Train station attack shocks Italians
May 01, 2007
IN a country where violent crime on public transport is rare, one murder has shocked this nation.
Last week, a young commuter was stabbed in the eye with an umbrella at Rome's main train station.
Then on Sunday, Italian TV and news agencies reported that police have detained two suspects in connection with the killing.
Throughout the day, news programmes played video from surveillance cameras from Rome's Termini rail station.
Newspapers ran front-page photos of the two suspects, dressed in white pants and white jackets, walking up a station staircase after the attack.
State TV and Italian news agencies reported that the two women were tracked down by police at a house in the small town of Tolentino, about 250km from Rome.
The ferocity of the attack on Thursday shocked the nation.
MissVanessa Russo, 22, died of wounds after being stabbed in the eye with the umbrella's tip while on her way to work.
News reports said that police were investigating whether the victim had argued with the two women shortly before being stabbed, or had made clear that she suspected them of trying to pick her pocket.
A Rome police official Alberto Intini said that fingerprints found on the umbrella were fragmentary, but investigators hoped to get enough DNA traces off the umbrella to use in a prosecution.
Although rare, umbrella stabbings have been known to occur before.
In the US in 1998, a man ended up in a critical condition after being stabbed in the eye with an umbrella for apparently bumping into another pedestrian.
An 18-year-old in Australia was fatally stabbed with an umbrella in 2003. MrChris Williams suffered severe head injuries after he got into an argument with a 14-year-old boy at a tram stop. -- Wire services.