A married dad who confessed to killing two escorts could have been an executioner tasked with punishing defiant sex workers, prosecutors have said.
Detectives are trying to determine if Vasile Frumuzache was a serial killer acting alone or was a member of a prostitution ring.
Local security guard Frumuzache, 32, has already confessed to the murders of 28-year-old Ana Maria Andrei and 30-year-old Maria Denisa Adas Paun.
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But the killer reportedly told inmates following his jailing: “There were others, too.”
Detectives are now exploring the theory that Frumuzache is linked to a transnational network that exploits young Romanian women for sex work.
They say his victims are likely to be prostitutes who have tried to break free from the network’s grip.
On Wednesday (11 Jun), diggers were brought in to excavate some land Frumuzache, a Romanian national, owns in Monsummano Terme, Tuscany, Italy.
So far, a lock of hair, a pair of knickers, and a vertebra have been found, as reported by Need To Know.
This follows the discovery of four charred knives near his home, and the car of Ana Maria – his first known victim – in his garage.
Police have also seized four mobile phones from Frumuzache.
Prosecutors are now reviewing missing person reports and unsolved cases in a bid to discover his true number of victims.
Frumuzache has been transferred to a prison in Florence for his safety.
He was being held in another prison in Prato, but he was splashed in the face with boiling oil by an inmate cousin of Ana Maria.
Frumuzache worked for a private security firm and lived with his wife and their sons, aged four and five, in Monsummano Terme.
Detectives say he likely drove the boys to school on 16 May with the body of his second known victim, Maria Denisa, in the boot.
He claims he killed her because she had threatened to expose their “affair” to his wife unless he paid her €10,000 (£8,500).
But her family’s lawyer, Marianna De Simone, told local media: “It seems highly unlikely.”
Detectives believe Denisa was strangled and decapitated in the early hours of 16 May.
