Italian "wedding dress" performance artist for peace raped, murdered

Pippa Bacca, a performance artist from Italy who hitchhiked throughout Europe wearing a wedding dress to spread a message of peace and "marriage between different peoples and nations" was found dead in Turkey, raped and murdered by a mentally ill man who offered her a ride:

Her naked body was found on April 11 in some bushes near a Turkish village after a suspect led investigators to the site. Although an official cause of death has not been given, local Turkish authorities said Ms. Bacca had been raped and strangled.

The killing has stirred broad public anger and grief in Turkey and Italy. Still, what Ms. Bacca would have wanted, her family and friends said, was her message of peace to live on.

"She thought that in the world there were more positive than negative people, and that it was right to be trusting," said Rosalia Pasqualino, a sister of Ms. Bacca, whose real name was Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo. "Trust is a very human factor, and she believed that to understand people, you had to get to know them."

Link to New York Times story, and Link to video shot in Italy on the inauguration of her performance project. (thanks, Reverse Cowgirl)