'I'm happy he's dead', says policeman's brother as killer found in cell
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A DEPRAVED killer who brutally murdered an Inverness-born policeman has been found dead in prison.
Stefano Brizzi (50) had been sentenced to life imprisonment at the end of last year, with an order to serve a minimum of 24 years after being found guilty of the murder of PC Gordon Semple.
The 59-year-old was strangled at Brizzi’s London flat after arranging to meet him for an S&M sex session through gay dating app Grindr.
Yesterday a prison service spokeswoman would only confirm that Brizzi, who had been serving his sentence at HMP Belmarsh in London, died in custody on Sunday.
However, PC Semple’s brother, Ronnie, an Inverness taxi driver, said he had been told he had taken his own life.
“The police called us on Sunday afternoon to let us know what had happened, after speaking to Gordon’s partner Gary,” he said.
“They told us he had hanged himself and had been found on the Sunday morning.
“It was always in the back of my mind that something like this might happen, but when it came the phone call was still completely out of the blue.”
At the time of sentencing Mr Semple said he was in two minds about what he would like to see happen to his brother’s killer.
“Half of me wants to see him serve his whole sentence, the other half of me thinks, I don’t care if he dies in jail tomorrow,” he said.
Speaking yesterday he said that sense of ambiguity remained.
“It’s really 50-50,” he said. “He is dead and I’m happy at that, but there’s still a part of me that would have liked to see him locked up for the whole 24 years.
“The whole family has just been trying to move on since Christmas though it has been difficult, and we still have the April 1 date of Gordon’s death coming up.
“We still don’t really believe it has happened to be honest, but the police have been absolutely fantastic, calling us up every so often to see how we are and to let us know what’s happening.
“We’re still completely satisfied with the way the trial went and the result at the end of that.”
Brizzi was a former web developer for the Morgan Stanley merchant bank but was unemployed and addicted to crystal meth at the time of the killing.
He boiled and roasted parts of Mr Semple’s body and attempted to eat them before trying to dissolve body parts in a bath of acid.
He also dumped undissolved parts in the Thames and in a communal bin at his flat in south London.
Mr Semple joined the Metropolitan Police in 1983 and was latterly attached to a Westminster Council anti-social behaviour unit.
He was last seen leaving London’s Shard building at 12.30pm on April 1 and was reported missing the following day by Gary Meeks, his partner of 25 years who he lived with in Kent.
A massive manhunt ensued before police were alerted to a “smell of death” coming from Brizzi’s flat on April 7.
Answering his door to officers Brizzi immediately told them: “I’ve tried to dissolve the body – I’ve killed a police officer. I killed him last week. I met him on Grindr and I killed him. Satan told me to.”
In court his defence suggested Mr Semple could have suffered a heart attack during a sex game.
But, following sentencing, Malcolm McHaffie from the Crown Prosecution Service branded him “an evil and calculating man”.
