Man Claims He Murdered, Ate Devout Christian Landlord's Heart in Row Over Chess Match; Body Discovered With Missing Lung
In what is being described as Ireland's most gruesome murder of 2014, an Italian man claims he murdered then ate his devout Christian landlord's heart during a row over a chess match. But a post mortem revealed the missing body part is a lung.
"The victim's heart was intact but the post-mortem confirms that a lung was removed from the body and has not been located," a source told the Belfast Telegraph of the dead Christian victim, Tom O'Gorman, 39.
His alleged killer, Saverio Bellante,34, said "I am guilty" when he was charged in court with the murder Monday, according to the Press Gazette.
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The Telegraph report said when Bellante, originally from Perugia, Italy, called Irish Police to report the crime Sunday night he was "calm." He told police that he had killed his landlord over chess and when officers arrived at O'Gorman's home on Beechpark Avenue, Castleknock, Dublin they found his badly mutilated body in a pool of blood.
Bellante told police that after fighting over the chess game, O'Gorman asked him to leave his house and he agreed to go. But that didn't happen. Bellante attacked O'Gorman with a kitchen knife stabbing him multiple times and he beat him over the head with a dumbbell several times.
O'Gorman's chest cavity was also ripped open with a knife. The post-mortem could not determine if the mutilation of O'Gorman's body was done before or after he was dead.
According to the Irish Times, O'Gorman was a researcher with the Iona Institute, a Dublin-based Catholic advocacy group that promotes marriage and religion in society. He was a minister of the Eucharist at Our Lady Mother of the Church in Castleknock; was involved in lay Catholic groups and had worked on a campaign opposing the introduction of abortion legislation in Ireland.
"Tom was a friend as well as a work colleague to us all," said head of the Iona Institute David Quinn. "Tom had been working as a researcher at the Iona Institute since its launch seven years ago. Most of us knew him from before then, in some cases all the way back to his days at UCD."
"He was a fond and dear friend and we will all miss him. We extend our deepest commiserations to his family and above all to his sister and brother, Catherine and Paul," said Quinn.
