Gun collector kills seven in Italian village rampage

A gun collector shot seven people dead yesterday, including members of his family, in north-western Italy then killed himself. Police, alerted by a neighbour who heard the shots, found the eight bodies in two adjacent houses in the town of Chieri, 12 miles south east of Turin.

The murderer was identified, as Mauro Antonello, 40, a former construction worker. The victims were his former wife, Carla Bergamin; her brother, Sergio Bergamin, 45; his wife Margherita, 42; Carla and Sergio's mother, Teresa Bergamin, a widow; their neighbours Decio Guerra and his wife; and Pierangela Gramaglia, who worked in the Bergamins' textile factory.

Antonello separated from his wife two years earlier after what investigators described as a stormy relationship.

The couple's seven-year-old daughter, Chiara, was thought to be safe. She had left to go to school – where Carla Bergamin also worked – shortly before the killings. The sons of Sergio and Margherita Bergamin, who were 18 and 20 were out of the house.

Police believe Antonello fired about 40 rounds from three weapons, a submachine-gun, a semi-automatic pistol, and a revolver, with which he killed himself. "All the guns were lawfully declared because Antonello was a collector," an official said.

Battista Cappa, a neighbour said: "I saw a man who fired and a person who fell to the ground. [The man] had a dark jacket and after the first shots I came back into the house. I was very frightened."

Antonello's first victim was his estranged wife, shot in her car in the courtyard behind the house. He then turned his guns on Decio Guerra and his wife, who came out of their house next door when they heard the shots. He jumped the fence to an adjacent house, where the Bergamins have a textile workshop, and killed his mother-in-law and Mr Gramaglia. He then entered the house, and shot his brother-in-law, Sergio, and his wife, Margherita. He then shot himself.

The street, lined with identical new houses is in a quiet residential area. Giovanni Grevi, who lives opposite said, "I saw that man [Antonello] run between the two houses. He was moving stooped over, with the guns held low. He must have shot 30 or 40 times but I realised too late to stop him."

The attack was Italy's third "domestic" murder in two days. On Monday, Renzo Finamore, a former officer in the financial police, shot dead his wife and daughter, and seriously wounded himself and his son-in-law near Reggio Emilia. He positioned a video camera to film the slaughter.

In Rome, at almost the same time as the Antonello killings, a couple were found dead in their apartment. Police said Antonio Schiliro killed his wife and then himself with a knife, seemingly because of a dispute over her son by a previous marriage.