A man who murdered an Italian-Dutch porn star and then impersonated her to throw journalists off the scent was arrested on Tuesday after confessing to chopping her into more than a dozen pieces and storing her in a freezer at her home.

Police said that Milanese bank employee Davide Fontana, 43, admitted to killing Carol Maltesi, a 26-year-old performer known as Charlotte Angie, with a hammer in January.

Mr Fontana, who was her neighbour and friend, then cut her into pieces and put the dismembered body in a freezer that he installed in her house, even paying her rent and responding to messages on her phone to trick people into thinking she was still alive.

She was not reported as missing until she didn’t turn up to an event at a lap dancing club in mid-March, prompting Mr Fontana to dump her body in bin bags off a mountain road in the Brescia province, two hours from Milan.

Her body was found eight days ago by a passerby who spotted a hand with purple glitter nail polish, but she was not immediately identifiable. So police put out a description that included details of her 11 tattoos in the hope that someone might recognise her.

‘Fortunately I am fine’

Not long afterwards, Andrea Tortelli, journalist in Brescia, received a tip-off about her real identity. He contacted acquaintances of Maltesi, who said she also had a young son, reportedly living with a male relative. No one had seen her recently, but they shared images, her real name and a phone number.

“I thought to myself ‘what are the odds that all this coincides – the physical description, and that this woman has eight of the same tattoos?” Mr Tortelli told The Telegraph. “But I didn’t want to go to the police until I was sure.”

He decided to verify his discovery by messaging her on WhatsApp and was shocked when he got a reply.

“A number of people have told me about that girl,” Mr Fontana – pretending to be Maltesi – wrote back. “Fortunately I am fine.”

The exchange went silent when Mr Tortelli pressed for a voice message to confirm her identity.

“I thought ‘the only person who would reply pretending to be a dead woman is the person who killed her. So basically there is an assassin on the loose.’ I decided to take all my information to the Carabinieri,” said Mr Tortelli.

Mr Fontana is expected to appear in court on Thursday for a preliminary hearing and faces charges of aggravated murder, as well as mutilating and hiding a corpse.