U.S.-born college students stabbed in Rome

Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images

A college student allegedly stabbed his roommate in Rome after a Halloween party, five years to the day after Amand Knox's roommate was killed.

A college student in Rome is in police custody for allegedly stabbing his American-born roommate 25 times in a drug-fueled delirium after a night of Halloween partying.

The victim, Fabio Malpeso, 19, was awake and talking to police from his bed in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Italy?s capital, investigators there told NBC News.

?"He is obviously still under observation but he is awake and talking," Police Chief Lorenzo Suraci told the network.

?"He even asked about the situation and what is happening," Suraci said.

?Meanwhile, the New Jersey born victim?s alleged attacker, Reid Alexander Schepis, 20, said he doesn?t even remember nearly killing his best friend in what investigators said was a brutal assault sometime after dawn on Thursday morning, investigators said.

?"Fabio and Reid were the best of friends,? his lawyer, Vincenzo Comi, told NBC News. ?They were both in their second year of university but knew each other from before. Even their parents knew each other.?

The bizarre attacked occurred five years to the day after the stabbing slay of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, about two hours north of Rome.

?Her roommate, Amanda Knox, and Knox?s then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted murder in 2009 but had their convictions overturned in 2011.?

?Malpeso and Schepis, who lives in southern Italy and has American and Italian citizenship, studied together at John Cabot University. The school confirmed to NBC that the two lived in an off-campus apartment.

?Investigators said the trouble started after the two returned home to the flat overlooking the Roman Coliseum after partying at a club called Atlantic with two other friends.

?Schepis told investigators that, in addition to drinking, he and some others in the group had smoked hash and taken ecstasy, NBC News reported.

Malpeso went to bed sometime around 6 a.m., investigators said, around the time his sister, Federica, returned to the apartment with her boyfriend, Andrea Rinaldi, investigators said.

Details about the attack were still sketchy, but investigators say sometime around 7:45 a.m. Schepis grabbed a kitchen knife, went into Malpeso?s bedroom and began stabbing him as he slept.

Rinaldi, who is in his 30s, heard Malepso screaming and ran in to stop the attack, investigators said.

He also suffered several stab wounds and was recovering in a hospital.

Police don?t have a motive, but believe Schepis was too high to know what he was doing.

After he was arrested, Schepis was nearly ?catatonic? and ?almost in a state of unconsciousness at times,? investigators told NBC News.

Malpeso was recovering after surgery to repair a torn lung and several stab wounds.

Schepis made his first appearance in court on Saturday.?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nydnrss/news/~3/WPKsbEWR58k/story01.htm

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