PESCARA. Citizen mourning today in Pescara: the city joins in grief with the community of Rosciano, on the day of the last farewell to Christopher Thomas Luciani. The mayor of Pescara Carlo Masci proclaimed city mourning, from 4.30 pm to 6.30 pm. With the provision signed yesterday, the mayor orders, starting this morning and until 6.30 pm, the display of flags at half-mast in municipal offices and in all public buildings. Owners of commercial businesses and public operators are asked not to engage in behavior that contrasts with the spirit of city mourning between 4.30 pm and 6.30 pm, in conjunction with the funeral ceremony.
This afternoon, at 5:00 p.m., in the church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in Rosciano, the last farewell to Christopher. The town of Pescara has declared a day of mourning on the day of great collective grief for the loss of its sixteen-year-old son, murdered by his peers with twenty-five stab wounds, last Sunday, in the Baden Powell park in Pescara.
The mass will be celebrated by the bishop, Monsignor Tommaso Valentinettiand from the parish priest of Rosciano, Don Marco Spadaccini. Christopher’s parents will not be there: his mother Elisangela has lived in Germany for years and has made it known that she will not return. There has been no trace of his father in the village for many years now.
Present were the grandparents Olga and Paolo, the uncles Paola, Sergio, Marina, Gisella, Barbara, Pino and Grazia, the cousins Alyssia and Fabio, but also the many childhood friends from the village. The children and young people of the Rosciano football school, where the boy had played in past years, giving free rein to his great vitality. But also the students of the city’s elementary and middle schools, which Luciani had attended until a few years ago, before starting his high school studies in Pescara, in particular at the Tito Acerbo technical institute, where he did not go beyond first grade year. Then the transfer to the Molise community where he was sent on a path of reintegration into civil society after having committed a series of small crimes.
In Rosciano there will be hundreds of people to pay their last respects to the 16-year-old killed in Pescara. Roads closed and activities suspended throughout the day. Mayor Simone Palozzostill shocked by the story and the many macabre details that emerge, together with the parish and Christopher’s family are organizing a prayer vigil to remember the boy, like the one that took place last Wednesday in Baden Powell park, the place where The teenager from Rosciano lost his life last Sunday.
