An idyllic life with her cows - snuffed out by 'crazy' backpacker: As Italian admits killing author, 53, in Devon village, TOM RAWSTORNE looks at the warning signs in his past

As a six-year-old child, Kate Bevan was asked by her parents what she wanted to do when she grew up. 'Live on an island with lots and lots of animals,' came her reply.

And, as she entered her fifties, she finally felt that she had fulfilled that ambition.

The 'island' in question was Combe Farm, 280 acres of glorious Devon countryside that was home to horses, cows, chickens and the rest. There Kate made her home, rising at dawn to take care of the animals and only turning in after 10pm when her charges were safely tucked away for the night.

She had been drawn to the farm by her passion for horses. But it was the cows that stole her heart – one in particular, Daisy. She had helped hand-rear the calf and became so captivated by her and the rest of the herd she wrote a book about them, hoping the proceeds might one day help purchase land of her own to use as an animal sanctuary.

'I have been so blessed to be given the opportunity to go on this journey, one which has not only changed my life, but changed me,' she wrote in Knowing Daisy, published just before Christmas. 'I believed just five years ago, that I had everything in life that I could wish for. Having left that life behind now, I have fewer possessions, but quite simply – I am the wealthiest person I know.'

Kate Bevan, 53, had found happiness on a farm full of animals before her murder on January 3

On January 3, that perfect life came to a premature end. That evening, the 53-year-old's body was found in the corner of a pen that was home to Jumbo, the farm's bull. The immediate assumption was that Kate had been killed by the one-ton animal.

But, nothing of the sort had happened. Her life had in fact been snuffed out by a human hand, strangled by Luigi Palmas, a volunteer worker from Italy.

While it took police three weeks to suspect his role in the crime, others who had worked alongside him at the farm were suspicious from the start.

But, then, Kate herself had doubts about the 27-year-old from the moment he'd arrived at the farm three weeks earlier. Just watching the way he behaved around the animals was enough for her.

'Kate had told Luigi to leave her cows alone because he treated them very badly,' recalled Nancy Abdel, another volunteer on the farm. 'Whenever we needed to move them somewhere, he used to yell at them. Kate was scared of Luigi, she didn't like him at all.'

Yesterday, Palmas pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. And the Daily Mail can reveal the Italian was well-known to police in his homeland. 

'Luigi is properly crazy and paranoid, and has been known as a psychiatric patient since he was a small boy,' said a police spokesman in his hometown of Vimercate, near Milan. 'His adoptive mother and his sister called us maybe four times in the last three years saying he'd attacked them in their home. He once even came into a police station and said 'Arrest me, because I'm going to kill someone'. He'd been sectioned for several weeks in September last year, and shouldn't have been capable of travelling to England a few months later.'

The result? Two very different people, from very different backgrounds, whose paths happened to cross – with tragic results.

And what makes the tragedy so much more heart-rending is the fact that Kate, as she would herself write, had never been happier.

Luigi Palmas, 27, was known to struggle with mental health issues and had attacked his mum and sister, who is pictured here with Palmas

Born in Thornbury, near Bristol, as a young woman she worked for jewellery chain F. Hinds, rising to become its marketing manager.

After leaving the firm in 2006, she and her husband Michael, whom she married aged 20, relocated to Devon, purchasing a £400,000 three-bed cottage in the tiny village of Brithem Bottom.

There she started working as stock manager for the Vale Veterinary Group in nearby Cullompton, with responsibility for the purchase and management of their medicines. The move and job allowed Kate, a qualified riding instructor, to indulge her life-long passion for all things equine.

That brought her into contact with Combe Farm where, five years ago, she purchased a horse called Mattisse.

Located in rolling countryside outside Gittisham – once described by Prince Charles as his 'ideal English village' – the farm has bred and sold Arab horses for more than half a century.

As well as the horses, the working farm is home to a herd of 100 cows.

Having started out helping with the horses at weekends, Kate found herself enchanted by both the cows and the place itself.

'The farm is part of a larger estate and is set in what must be the most beautiful location I have ever found,' she would write. 'Imagine if you can, a world not of grandeur or wealth, but a unique place, secluded from the outside, full of riches in abundance for those who look to find them.'

The 'riches' Kate found came in the form of a calf who had been rescued by the herdsman from its mother because she had no milk. Kate took over hand-rearing Daisy and another calf called Dandelion. In her book she describes how it was the start of a love affair.

'When I am with them, just spending time, sitting in with the herd, watching them with their babies, with each other, I am totally at peace – I could quite happily never leave,' she wrote.

Bevan's farm was located outside the sleepy rural village of Devon Gittisham, pictured above

Kate would get up at dawn to help, go to work and then return to the farm for the evening. By the start of 2019 she had moved in to a room at the farm, eating her meals there with the other staff. Although her husband insists she visited their home daily and that they were still together, the impression of those working at the farm was that they had separated.

That workforce included a small number of employees as well as a changing roster of up to five volunteers, some from abroad.

Palmas was one of them, recommended by an Italian friend.

One employee, who asked not to be named, said they had no inkling that Palmas was mentally ill.

'We just thought he was a highly-strung Italian,' the worker said. 'He had a laugh similar to a hyena but he was such a nice person.'

That wasn't the view of 38-year-old Nancy Abdel. She arrived at the farm on December 14 and was supposed to stay until the end of the month. Instead, 'because of Luigi', she left after just five days. 'His English was terrible and he had no experience with animals,' she said.

'He was a dangerous person to have around. In an altercation I had with Luigi he was coming for me and was shouting in my face and Kate got in between us and started yelling at him, but he treated her really badly and made her cry.' Farm owner Michael Harris, however, last night insisted the arrest of the young Italian backpacker came as 'a complete shock'.

On the day of Kate's death in January, she did not come in for dinner along with the other volunteers at 6.30pm. Her absence was not unusual.

It was only later that a full search of the farm was conducted and her body was found in the bull pen.

Workers at the farm could not understand the fact that she appeared not to have a mark on her body. Some even speculated that she might have had a heart attack.

It was only following a post mortem examination that suspicion finally fell on Palmas. This was despite the fact that following Kate's death he had wildly run naked in a field and smeared himself in mud. At the time it had been assumed it was a bizarre expression of grief.

Appearing at Exeter Crown Court yesterday, Palmas was flanked by six staff from Broadmoor secure hospital where he has spent most of his time on remand since his arrest. The court heard that he was 'suffering from a severe and enduring mental illness, a schizophrenic affected disorder in which the severity comes and goes'.

He will be sentenced next month – the tragic final chapter in the story of a woman who had so much to live for.