ITALY
Bureau of Investigative Journalism
March 7th, 2012 | by Alice Ross
One Sunday morning in 1993, Elisa Claps vanished in her home town of Potenza. She was 16 years old. Despite suspicion immediately falling on local oddball Danilo Restivo, his family connections and an apparent cover-up by Catholic priests ensured it would be another 17 years before her body was found. In that time, Restivo killed again: his victim was Heather Barnett, a British mother of two.
British journalist Tobias Jones, who was living in Italy in the years following Elisa Claps’ disappearance, became fascinated with the case. His new book, Blood on the Altar, charts how the Claps family battled for almost two decades to bring any kind of closure to the case.
From the start, the investigation was hopelessly bungled and probably corrupt. Danilo Restivo, an awkward teenager with a habit of cutting chunks out of girls’ hair, had been due to meet Elisa that morning. He arrived home late, with a cut in his hand and an improbable explanation. But his father, a well-connected local figure, helped block the investigation, preventing investigators from taking away his clothes and enlisting his high-up friends to slow the investigation.
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