by the time they exhumed her body. News of Mariangela Pezzotta's death spread across headlines, and when Andrea Volpe's name started appearing in reports, police were contacted by Michele Tollis, the father of Fabio Tollis. Michele Tollis told authorities that he recognized Volpe's name and believed him to be involved in the disappearance of his son (via Sword and Scale).
Upon being presented with questions about the two missing people, Volpe buckled immediately. Michele Tollis had been carrying out his own investigation into the disappearance of his son and had long suspected the unsavory community of musicians to be behind it all, as All That's Interesting reports; he later voiced his frustration with obtuse police attitudes and their refusal to thoroughly consider details that might have led to the truth. Andrea Volpe was sentenced to 30 years in prison and Nicola Sapone was given life behind bars. Several other members of the Beasts of Satan received reduced sentences of 24 to 26 years. Numerous other missing individuals are also suspected to have disappeared and/or been murdered by the group of killers.