Former Male Escort Found Guilty of Murder and Arson in Dating App Killing
A former London-based male escort was found guilty of murder and arson Wednesday in a 2013 death that was previously believed to be the result of a tragic fire accident.
Back in January 2013, Jason Marshall met Peter Fasoli through the dating app Badoo and arrived at his home dressed as a police officer on the pretext of bondage sex. According to The Guardian, in addition to his uniform, Marshall also brought along handcuffs, a utility belt, a holster and latex gloves.
Once he was inside the home, Marshall allegedly “arrested” Fasoli, 58, “for being a spy,” and then threatened to cut his tongue out with a large hunting knife if the computer repairman didn’t give him the pin numbers for his credit cards.
He then suffocated Fasoli with plastic cling wrap and set fire to his apartment before leaving the man for dead – fleeing to Rome, where he would later murder a second man, Vincent Iale, and attempt to kill a third, Umberto Gismondi, within the span of a few weeks.
For two years, police believed that Fasoli died in an accidental fire; it wasn’t until his nephew found footage of the murder – recorded via CCTV on his uncle’s computer hard drive – that authorities linked Marshall to the murder.
“We were all very shocked because [Fasoli] kept to himself, no one really knew him, and we knew he had a lot of electrical equipment, so we just assumed it was an electrical fire,” one of his neighbors, Layla Light, told the BBC. “It’s quite scary because it’s come out that the guy has killed other people and he died and was tortured to death while we were sleeping.”
Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell told The Guardian that Marshall never should have been free to commit more crimes after Fasoli’s murder, and that he was “shocked and surprised” that the police apparently didn’t do a more thorough job of looking into Fasoli’s death.
“There appears to have been missed opportunities and serious failings of the police investigation,” he said. “Why did they not check the victim’s mobile phone, computer, bank transactions and CCTV?”
Jason Marshall, now 28, was reportedly stoic when the judge delivered the verdict Wednesday. He is already serving 16 years behind bars for the murder of Iale after being tried and convicted in July 2014.
On Wednesday, the BBC reports that Marhsall admitted under oath that he got pleasure from dominating men while pretending to be a man in uniform, often a policeman.
When asked by Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC if he had been trying to “terrify” Fasoli at the time of his murder, Marshall responded, “Yes, my lord, with the prospect of torture.”