Bartolomeo Gagliano

Bartolomeo Gagliano (1958 – January 22, 2015), known as The Valentine's Day Monster (Italian: Il mostro di San Valentino), was an Italian serial killer who murdered two transvestite prostitutes after escaping from prison, where he was serving time for a murder conviction.

Initially confined to a psychiatric hospital, Gagliano escaped and committed further crimes, and shortly after his final capture, he committed suicide in the detention center he was housed in.

Early life Gagliano was born in Nicosia, Sicily in 1958, as one of Antonio Gagliano and Giuseppina Di Grazia's two sons. A few years after his birth, the family moved to Savona, Liguria, where he was raised in a humble but stable family. As time went on, however, Gagliano began to exhibit behavior that suggested that he had some sort of mental illness.

Crimes First murder and imprisonment On the night of 16 January 1981, the 22-year-old Gagliano was approaching the date of his wedding, but was instead threatened by 32-year-old Paolina Fedi, a prostitute addicted to heroin, who said that she intended to reveal to his fiancée that he had cheated on her. In order to prevent her from doing so, Gagliano killed her inside his Fiat 124 by smashing in her head with a stone along the Autostrada A10 near a toll booth in Celle Ligure. He then abandoned the car and traveled on foot to Savona, where he immediately turned himself in to the carabinieri. Gagliano was deemed incompetent to stand trial and was soon after interned at a psychiatric hospital in Aversa for ten years. His nephew Andrea also ended up in prison for unrelated convictions, and shared a prison cell with his uncle from June 2011 to September 2013.

On 18 December 2013, Gagliano used another furlough to escape from prison and carjack a businessman's Fiat Panda, which he used to cross the border into France. Panic spread among the population due to his dangerousness, and Gagliano was charged with escape, kidnapping, carjacking, and aggravated use of a weapon. A few days later, Gagliano was captured by French police in Menton and extradited back to Genoa, where he was convicted of all counts and sentenced to six years and ten months imprisonment at the Sanremo Prison.

On the morning of 22 January 2015, a week after he was handed his sentence, Gagliano hanged himself in his jail cell by tying a sheet to the window grates. He was 56 years old.