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| "Teenage Satanic band starts murder trial in Italy" Leaders of Italian heavy metal rock band Beasts of Satan have gone on trial for slaying two teenagers in Satanic ritual murders. Grieving relatives listened in horror to details of the gruesome, cult murders dating back to 1998, when band members went on a drug-induced killing spree that led to the deaths of lead singer Fabio Tollis, 16, and his 19-year-old girlfriend. But prosecutors in the northern city of Busto Arsizio only asked for a reduced 20-year sentence for band leader Andrea Volpe, the alleged mastermind of the double homicide, because he had assisted the authorities. Volpe is also charged with killing his ex-girlfriend last year, shooting her in the mouth and then mutilating her body in another human sacrifice. "It's like my son has died all over again," Tollis' mother, Ellena, told reporters at the courtroom. Tollis was killed with a hammer blow to the head when he tried -- and failed -- to stop the murder of his girlfriend, Chiara Marino. "They're killers, not beasts. To call them beasts is offensive to animals," said Chiara's mother, Lina Marino. "They should never be freed." |