A “serial stabber” knifed a complete stranger in broad daylight just days after being kicked out of rehab.
Chilling CCTV footage showed the attacker calmly driving a 30cm kitchen knife into Anna Laura Valsecchi’s back as she walked to work yesterday (3 Nov).
He then strolled off without a word, leaving the blade buried beneath her left armpit.
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The victim was just metres from her office when she was ambushed.
The 43-year-old was treated at the scene before being rushed to hospital with serious injuries to her spleen and a lung.
After a two-hour emergency operation, she was moved to intensive care, where doctors say she remains under close watch.
Police identified the knifeman as Vincenzo Lanni after his unmasked face was caught on video and recognised by his twin sister, who quickly alerted officers.
The 59-year-old was arrested in a Milan hotel room, still wearing the same clothes seen in the CCTV clip, as reported by Need To Know.
Lanni had been staying at the hotel for several days after being expelled from a rehab centre in the Varese area for “dangerous behaviour” and breaking rules.
Cops believe he had targeted another woman just moments earlier but turned his focus to Valsecchi when the first potential victim unknowingly outpaced him.
Checks revealed Lanni had a violent past having stabbed two elderly men within hours of each other in 2015 in Bergamo province, where he lived alone after losing his job as a computer programmer.
A self-confessed loner, he told prosecutors he lashed out from “deep frustration” with a life he considered “a failure”.
He also admitted he had been planning to strangle a random woman with a headphone cable if police hadn’t caught him.
Psychiatric assessments later found he suffered from schizoid personality disorder and had a “greatly reduced” – but not absent – ability to understand and control his actions.
He was jailed in 2016 for eight years, with a further three years in a secure psychiatric unit.
Valsecchi’s life is now said to be out of danger, though she remains in hospital recovering from her horrific ordeal.
