It all began last March, with the discovery of the lifeless body of a 16-year-old girl who had gone missing on September 12, 1993 in Potenza, Italy. The body was found 17 years later in the loft of the church of the Holy Trinity, where she had been seen for the last time.
She was probably already dead when she was carried to the loft. She even had a few ribs broken. Fragments of the earthenware tiles from the church's roof were found on her body.
After the first tests were carried out, the rumour that had circulated in Potenza for some time was confirmed: the body was that of Elisa Claps, the girl who had mysteriously disappeared 17 years earlier. Already, since then, initial investigations had led to her young fiancé and to the presumed complicity of the parish priest, who died a few months before the body was discovered.
After being suspected of being responsible for Ms Claps's disappearance, the young man had moved to Bournemouth, an English seaside resort some 200 kilometres from London. The young man in question, Danilo Restivo, 38, now resides in Charminster, near Bournemouth.
But Ms Claps's case is not the only one of women who seem to have vanished into thin air and who had some connection with Mr Restivo. In fact, his name is linked to two such cases: the disappearance of Heather Barnett and Jong Shin.
The former was a seamstress who was a neighbour of his. Her butchered body was found in the bath at her home and even then the only suspect was Mr Restivo.
Ms Shin was another neighbour of Mr Restivo's. For her murder, carried out in 2002, Omar Benguit is serving a life sentence. Some time ago, Mr Benguit's lawyer asked for the case to be reopened because he is convinced that his client is innocent and that there must be a connection between the murders of Ms Barnett and Ms Shin and the disappearance of Ms Claps.
Last Wednesday, Mr Restivo, who is being investigated in Italy for the murder of Ms Claps, was arrested by the British police, acting on a warrant from the Public Prosecutor's Office of Salerno, Italy, for Ms Barnett's murder. Mr Restivo was taken to a police station for questioning and for the taking of samples of his DNA.
(Mr Restivo was formally charged with her murder last night and is expected to appear before magistrates in Bournemouth today.)
On his computer hard disk, the British police have found a picture of Erika Ansermin, 27, who disappeared from Courmayeur, Italy, on Easter Sunday of 2003. In Italy, the Public Prosecutor's Office of Aosta, too, has reopened the case at the request of the young woman's family.
Also apparently traceable to Mr Restivo is the disappearance of Cristina Golinucci, a 21-year-old accounts clerk, whose whereabouts became unknown in September 1992. The case, according to the Milan daily Corriere della Sera, is very similar to that of Ms Claps. Ms Golinucci was last seen in front of a Capuchin convent in Cesena, where she was waiting for her confessor. At the time, a North African immigrant - who was convicted of rape in another case - was suspected of being responsible for her disappearance.
A few years later, in 2000, it was thought that Mr Restivo could have also been linked to this case because Eris Gega, an Albanian acquaintance of his in Potenza, lived in Rimini, a few kilometres from Cesena. But the dates did not match and this track was abandoned. Mr Restivo also lived in Rimini but three years after Ms Golinucci's disappearance.
During his stay on the Adriatic Riviera he had been accused of annoying female commuters by cutting off locks of their hair, an element which seems to be common to all these murders. In fact, when the bodies of Ms Barnett and Oki, as the Korean student Ms Shin was known, were discovered, some locks of their hair were found - the murderer's signature.
Mr Restivo's defence counsel, Mario Marinelli, dismissed such claims as "pure fantasy", adding that now "everybody is rushing to label my client as a serial killer but he has absolutely nothing to do with all this; he is quite calm".
Mr Restivo had been at liberty for years. He had been sentenced to two years and eight months for giving false witness without, however, ever setting foot in prison. Are his movements and the disappearance of five women in Italy and in England in the last few years therefore merely coincidental?
Meanwhile, early on Wednesday morning, about 10 police officers turned up at Mr Restivo's home and an hour later the man was taken away. The operation was carried out by the investigation squad of the Dorset police, led by Superintendent Mark Cooper. The criminal laboratory department is collecting evidence from the Italian's home.