A husband took the law into his own hands and hunted down the driver who killed his wife and shot him dead, after changing his profile picture to Russell Crowe’s avenging Gladiator character.
Fabio Di Lello turned himself over to the police after gunning down Italo D’Elisa, who faced manslaughter charges for hitting Roberta Smargiassi, 33, with his car last year.
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The semi-professional soccer player had changed his Facebook profile picture to Maximus Decimus Meridius from the 2000 film, in which Crowe famously delivers the line, “Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”
Di Lello is said to have shot D’Elisa dead outside a cafe in Vasto, Abruzzo, before walking to his wife’s grave to place the gun upon it.
She was on her moped when she was hit by D’Elisa, who had run a red light, according to the Telegraph.
Lawyers for Di Lello, who was a semi-professional soccer player, said their client feared the man who killed his wife would not be brought to justice and is thought to have taken the law into his own hands.
Prosecutors have called the shooting a “tragedy within a tragedy” after the death toll doubled.
Di Lello’s lawyer Giovanni Carella told the Telegraph his client was in shock and depressed about his wife, but said, “I never got the impression that he was planning a vendetta like this.”
He continued, “I was dumbfounded when I found out.”
“He had no experience of handling firearms,” said Carella. “But his psychological state was very fragile.”
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Major Giancarlo Vitiello, the commander of the Carabinieri police in Vasto told the Telegraph, “This is a tragic business that has shocked the whole town.”
The heartbroken husband was said to be beside himself with grief after he lost his wife in the summer, and killed the man accused of doing it with a number of bullets from a 9mm pistol.
Police arrested him on Wednesday after officers were called to the graveyard. He remains in custody and is likely to be charged with murder once the post-mortem has been carried out on D’Elisa, who was due to appear in court this month.
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[H/T Daily Mail, Telegraph]
