31-stone killer who stabbed his girlfriend to death during row over his messy eating in bed is released from Italian jail after judges ruled he would not be able to get a low-calorie diet in prison

A 31-stone killer who stabbed his girlfriend to death over a row about messy eating has been released from Italian jail because the prison can not provide the low-calorie diet he needs to slim down. 

Dimitri Fricano, from Biella in northern Italy, killed 28-year-old Erika Preti on a Sardinian holiday in June 2017, stabbing her 57 times because she had scolded him for leaving 'too many crumbs' on the hotel bed.

Fricano, 35, weighed 18 and a half stone in 2019 when he was jailed for 30 years after admitting to the attack.

Now Turin Surveillance Court in Italy has freed him after just a year behind bars as judges heard his weight had ballooned to 31 stone.

The court ruled he is 'incompatible with the prison regime' and that his incarceration also makes it impossible for him to follow a slimming diet, the judges said.

Fricano will serve the rest of his time under house arrest in a town near Biella. 

Through he was arrested after the killing, Fricano has only spent one year behind bars after long delays to the trial in Italy due to the pandemic meant he was only finally convicted in 2022.

Prison officials informed that Fricano's health was at risk because they cannot provide the low-calorie diet he needs to lose weight.

He is so heavy, the court was told, that he cannot even get around the prison building without crutches or a wheelchair.

Fricano had admitted the brutal murder of his 25-year-old girlfriend Erika Preti when they rowed about him leaving crumbs on the bed when he ate.

The pair had been on holiday in San Teodoro when they argued before going to the beach.

Fricano had claimed that Erika had hit him with a paperweight and he snatched up a knife and stabbed her dozens of times.

He had earlier told police she had been killed by robbers.

But he eventually admitted: 'She insulted me for the bread and then hit me in the head. So I killed her.'

His defence lawyers also said he suffers from anxiety-depressive bulimia syndrome, personality disorder, and sleep apnea.

Doctors said he is at high risk of cardiovascular disease and needs to follow a special diet that the prison cannot provide.

According to the judges, he cannot remain incarcerated because his 'massive size' and chain-smoking put him at an imminent risk of dying.

They said: 'He needs assistance that cannot be provided in the institution.'

But the decision to free Fricano has infuriated Erika's family.

Her father Fabrizio Preti told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera: 'The house arrest for Dimitri? It's a shameful decision.

'No one will give me back my little girl. But for us, the pain is still too strong for him to be released so soon.

'Time, they say, heals wounds, but not those of two parents who has had a daughter taken away.

'When some friends let me know, after reading it online, that Dimitri had been placed under house arrest, a wound reopened. It was like receiving a stab to the heart.

'His is a rare case. To think that not even the mafiosi [Mafia] receive this treatment.

'However, they assured me that if he were to recover, he would return to the cell. I don't believe that is really very likely.'