The body of a young man aged around 18 was found last night in the Giostra district of Messina. The body was on the pavement in via Michelangelo Rizzo with an evident gunshot wound. At the moment no other details are known and no leads are ruled out. Investigations are underway by the Flying Squad.
The victim is called Michele Lanfranchi, 19 years old, and had a history of drug dealing. He had a gunshot wound to the neck; the weapon was found next to his body. This last circumstance does not exclude other hypotheses in addition to that of murder which had been indicated by the flying squad investigators themselves. The young man, according to the police, may in fact have committed suicide or been the victim of a shot fired by mistake. The fingerprint and ballistic examination of the weapon will be decisive.
The autopsy will clarify the causes of death. The ballistic examination of the weapon found near the body will also be decisive to understand whether it was a murder, a suicide or an accident caused by an accidental shot from the gun.
Meanwhile, investigators are interviewing the young man’s relatives and friends to reconstruct his last hours before his body was found.
