A preliminary investigations judge said Wednesday that there was evidence that Claudio Campiti, the 57-year-old man accused of murdering four women and injuring three other people in a shooting spree in Rome on Sunday, had been planning the attack for a long time.
Explaining the decision to keep Campiti in jail, the judge said the suspect had shown "no signs of remorse" during questioning, which suggested that he would "not desist from more violent and bloody conduct" if released.
The massacre took place during at a meeting for owners of property in a residential complex.
The shooting could have been worse, as Campiti had 170 bullets and a second cartridge with him, but was unable to use them as other participants in the meeting managed to stop and restrain him until the police arrived.
Campiti had long been at odds with the management of the complex and had been denied a gun permit for having repeatedly issued threats.
He stole the murder weapon from a Rome shooting range that he was a member of.
This has raised questions about how Campiti was able to access these guns even though he had been denied a permit, and about the procedures that enabled him to sneak the weapon out of the range.
Prosecutors have charged him with premeditated mass murder.
Campiti reportedly had 6,000 euro and a rucksack full of clothes with him on Sunday, suggesting that he had intended to go on the run after the massacre.
The fact that he had so much money also struck prosecutors as odd, as he had reportedly been claiming the 'citizenship-wage' minimum income benefit since 2020.
