Ronald Pituch, 26, listened to the song Ronnie by Metallica, he was sure the lyrics had been written about his life.
The song described a small-town boy who committed a terrible crime.
Lost my way, This bloody day, Lost my way, Oh please wash away, But blood stains the sun red today.
Ronald, who had struggled with mental illness for years, believed the song depicted his destiny.
‘I was drinking and I was out of it,’ Ronald explains. ‘That song was always in my head. There was just so much pressure building up.’
That pressure erupted on October 17, 2002, when police say Ronald’s mother Josephine refused to buy him cigarettes.
In a rage, Ronald bludgeoned her to death with a 9-kilo dumbbell before speeding away from the family home on a dirt bike. Pituch then went searching for his old high-school classmate Nikki Roberts, who he believed was his soulmate.
He’d been harassing her for weeks but that day he couldn’t find her.
‘I don’t know if I would have hurt her,’ he said.
Instead of Nikki, Pituch came across 11-year-old Gregory Katsnelson riding his bike.
Pituch stabbed Gregory and threw his body in a pond before turning himself in to police several hours later.
In 2004, Ronald Pituch pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. His subsequent request for a re-trial
under an insanity plea was denied and he remains behind bars.
Read more in this week’s issue of that’s life, on sale now.
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