23 May 2001

23 May 2001 marks the evening when Fabrizio Collini kills an old man in a suite and waits in the lobby to be arrested. The date appears not as a retrospective caption but on an electronic panel amid the immediate aftermath, setting an ordinary public schedule against the violence in the rooms above.

The Date in the Lobby

After the killing, the panel displays “23 May 2001, 8 p.m., the Spree Hall: Association of German Engineering Industries”. The announcement gives the scene a precise calendar and public setting, but it does not establish that the murder itself occurred at exactly 8 p.m. Collini has already left the suite; the date and time belong to the event listed on the panel.

The Evening’s Violence

The old man had spoken amiably to Collini before they entered the suite’s sitting room. About twenty minutes later, he was dead from four bullets to the back of the head. Collini then repeatedly stamped on his face, stopping only when the heel came off his shoe. After sitting on the bed until his breathing steadied, he crossed himself and left the room, limping as the nails in the damaged shoe scraped across the marble floor.

In the lobby, Collini told the receptionist to call the police and gave her the room number and the fact of the death. He did not explain what had happened. He sat on a blue sofa, ignored the waiter’s offer of service, and waited for arrest; his footprints could be traced from the suite back through the lift and across the ground floor.

Narrative Significance

The date’s placement sharpens the contrast between the scheduled gathering at Spree Hall and the bloodied suite. The electronic panel registers a public event in the same lobby where Collini has reported a killing, while his silence leaves the reason for it unstated. By the end of the scene, 23 May 2001 has become both a precise timestamp and the beginning of his visible submission to the authorities: he has summoned the police and waits for them without attempting to flee.