No reason to beat around the burning bush: people are fascinated by Satan. Some love to hate Mr. 666, others straight-up love the infernal homeslice. The canon of Western literature is replete with works featuring the devil and his demons. Then you've got your Satanic metal bands, which span a number of subgenres. Black Sabbath's music had devilish themes, as did that of post-Sabbath doom pioneers like Pentagram. Even proto-metal groups like Coven and Led Zeppelin dabbled in the occult.
Yet classic and psychedelic rock and metal is child's play compared to the savage assault and pitch-black lyrics of black, death, and blackened death metal. The members of bands like Mayhem, Burzum, Gorgoroth, and Empire have committed crimes in the name of black metal, Satan, and the occult ranging from murder to kidnapping, torture, and the burning of centuries-old churches (most black metal musicians, it should be noted, are peaceful people who just want to rock out). When asked about the foundational philosophy of his band's music, former Gorgoroth frontman Gaahl replied "Satan." The members of these bands were reacting against the imposition of Christianity on their culture, which was in part destroyed by monotheism.
Enter the Beasts of Satan, a group of Italian metal devotees who discovered Satan and the occult through music and took things way too far, committing heinous crimes in the name of the Dark Lord. Facts about the Beasts of Satan take you back to the 1990s, to a town outside Milan, Italy, where a group of young men and their girlfriends formed a black or death metal band (media reports are unclear on which it was, in part because the band never released any recorded material). The band's name? The Beasts of Satan.
The band was associated with a sect of Satanism that made up its own demented occult rituals rooted heavily in drug use, which resulted in the brutal murders of at least three people. Beasts of Satan stories may seem like a demented real-life take on dark teen movies like The Lost Boys, but they are very true, and all the more terrifying for it. If you're curious how the Beasts of Satan killed, or went from being metalheads to murdering their best friends, or are looking for details of ritual murders committed by Beasts of Satan, sally forth. But be forewarned: media reports were filtered through many channels and mostly translated from Italian, resulting in some fuzzy, contradictory, and confusing details.
Things Most People Don't Know About The Beasts Of Satan,
Michele Tollis, Father Of A Beasts Of Satan Victim, Spend Six Years Investing His Son's Disappearance
When 16-year-old Fabio Tollis disappeared with his girlfriend Chiara Marino, his parents were told he had run off with Marnio. Michele Tollis, Fabio's father, refused to accept this explanation, and spent six years pursuing the truth. His journey led him to heavy music festivals across Europe, where he passed out fliers, and to the belief that Satanism was involved in his son's disappearance, in part because Marino's bedroom was supposedly filled with Satanic literature and paraphernalia. "No one can contradict me when I say that heavy metal and satanism are closely linked," he said.
When Michele saw news of Volpe's arrest for the murder of Pezzotta, he recalled that his son had played in a band with Volpe. He contacted the authorities investigating Volpe and made his case that Volpe might know something about Fabio and Marino. As Italian investigator Teniente Enzo Molinari recalled:
"It was a strange story, the one Michele Tollis told. But he didn't only tell a story; he backed it up with a very convincing body of paperwork and photographs which he had gathered over the past six years. He had carried out a true investigation on the disappearance of his son and his son's girlfriend, all on his own."
Michele's story led to police questioning Volpe about the disappearance of Fabio and Marino. Volpe admitted to murdering the two, and took police to their grave.
The Beasts Of Satan Supposedly Tried To Burn Their First Victims Alive
According to some reports, members of the Beasts of Satan tried, and failed, to kill Marino and Tollis a few weeks before successfully doing so. As per these reports, the group tried lighting the couple on fire in their car on December 31, 1997. Why Tollis and Marino would go into the woods with people who tried to burn them to death in a car is unclear - maybe the plan to do so never got past the ideation stage.
The Italian Media Circus Painted Teenage Victim Chiara Marino As A Satanic Sex Maven
Fueled by Italy's rampant Catholicism, the local media went into a frenzy when news of the killings broke. In the midst of this, reporters began looking into the lives of the victims. Italian newspaper reports painted Chiara Marino as a depraved Satanist whose bedroom was filled with goat skulls and black candles and who, according to alleged witness reports, engaged in acts of sexual violence. This is the same young woman who was murdered for being a personification of the Virgin Mary.
Beasts Of Satan Drummer Andrea Bontade Was Forced To Commit Suicide For Refusing To Participate In Murder
Beasts of Satan drummer Andrea Bontade, who refused to take part in the murders of Tollis and Mariano, died after crashing a car into a wall at high speeds in 1998. He was drunk, and maybe high, at the time. According to the BBC, Bontade was "terrorized into committing suicide" by the other members of Beasts of Satan. Other reports suggest he was drugged by members of the band/cult and forced to commit suicide. When arrested, members of the group were tried for three murders - Mariano, Tollis, and Pezzotta - and one forced suicide.
The Vatican Responded By Offering A Class On Satanism And Black Magic
In the wake of the Beasts of Satan murders, the Vatican elected to hold a course for priests and novices alike on the "phenomenon" of Satanism. The courses were held at Regina Apostolorum, a pontifical university in Rome, taught by Carlo Climati, and focused, according to the Los Angeles Times, "on the history, theology and sociology of Satanism and black magic, and the healing power of exorcism."
