The cruelty described by the judge (Roberto Ferrari) in the document validating the arrest for Flavio and Luca (fictitious names), finds significant confirmation in the first results of the autopsy: Christopher Thomas Luciani was treacherously hit in a ferocious raid. No cuts to the hands, none to the arms. The sixteen-year-old did not have the chance to react to the murderous intent of his two friends. If the arms and hands appeared intact, the chest was battered. The lung area was massacred by ten blows inflicted by a single hand and fatal. The boy left without saying a word, barely realizing what was happening. Almost executed for a debt of just over 200 euros.
The strategies
But if the “psychic reality described does not allow the prevention of similar criminal conduct except through the application of the most restrictive of precautionary measures”, now Flavio’s lawyer, Roberto Mariani, is working to find an alternative to detention in Bari juvenile prison. The defense is still “in its infancy”, says the criminal lawyer who, however, has taken the initiative in the meantime: asked Flavio’s family for all the medical documentation on the young man’s state of health. The lawyer Mariani is working on a way out of prison and Flavio’s addictions to cannabinoids and (so it has been said) also to psychotropic drugs could allow a way out.
Mariani like his colleague Marco Di Giulio (defender of the alleged accomplice Luca) currently have a big problem. Their concern is the statements made by the key witness, the son of the Carabinieri colonel whom we will call Pietro, who ended up reporting the events, in the wake of an emotional breakdown after seeing the dead boy. “He – he had it put on record in front of the agents of the flying squad who are conducting the investigation – with one leg crossed over the other, bent over on the ground, exposed to blows on his right side. I was stunned, I didn’t know what to do, I wanted to stop them but I didn’t know how. While they were doing it, it seemed like they were losing their minds.”
The young man is shaken by seeing death at close range. Will this be enough to invalidate his testimony? An attempt will certainly be made.
The witnesses
Others, however, ended up confirming his words. This is the case of Valerio (another fictitious name to protect the minor) who aggravates the position of Flavio’s accomplice, confirming the idea that he owned a gun: “I know that Luca had a gun which I think was unloaded”. Even in his testimony there is that “lack of empathy” that the investigators speak of. Suffice it to say that an instant after the news of Thomas’ death he decides to go for a bath: «After a while Pietro came out upset and told us not to go where Flavio was because the boy “is on the ground” making us understand that he had been stunned. I went to the seaside in Saturn with another boy and the other two who had arrived with him. Then I headed towards Croce del Sud with two girls where I met the others again. Luca asked Flavio: “Did you throw away my friend?” I think he was referring to the knife».
The spear gun was thrown toward the rocks and will hardly be recovered unless there is a stroke of luck. But the type of wounds found on Thomas’ body can still say a lot about the version of the superwitness Pietro. The coroner, Cristian D’Ovidio, has asked for at least 60 days. And it is clear that Luca’s future will depend on this. He is described by his lawyer as being in a confused state, unaware of what he had done, almost mute in his reconstruction of the episode and incoherent in his narration.
The last farewell
Meanwhile Thomas’ funeral will be held this afternoon, from whom luck has taken a lot. First a mother (single mother expatriated in Germany without him), then the future, then life. The young victim of this story had escaped from the community in which she had been locked up and which had started her career as a hairdresser.
But «Crox», as everyone called him here in Pescara, didn’t have time to choose. A vigil organized by the Sant’Egidio community paid homage to him on Wednesday evening, in the Baden Powell park from which he never left again.
