«I saw Christopher on the ground bleeding and I immediately realized that Marco (not his real name, ed.) had stabbed him. In front of me and Filippo (the second killer, another fictitious name, ed.), Marco continued to launch slashes with the knife. Christopher was moaning on the ground. At a certain point Philip also took the knife from Marco’s hands with which he also hit Christopher several times as he continued to moan and make a death sound. He had his legs crossed, lying on his side.”
The two then reach the other boys sitting on a bench, among them the key witness, let’s call him Luigi, who had moved away from the crime scene. Luigi’s face is yellow, he feels bad. He told the investigators that after the incident, suspect number one said to the rest of the group: “Shut up, no one should know.”
At the Croce del Sud establishment, Marco throws the knife wrapped in Filippo’s bloody sock into the sea. Everyone knows what happened, no one calls for help or the police. The first issue that perhaps only the autopsy, performed yesterday, will be able to clarify: is Christopher still alive when the two killers go to the beach? Could he have been saved despite the 25 blows he received? A few hours pass and Luigi, shocked, tells everything to his brother who says to talk to his parents. His father, a colonel of the Carabinieri, calls the barracks. 112 alerts his colleagues in the police, the first patrol cars arrive. It is the beginning of a nightmare for the city of Pescara. On the ground is the lifeless body of a young man who has not yet turned 17. “You can’t kill a boy like that – Christopher Thomas Luciani’s grandmother, Olga, bursts out in tears – He was skinny, small. A golden boy, of course he had the crazy ideas that boys his age have. But he wasn’t a drug addict. The mother? She won’t come. She doesn’t want to see her son in a coffin.”
“He made a mistake, he has to pay,” the brother of one of the two arrested told the news. The medical examiner Cristian D’Ovidio reports 10 stab wounds on the back, 14 on the right side and one on the right thigh. The witness continues: «Christopher and Marco went towards the pitch. Marco, while following him, showed us the knife while making a face.” It is the beginning of the massacre and for investigators it could be the element to dispute premeditation. Christopher doesn’t know what awaits him at Baden Powell Park. He owes 200 euros for some “smoke” that Marco, the son of a well-known lawyer in the city, sold him. He fled from a community in Isernia and has been in disarray for two days. His killers go looking for him at the Pescara station.
With Marco there is his friend Filippo, such a good friend that he also grabs the knife and inflicts 10 blows even though Christopher doesn’t even know him. Filippo, son of a carabinieri marshal, has an unloaded gun which he shows to everyone. «He told us that he wanted to scare him with that», they state in the minutes. He doesn’t know him, he has no debts with him, but he knows that his friend must meet him. For the investigators it is the other proof, together with the knife carried by the first killer, that the murder was premeditated.
It’s 4.30pm on Sunday at the bus station. Christopher and Marco argue. Then, together with the other 5 friends including Filippo with the gun in his trousers, they escort him to a secluded area of the gardens. Luigi is also with them and then walks away. 4.46 pm, the cameras in via Raffaello record the victim entering the park with Marco, the first killer. At 4.48pm Luigi reaches the first two followed by Filippo, the best man. At 4.54pm Filippo emerges from the “fratte”. «He IS dead», he says. It is 5.21pm when Marco comes out again. He has a change of clothes in his backpack, he puts on a clean t-shirt and shorts.
At 6.21pm he is on the beach with the others: he smokes joints of weed and, like a braggart, takes a photo. The blood-stained clothes were found in the two’s home. Once the arrest has been validated, the warrant interrogation awaits.
