Murder he wrote: Italian 'outlined murder in short story he wrote before killing prostitute'

The former philosophy student, who police say was "obsessed" with African prostitutes, even cited the young woman by name in the book, a copy of which was found in the house that she was living in.

Police believe he may have given her the manuscript as a warning of what would happen if she continued to ply the streets, earning money which she sent back to her relatives in Nigeria.

"Her killing was the only way to preserve intact her purity," he wrote in the unpublished book. "In that way, no one would be able to know anything more of the beauty of Anthonia." The book recounts how the protagonist becomes consumed with intense jealousy for the prostitute and is desperate to save her from a life on the streets.

The idea of killing her came to the protagonist "one night when he could not manage to sleep, thinking only of his Anthonia in the rain on Corso Regina, forced to take on one client after another, each dirtier and more filthy than the last." In the story, the killer is filled with remorse after strangling the prostitute and commits suicide by shooting himself.

In addition to the manuscript, police found from Mr Piampaschet's mobile phone records that he had hundreds of conversations with Miss Egbuna in the space of a few months.

The last conversation placed him close to her house and to the River Po.

Detectives also discovered letters written by him in English to the Nigerian woman in which he said he loved her but was "sick and tired" of her working the streets.

Mr Piampaschet has denied murder and told prosecutors that the similarities between his novel and the circumstances of the murder are "purely a coincidence".

The case has close parallels with that of a Polish writer who was convicted of murdering a young businessman after clues to the crime were found in one of his novels.

Krystian Bala, also a philosophy graduate, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2007 for the 2000 murder of Dariusz Janiszewski, whom he thought was having an affair with his estranged wife.

The killing had remained unsolved until Polish police found clues in Bala's first novel, Amok, which was published three years after the murder.

The book contained information that only the killer could have known, detectives concluded.

Police also discovered that Bala had called the victim on the day he disappeared and had sold his mobile phone on an internet auction website four days after the murder.

Bala always denied being the murderer and said he had based his book on information he read in the press.

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