Originally published 2021-03-23.
On 4 January 2021 two retired teachers, Peter Neumair, 63, and Laura Perselli, 68, were killed in their home in Bolzano, the main city of the northern Italian province of South Tyrol. Their son, Benno Neumair, a bodybuilder and fitness enthusiast with a following on social media, reported them missing the next day. Five weeks later he confessed to strangling both of them. In November 2022 a court sentenced him to life imprisonment, and in September 2024 Italy's highest court made that sentence final.
Much of the international coverage in March 2021 reduced the case to one striking detail: that the killing began with an argument about walking the family dog. The full story, as it came out through the investigation and three levels of courts, is longer and sadder than that headline. Here is what happened, how it was solved and what the judges decided.
The disappearance in January 2021
Peter Neumair and Laura Perselli were well known in Bolzano. Both had spent their careers in teaching, and in retirement they were keen walkers who headed into the mountains almost every day. When their son told the Carabinieri on 5 January 2021 that they had vanished, a mountain accident or a natural disaster seemed possible. On the same day a landslide hit part of a hotel near the city, and police briefly checked whether the couple might have been caught in it. They found no trace.
Investigators soon noticed that both of the couple's phones had gone silent on the evening of 4 January, at the same time, and that nothing in the house suggested a planned trip. Attention gradually turned to the one person who had been with them that day.
How investigators built the case
Several pieces of evidence pointed towards Benno. Detectives established that he had been near the Ischia Frizzi bridge over the River Adige on the evening of the killings, and a bloodstain found there was confirmed as his father's. A canister of hydrogen peroxide, a chemical sometimes used to remove bloodstains, was found in his car at a car wash.
By late January he had been formally placed under investigation for double murder and concealing bodies. On 28 January 2021, 24 days after the crime, he handed himself in while still insisting he was innocent. To search the river, authorities lowered the level of the Adige by about 20 centimetres. On 6 February 2021 Laura Perselli's body was found on a riverbank near Neumarkt, south of Bolzano.
The confession and the dog-walk argument
On 11 February 2021 Benno Neumair confessed to killing both parents with a climbing rope. Accounts of his statement, published in Italian newspapers and picked up by British tabloids in March 2021, described a row that started when his father asked him to take the dog out. According to those reports, the argument turned into a confrontation about chores, money and his lack of direction in life, and he attacked his father in the hallway of the house.
The Daily Mail, citing his confession, quoted him as saying: "Dad accused me of being a failure. I just wanted silence." When his mother came home, he killed her too. Investigators concluded that he probably did so to eliminate the only witness. He then drove the bodies to the bridge and dropped them into the river.
Laura's body had already been recovered. His father's remained missing until 27 April 2021, when a boy out walking his dog spotted it in the Adige in the Albere district of Trento, roughly 60 kilometres downstream. Some early reports said Peter Neumair's body had never been found; that was true only until this April discovery. The couple's joint funeral took place on 18 June 2021.
Mental health evidence and the trial
The trial opened before the Assize Court of Bolzano on 4 March 2022. A fast-track procedure, which in Italy can reduce a sentence, was not available because the charges carried life imprisonment.
Psychiatric evidence played a large role. Court-appointed experts concluded that Benno had a partially impaired mental capacity when he killed his father, but that he fully understood and intended his actions when he killed his mother. The court heard that he had previously suffered a serious psychiatric crisis while living in Germany, which led to a hospital admission, that he had begun using anabolic steroids at around 21, and that he had been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder.
Prosecutors asked for life imprisonment plus a year of daytime isolation. The defence argued for mitigating circumstances.
The verdict and the appeals
On 19 November 2022 the Assize Court, presided over by Judge Carlo Busato, sentenced Benno Neumair to life imprisonment for the murders and for concealing the bodies. The Bolzano Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence in October 2023. On 12 September 2024 the Court of Cassation in Rome rejected the defence's final appeal, so the life sentence is now definitive.
The case has continued to attract attention. Journalist Matteo Macuglia wrote a book about it, Il male dentro, and it has been the subject of a podcast. An online fan group that formed around the killer drew comment from researchers, who linked it to the well-documented phenomenon of people becoming fixated on notorious offenders.
Why "killed over a dog walk" misses the point
Headlines need a hook, and a trivial request leading to a double murder is a powerful one. But no one is killed simply because of a dog walk. The court record describes long-running tension within the family, a history of psychiatric problems, and a second killing that judges found was carried out with full awareness. A single detail from a confession, repeated without context, can make a crime sound random and almost absurd, when the truth is more serious.
It also pushes the victims into the background. Peter Neumair and Laura Perselli were people with long careers, friends, family and former pupils in their city. Remembering them by name, rather than as a punchline about a pet, is the least a news story owes them.
If you are worried about a family member's mental health, or about tension at home that frightens you, talking to a doctor or a local support service early is always worth it. In an emergency, contact your local emergency number.
Sources: Wikipedia: Murders of Peter Neumair and Laura Perselli; Daily Mail, March 2021 (original report of the confession).
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