Rome (CNN) Italian police have arrested an American citizen on suspicion of brutally murdering a shopkeeper in the city of Viterbo, near Rome, authorities told CNN Sunday.

Michael Aaron Pang, 22, from Overland Park, Kansas, is accused of beating 74-year-old shop worker Norveo Fedeli to death after being unable to pay for clothes, according to Lt. Col. Guglielmo Trombetta of Italy's paramilitary police, the Carabinieri.

Pang arrived in Italy in mid-February and rented a bed and breakfast in the village of Capodimonte, the officer said.

"He was gentle with everyone and always greeted everyone," Trombetta said, adding that the young man doesn't speak Italian and used his mobile phone translator to communicate.

But he was arrested over the killing of Fedeli, who was struck with an iron stool and had his face trampled with a shoe, in a crime committed in daylight that has stunned the normally quiet town.

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