PC Gordon Semple shared an interest in sado-masochistic sex with his alleged killer, Stefano Brizzi. Photo / Metropolitian Police
PC Gordon Semple shared an interest in sado-masochistic sex with his alleged killer, Stefano Brizzi. Photo / Metropolitian Police
A Breaking Bad fanatic killed a police officer and dissolved his body in the bath after using a gay dating app to invite him to his flat for a drug-fuelled sex party, a court heard.
Stefano Brizzi copied a scene in the American drama by dismembering the body of PC Gordon Semple and dissolving it in an acid bath after strangling him, jurors at the Old Bailey were told.
The 59-year-old police officer had arranged via the Grindr app to go to his alleged killer's south London flat for "hot, dirty, sleazy" sex while he was on duty on April 1.
Brizzi was allegedly in the process of throttling the officer when he turned away another man who had arrived for the sex party.
In the days following PC Semple's death, neighbours on the Peabody Estate noticed a "revolting smell" coming from Brizzi's flat. The 50-year-old Italian responded to one neighbour's complaints by saying he was cooking for a friend, the court heard.
A few days later, on April 7, police arrived at the flat to find Brizzi wearing only underpants and sunglasses. He allegedly told an officer: "I have tried to dissolve the body... I have killed a police officer. I met him on Grindr and I killed him. Satan told me to."
Brizzi was said to be "obsessed" with the award-winning television show Breaking Bad, in which the lead character, crystal meth-producing chemistry teacher Walter White, poisons a rival and dissolves the body in acid.
The court heard that police at Brizzi's flat also found a bath full of acid with evidence of human body parts.
Brizzi, who is not claiming a psychiatric defence, denies murder, saying Pc Semple died accidentally when a "sex game" went wrong. He has admitted obstructing a coroner by dismembering and disposing of the body.
Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC, who opened the trial by telling jurors it was a case that called for "broad minds and strong stomachs", said Pc Semple had been in a relationship but was "sexually promiscuous" and used the dating app for "extreme" sexual encounters.
Both he and Brizzi, whose use of crystal meth is said to have cost him a job at Morgan Stanley, had invited other Grindr users to make their way to the drug-fuelled sex party but only one man took up the offer.
Mr Aylett said that upon pressing the entry buzzer, the man - referred to in court as 'CD' - was told over the intercom: "We are having a situation here. Someone fell ill but we are taking care of it. So our party is cancelled."
Mr Aylett said the voice "can only have been the defendant", adding that the man must have arrived at the precise moment PC Semple was being strangled.
The court also heard that Brizzi, who sobbed noisily in the dock, had a series of missed meetings with other men over the course of the day, with two men agreeing to go to his flat but never arriving.
Describing Brizzi's movements in the days after the killing, Mr Aylett said he was captured on CCTV at a DIY store buying items including perforated metal sheets, three buckets and cleaning products.
Brizzi, who is said to have enjoyed boasting of his sexual exploits, allegedly told a support group that he liked "satanic rituals" which involved having sex over the sign of the pentagon.
He told a group that he believed in the Devil and said in one meeting that he had once tied a man up, treated him like a dog and made him go inside a cage, jurors heard.
