Police in northwest Italy have arrested the 55-year-old nephew of a pensioner who was shot and beheaded while still alive as he gathered mushrooms in woodland near the city of Genoa.
Claudio Borgarelli, a nurse, was arrested late on Thursday on suspicion of murdering his uncle. His isolated home is close to where 68-year-old Albano Crocco's headless body was found in a ravine on 1 October.
Borgarelli had quarrelled with his uncle and other relations over their use of a path by his cottage which Crocco used when he went mushroom hunting and this was the motive for the murder, investigators believe.
Police have not revealed what exact evidence against Borgarelli led to his arrest but bugging devices planted in his cottage after Crocco's killing allegedly recorded Borgarelli repeatedly shouting to himself several rambling but apparently incriminating phrases.
One such phrase was: "What I did is right, anyway I've killed him". "So I killed you, risking what I already did, committing murder," was another one according to investigators.
Borgarelli was also photographed walking through the woods in the days before Crocco's murder carrying a machete and security cameras in the down of Lumarzo filmed him on the day of murder carrying three large rubbish sacks out of his cottage.
Borgarelli denies murdering Crocco but admits he had quarrelled with his uncle and hadn't spoken to him in five years. People who knew Borgarelli described him as solitary but of good character and a conscientious worker.
Crocco, a retired nurse and keen bowls player vanished on 1 October after going out in the morning to hunt for mushrooms. His wife and daughter raised the alarm when he failed to return in the afternoon.
Crocco's headless corpse was found in Liguria's scenic Val Fontanabuona valley not far from his house in the village of Lumarzo. He was shot in the neck from behind at close range, probably with a hunting rifle and his head was cut off with a large blade while he was still alive according to pathologists.
Crocco's head has never been recovered.
