Fears over serial killer after naked woman's body found 'crucified' and hanging from bridge

Hunt: The victim had been raped and tortured before she was killed, police say

Italian police are hunting a possible serial killer after the naked body of a woman was found "crucified" and hanging from a bridge.

The body of 26-year-old Andrea Cristina Zamfir was found kneeling, with her wrists taped to a horizontal bar and arms outstretched “as if she had been crucified”, witnesses told police.

Andrea, a Romanian immigrant, had been raped and tortured before she died, medical tests revealed.

Detectives fear her death is linked to similar attacks on nine other women in the Florence and Prato areas in the past decade.

A 46-year-old Italian woman survived an almost identical attack.

She was found bound to the same horizontal bar in March last year by passers who heard her screaming for help.

She had been raped, suffering internal injuries so serious that she spent three weeks in hospital.

Police are also investigating five other attacks in the outskirts of Florence and four in the nearby city of Prato.

It is believed the serial attacker has now become a killer.

Prosecutor Paolo Canessa said: “We can say with certainty that the perpetrator is a homicidal maniac and that he is a serial homicidal maniac.’

Some victims who survived have described the perpetrator as an Italian man, aged between 50 and 60, of stocky build and with thinning hair.

A series of raids on properties connected to a suspect have so far yielded no results.