The Ontarian who killed five residents of his condominium building in Vaughan, Ont., was paranoid, felt targeted by a group of criminals and was influenced by a dichotomous view of Christianity, according to extremism experts who analyzed his posts on social networks. Francesco Villi, 73, however, was not radicalized, they say.
Sunday evening, the septuagenarian moved on different floors of 9235 rue Jane and shot six residents, killing five: Rita Camilleri, Vittorio Panza, Russell Manock, Helen Manock and Naveed Dada. Three of those drawn were members of the building’s board of directors. The man accused the council of having committed criminal acts against him. He felt that the electrical chamber under his unit had been poorly constructed by the promoters and that electromagnetic waves were emanating from it, causing him health problems. The council, he said, was covering up these irregularities.
“I fear for my life,” the man wrote in August 2020 in a letter delivered to an Ontario Court of Justice judge in which he accused board members of to be liars. “The council did nothing to help me have reasonable living conditions in my unit,” reads the letter. On his Facebook account, which has not been active since Tuesday, the man described some council members as murderers.
Christine Sarteschi, a professor at Chatham University in Pennsylvania who is interested in extremist movements, calls the man a “targeted individual”. “These individuals believe they are being targeted by a group of people. They have the disillusioned perception that this group is after them, ”explains the American professor, who reviewed the videos of the man. The professor studied the phenomenon and determined that at least four people in the United States living this type of paranoia have committed mass shootings since 2009.
Carmen Celestini, a professor at the University of Waterloo who specializes in conspiratorial movements, believes the man’s outlook was fueled by religious ideas. According to the professor, Francesco Villi thought that the people who hurt him represented evil and that the latter – who represented 95% of the population – were at war against him since he was part of the good. “He thought there was a strong division between good and evil in the world,” she says.
” Nothing to lose “
In a video posted in the days preceding the killing, the septuagenarian claimed that he “wouldn’t have had to do this if you had given me comfortable accommodation”. In some videos, Francesco Villi uses the word “murderer” to describe those who wish him harm. On social networks, the septuagenarian “gave the impression that he had nothing to lose” notes Christine Sarteschi. This is one of the main reasons why the four “targeted individuals” she studied in 2017 carried out mass killings.
Despite his threats to council members and his sometimes inflammatory publications on social networks, the two women do not go so far as to say that the killer was radicalized. On Facebook, the man posted a photo of Adolf Hitler, but Carmen Celestini believes that he represented the evil that the septuagenarian saw in the members of the board of directors, the building and the judicial system. He had not shared the photo in support of the dictator, she believes. “He wasn’t anti-immigration and he didn’t seem to support the Qanon movement,” she observes.
York Regional Police have not yet clarified whether the handgun the killer possessed was legal and whether the man was entitled to own it, but Christine Sarteschi believes the man should not have own it. “In some videos, he said he was ready to take action. It is worrying that a person who feels that a group is after them, and who has the impression of needing to protect themselves, is in possession of a weapon, ”comments the expert.
This story is supported by the Local Journalism Initiative, funded by the Government of Canada.