NAPLES- A 35-year-old Italian navy officer has confessed to chopping into pieces 25-year-old gay rights activist Vincezo Ruggiero and gruesomely trying to conceal his corpse by dissolving it in acid, police investigators have reported. 

 Ruggiero, a young activist from Caserta, was reported missing by his mother on July 7, the day of the murder. Ciro Guarente, a former marine, has been arrested on charges of murder and concealment of a body. He told police that he is in a relationship with Heven Grimaldi, a transgender woman who was housing the victim at the place of the crime. Guarente confessed to the crime by saying it was motivated by jealousy: “I killed Vincenzo because he had a friendship with my partner.”

 A dismembered body has been found in gruesome circumstances and covered in cement in a basement in the Ponticelli area of Naples. It is believed that Ciro Guarente, the arrested party, cut Ruggiero’s body up and tried to cement it into a hole in the wall to hide it. Investigators said that Guarente tried to hide the body in a large hole in a council housing flat’s car park and also poured chloric acid over it. Guarente originally told Carabinieri that he had thrown the body into the sea in Licola, where searches were consequently carried out before the search was extended.

 As well as Guarente’s confession, CCTV cameras showed images of Guarente in front of the apartment in Aversa showing him entering the building before Ruggiero and then leaving a few hours later with a large sack. Guarente said that he killed Ruggiero after a fight where he hit the victim’s head against a table, although the exact cause of death is yet to be confirmed.  

 Grimaldi, partner of the accused murderer and housemate of the victim, sent out pleas to find Ruggiero on Facebook. She wrote: “I miss hearing you sing around the house, I miss our daily chats… Your unexplained abandonment diminishes my soul. My only goal is to find you and to be happy.”

 Ruggiero went missing on July 7. The body is yet to be formally identified as his, although police have revealed that they believe the body to be his.

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