Lorenzo Betti

Movie

Sleepless

Year of Debut

2001

Alias

The Farmer

The Killer Dwarf

Weapons

Pruning Knife, English Horn, Rope, Large Hunting Knife, Multi-Tool Scissors, Fountain Pen, Hatchet

Abilities

Intelligence, Strength, Stealth

Weaknesses

Asthma

Enemies

Inspector Manni, Ulysses Moretti

Family

Unnamed Father

Unnamed Mother

Associates

Giacomo Gallo, Gloria, Mary-Louise, Leone

Place of Origin

Turin, Italy

Background Info

He started killing when he was 13.

Motive

Obsessed with the nursery rhyme that allows him to quell his sadistic and homicidal urges. Also, might've been driven crazy and started hallucinating the sounds of the farmer's animals coming from women.

Status

Deceased

Number of Kills

23

Type

Giallo Slasher

Bio[]

Betti was born in Turin, Italy sometime in 1970. He was plagued with homicidal and sadistic urges, which he quelled by killing animals around the village. However, the animals ended up not being enough to quench his bloodlust. After reading the last horror novel of a hunchback dwarf named Vincenzo de Fabritiis that he and the other kids knew, he became obsessed with a nursery rhyme that he had heard in it about a farmer who killed his animals.

Either inspired or driven crazy, Betti at the age of 13, started killing women while basing his murders off the rhyme, first starting with the "pig", which he attributed to a prostitute. Using his young age to get the prostitute to let her guard down, Betti snuck up behind her, slit her throat with a pruning knife, and left a paper cutout of a pig. For his next murder, he chose his childhood friend, Giacomo Gallo's mom because her last name "Gallo" meant "rooster" in Italian. Once again, getting his victim to let her guard down, Betti knocked her down and stabbed her to death with an English horn because his young mind took the rhyme's use of "instrument" as literal. Giacomo witnessed this from under the stairs, but couldn't see the attacker's face, only noticing that they were small like a dwarf. After killing Gallo, Betti left a cutout of a rooster near her body.

Due to Giacomo's description of the killer and no one thinking that a minor could be behind the gruesome crimes, the village suspected Vincenzo, but were unable to prove it. While everyone had eyes on Vincenzo, Betti targeted and strangled a young girl with a rope, leaving a cutout of a chick with the body. Fearing that he'd be blamed for "The Dwarf Murders", Vincenzo's father asked his wife to shoot their son and spare him the horrors of prison. She reluctantly agreed, also fearing for her son's safety. His body was eventually discovered by police and the murders appeared to stop. While everyone thought it was because of the killer was dead, it was actually because Betti's father found out about his son's crimes and sent him away to Switzerland to protect him. From 1984 to 2000, Betti would go on to commit six murders in Geneva, Switzerland and another six in New York.

He eventually ended up back in Italy, having grown into an adult, but his obsession with the nursery rhyme came back after being forced to silence a prostitute when she found a blue case with articles from the Dwarf Murders in his possession and heard him muttering in his sleep about how he's killed so many people.