According to Climati:
"There is a growing interest in satanic cults among youth today. They hear it in music, they find it on the Internet. Ten years ago when young people wanted to find out about Satanism, it was difficult. Now it's very easy...
It would be a big mistake to see the devil everywhere. There is no reason to panic. What we are teaching is how to know the language of Satanism, how to identify where [the phenomenon] is, and where it is not."
Chiara Marino Was Murdered Because The Beasts Of Satan Believed She Was The Personification Of The Madonna
According to trial testimony, Chiara Marino, one of the first murder victims of the Beasts of Satan, was chosen for a ritual killing because she personified the Virgin Mary to the members of the group. Perhaps ironically, Marino's bedroom was supposedly found filled with Satanic literature and paraphernalia.
The Group May Have Killed Three Friends Of Sapone's Who Died Under Mysterious Circumstances
Some reports on the Beasts of Satan state Italian police tried to pin three additional deaths on the group. The deceased, Antonio Lombardo, Stefano Longone, and Luca Colombo were all friends of Sapone who died in 2003, 1998, and 2004, respectively. Lombardo lit himself on fire, Longone was run over by a truck, and Colombo was found hanged.
Beast Of Satan Member Andrea Volpe Shot His Ex In The Face And Buried Her Alive
The Beasts of Satan quietly subsisted for six years after the murders of Marino and Tollis before killing again on January 24, 2004. Andrea Volpe and his girlfriend Elizabeth Ballarin lured Volpe's ex, Mariangela Pezzota, 27 at the time, to a remote location with the promise of a meal. Volpe believed she knew too much about the deaths of Mariano and Tollis and might go to the police.
Volpe, who was high on a mixture of cocaine and heroin (as was Ballarin), shot Pezzota in the face after an argument erupted while they were drinking champagne. She didn't die from the gunshot, so Volpe they called Sappone for assistance. He arrived, reprimanded Volpe for being an inept murderer, and helped him bury Pezzota alive after carting her away from the scene of the crime.
After disposing of Pezzota, Volpe and Ballarin, the latter of whom was 18 at the time, decided to get rid of Pezzota's car by sinking it in the Ticino river. On their way to doing so, Ballarin, who was driving Pezzota's car, crashed. Volpe, who was following in his car, came to her aid. Police then showed up and took them both to the hospital after realizing they were out of their minds on drugs. While under observation and still high, Ballarin muttered various things that led police to Pezzota's body the next morning.
While most accounts of Pezzotta's killing note she was buried alive, at least two - one in the Los Angeles Times, another in the Independent - state Sapone killed her with a shovel upon discovering she was still alive. According to the Independent, Sapone shouted "This is disgusting you don't even know how to kill someone" at Volpe before killing Pezzotta.
Satan Was Probably A Symptom Of Another Disease
Writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2005, Tracy Wilkinson made a case for the occult and Satanic aspects of the Beasts of Satan crimes being symptoms of a more predictable disease - social conditions. "Experts warn against exaggerating the phenomenon. Drugs, for example, appear to have played at least as much of a role in the killings as the devil," Wilkinson wrote. As she reported, one of the accused tried to plead insanity on the basis of being so high on LSD she had no idea what she was doing.
Citing the work of sociologists, Wilkinson points to a high number of disaffected youth in the Milan area, where migration and various other factors weakened typically strong Italian family structure and poverty and housing projects gave rise to drug use and other petty crime, as well as the modern disease of alienation.
The Group Killed Its First Victims In A Drug-Fueled Orgy Of Violence And Pissed On Their Graves
Chiara Marino, 19, and Fabio Tollis, 16, had no idea what they were getting into when they left the heavy metal bar Midnight Pub and went off into the woods with friends Andrea Volpe, Nicola Sappone, and Mario Maccione on January 17, 1998. All five were involved in the underground metal scene around Milan, Italy, and had gotten heavily invested in Satanism and the occult through lyrical themes prominent in black and death metal. Tollis, who was dating Marino, played in a death metal band with some of the others; you can hear Ferocity, for which Maccione contributed guitar and vocals, here.
On account of their interest in the occult and Satan, the friends belonged to a sect of Satanism called Beasts of Satan, which may or may not have extended beyond a small group of eight or so friends (media coverage in strictly Catholic Italy was predictably hysterical and prone to invention and hyperbole, so it's hard to tell what this sect actually constituted). Volpe, Sappone, and Maccione were also members of a band called Beasts of Satan, which revolved around the Satanic sect. They dabbled in a hodgepodge of occult rites and beliefs with Satan at the center; their brand of Satanism was a far cry from established religious and philosophical Satanism such as of The Church of Satan or the Satanic Temple.
On that fateful night in January '98, Marino and Tollis were murdered in what has been described as a "drug-fueled Satanic ritual in woods near Somma Lombardo, northwest of Milan." Marino was stabbed in the heart and Tollis bludgeoned with a hammer when he tried to protect her; he was then gagged and had his throat slit. The Italian media dubbed the crime "an orgy of violence."
The evening ended with Marino and Tollis being dumped in a pit, which Volpe, Sappone, Maccione, and other members of the Beasts of Satan filled with dirt and urinated on. According to Volpe, one member of the group danced on the grave while shouting "Zombies, now you're only zombies."