On April 1, 2016, police officer Gordon Semple had be perusing the Grindr app when he came in contact with Stefano Brizzi. Brizzi had invited Semple to join him at his flat where the pair could partake in a “drug-fuelled sex party,” according to The Telegraph. What Semple encountered at the apartment was not the “hot, dirty, sleazy” sex he had come for.
PC Gordon Semple
Little is known about what occurred next, only what investigators found at the scene of Brizzi’s apartment on April 7th, after neighbors filed a complained about a foul odor and Brizzi’s statement that Satan had ordered him to kill. Brizzi further claimed that as he was in the process of strangling the officer, another man decided to come to the wild sex party he had advertised on Grindr. Brizzi turned the gentleman away after he buzzed to get into the apartment, telling the man that he had fallen ill and the party was canceled.
Stefano Brizzi
Inside the apartment police determined that their fellow officer had been dismembered after Brizzi strangled him to death. Evidence that Brizzi may have attempted to eat the officer were found on the scene with DNA present in Brizzi’s blender, a cooking pot and other kitchen items. Evidence also showed that Semple’s leg had been severely burned, before Brizzi took a page out of the Breaking Bad playbook and filled his bathtub with acid in order to dissolve the rest of Semple’s body.
Clumps of flesh and a sickly blue-green sludge was found inside of Brizzi’s bathtub. Human remains were also discovered within the sewer system near Brizzi’s apartment.
The BBC reports that parts and pieces of Semple’s remains were also found strewn around the apartment, inside communal waste bins, and thrown into the River Thames. According to Brizzi, he didn’t like Semple because he was “fat and ugly” and later told jurors that the events that transpired were the result of a sex game gone wrong while high on crystal methamphetamine.
Brizzi has since denied the murder charges, but did admit to a second charge of obstructing a coroner. His trial is currently underway. If convicted Brizzi faces life in prison.