ROME, Dec 18 — One of Italy’s most notorious killers, Donato Bilancia, who admitted to murdering 17 people, has died from coronavirus in prison, news agencies said yesterday.

Bilancia had been serving 13 life sentences for a bloody rampage between October 1997 and April 1998 mostly in Liguria, in northern Italy. 

His victims included four prostitutes, night-watchmen, a gas station attendant and a number of women murdered apparently at random in train toilets.

Bilancia was at a loss to explain his crimes to psychiatrists, but said he had a splitting headache before each of his murderous acts.

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He was found guilty of 13 counts of murder by a Genoa court in April 2000. 

He was initially held in a prison in the city before being transferred to Padua, where he died. — AFP