A Breaking Bad enthusiast killed a police officer then reenacted a gruesome scene from the popular TV show, a court heard this week.
The prosecution told the court that Stefano Brizzi met PC Gordon Semple on popular gay dating app Grindr, and after a brief introduction, the two decided to meet on 1st April last year for “fun, dirty, sleazy” sex.
Still on duty at the time, PC Semple apparently arrived at Brizzi’s South London flat, where the pair had invited other men to join them for a drug & sex party.
However, when one man who accepted the offer arrived at the flat he was turned away by Brizzi who is alleged to have said: “We are having a situation here. Someone fell ill but we are taking care of it. So our party is cancelled,” over the intercom.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC told the court that Brizzi had strangled PC Semple, before dismembering his body and dissolving it in a bath he had filled with acid.
This method is almost an exact replica of a scene from the popular American TV series and Netflix show Breaking Bad, in which the protagonist Walter White dismembers and dissolves a body in the same way.
In the days after PC Semple’s death, CCTV footage shows Brizzi at a DIY store purchasing items such as perforated metal sheets, three buckets and cleaning products.
Although already reported missing by his partner, PC Semple’s death was not discovered until 7th April when police arrived at Brizzi’s home following complaints from neighbours about the smell coming from the flat.
Upon entering, police found Brizzi wearing just his underpants and a pair of sunglasses – similar attire to that worn by Walter White in Breaking Bad – before Brizzi apparently said: “I have tried to dissolve the body… I have killed a police officer. I met him on Grindr and I killed him. Satan told me to.”
With the trial now open, Aylett told those involved that the case required “broad minds and strong stomachs.”
And as it stands, Brizzi is not pleading a psychiatric defence, instead saying that he did not murder PC Semple, but that he died during a sex game that went wrong.
The trial is ongoing.