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In Italy, there's a centuries-old superstition called the Melocchio or the evil eye.

It is the idea that one person's glare, driven by envy or rage, can curse another.

The effects are not always dramatic.

They can range from a string of bad luck to sudden illness, to a simple sense that something

is just off.

But in the late 1990s, people in Northern Italy did not need superstition to feel that their

beloved coastal towns were seemingly

under a curse.

Seventeen people, men, women, rich and poor, were murdered over just seven months.

They were strangled in their own homes, shot in remote areas, killed in train bathrooms.

There was no single motive, just one man moving silently through cities and towns, his rage

invisible, until it exploded. Donato Blanchia was no folk legend,

but when he looked at you,

your fate was sealed.

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