A prostitute raped and sexually tortured by the ‘crucifixion killer’ of Florence has told how he promised to return and kill her. The shocking account mirrors the attack on 26-year-old Andrea Cristina Zamfir whose lifeless body was discovered on Monday, bound with tape to an iron bar in a Crucifixion-like pose
.The Romanian immigrant, who was naked except for her gym.
One, a Romanian called Martina, described her terrifying ordeal after being picked up two years ago from the park delle Cascine in Florence where she meets her clients.
She told Italian newspaper La Nazione: ‘I was tortured by that maniac. He was like a beast. But not even a beast would be capable of such brutality.’
The man, who called himself Alessandro, arrived in a light coloured small car before taking her to a field.
He didn’t initially ask for any special requests, she said. ‘But once we arrived he transformed. He had seemed quiet.
But as soon as he got out of the car he became a monster. I ran off but he chased me and caught me. At that point I said to him, ‘I’ll do what you want.’
He told her to strip naked. In the car boot there was a wooden pole, some electric cables and tape, she said.
‘He tied me to a pole standing up, my arms crossed in front of my face. He came up from behind took the wooden pole and attacked me.
‘Then he took some pliers and came towards my breasts. I was terrified.’
In that moment she some how found the strength to fight him off.
She said: ‘I had a surge of energy, I kicked him you know where. Luckily he stopped and got into his car.’
She later identified the suspect as a short, chubby, balding man in his 50s with a white car, who spoke Italian.
He left the girl bound, taking her clothes, bag, money, phone and everything that she owned.
But miraculously she managed to free herself after several agonizing hours pulling at the tape with her teeth.
Then she ran naked to a nearby house to beg for help.
A year later the monster returned to the park to taunt her, she explained.
‘He said: “So do you like sado-masochism?” When I told him to get lost, and that he was a criminal he shouted: “Next time I’ll kill you.”’
The terrified woman said the attack still haunts her. She said: ‘I’m not the only one. Many others have had dealings with him. When I think about it I shudder still.’
Florence’s most senior policeman agreed that the killer was ‘a beast’.
Police chief Raffaele Micillo said: ‘I’m reluctant to offend animals with this comparison but this person is a beast,’
‘We are all working to find the killer, who we suspect of committing a series of rapes as well as murders and attempted murders. I would pay any sum to get this person.’
The net could be closing in as police have found matching DNA traces at the scenes of three of his maniacal attacks.
In all the cases the killer apparently left traces of saliva on the tape that he used to bind his victims, probably as he used his teeth to break the tape.
Carabinieri scientists have found the identical DNA in three cases where the maniac has attacked, tortured and raped prostitutes. The attacks took place in July 2011, March 2013 and 21 February 2014 in the Florence area.
In the cases of two other rapes of prostitutes in December 2006 and October 2009 there is no DNA but the accounts of the victim are strikingly similar, police say.
The autopsy has shown that the woman died of internal hemorrhage. She died in minutes as her internal wounds caused her to go into traumatic shock, police said.
Offices have begun house-to-house inquiries in a bid to track down Ms Zamfir’s killer.
The victim had a criminal record in Italy for prostitution, and was identified through her fingerprints.
Sources in the investigation said evidence shows that the dead woman was sexually abused before she was taped to the iron bar and then abandoned.
The allegations are supported by numerous bruises on her arms and back, showing that she tried hard to free herself.
Ms Zamfir was found by a cyclist beneath a motorway flyover at the end of Via del Cimitero after they spotted her body taped by the wrists to a road barrier, with her head slumped back.
Her clothes and handbag were found half a mile down the road near the Tuscan capital.
