PESCARA. While the two murderers hidden behind the hedge stabbed the 16-year-old 25 times Christopher Thomas Lucianiordering him to be quiet and spitting on him, in the same park, a few meters away, two kids from the gang were buying “10 euros worth of weed that they then smoked at the beach”. A purchase on commission: the money was from one of Christopher Thomas’s two killers, the first who stabbed him about fifteen times in the back in the crevice of the Baden Powell garden on Via Raffaello. This detail is also in the reconstruction of the murder committed for a drug debt of 250 euros around 5 pm last Sunday but discovered shortly after 9 pm, when one of the kids from that group of five friends told his father what he had seen. “I was sure he was dead, there were so many stab wounds in front of me”, says the boy. And again: «Despite what happened, we went swimming on the beach of the Croce del Sud establishment and there», reveals the minor witness, «Gianni got rid of the knife that he had wrapped in one of Michele’s blood-stained socks, throwing it behind the rocks».
THE WHITE CHAT Gianni and Michele – fictitious names because they are still minors – are the two arrested: the first is the son of a teacher, the second is the son of a policeman on duty in a station in the Pescarese area. They are accused of murder. On Sunday afternoon, in addition to the two murderers and the 16-year-old killed, there were four other young people in the park. Did they talk about the murder via chat? An IT consultant will say this, Fabio Biasiniappointed by the prosecutor Angela D’Egidio of the prosecutor’s office for minors in L’Aquila: Biasini will sift through the 6 cell phones of all the kids in the pack, from messages to photos.
THE MOVED BODY «I was really stunned», confesses the boy who witnessed the massacre, the one who witnessed the murder with his own eyes, «and I understood that it wasn’t something I could keep to myself and so I talked about it first with my brother and then with my parents”. And the boy adds a detail: “Having carried out an inspection together with the police, I noticed that Christopher’s body had been dragged to a more hidden area than where the event had occurred.” Between the soccer field and the railway wall there is an area with weeds: in this non-place the life of a 16-year-old ended.
A LESSON Initially, from the stories told by the gang at the police station, it was supposed to be just a lesson: “Gianni had made us understand that he wanted to slap him twice.” Gianni wanted his money back for some drug deals and, instead, Christopher Thomas tried to stall: “Gianni told him that it had become a question of respect.” A shame to be washed away with blood: more than slaps, once they arrived from the bus terminal to the garden on Via Raffaello, the park between the luxurious buildings became the scene of a murder that shocked Italy: “Turning right, we saw Luciani on the ground and Gianni with the knife in his hand. When we arrived, Gianni continued to stab him,” these are the words of the boy witness, “they said that Gianni stabbed him 15 times and Michele, who then took the knife, with a black blade, stabbed him another ten. I walked away and went to the others. I didn’t react in any way. Christopher was making almost death noises and they were telling him to shut up. He was on the ground, with one leg crossed over the other, bent over on the ground, exposed to blows on his right side. I was shocked, I didn’t know what to do, I wanted to stop them but I didn’t know what to do. While they were doing it, it seemed like they were losing their minds.”
TOWARDS THE SEA With a boy left to die, the group went to the beach but Gianni, the first to hit the 16-year-old, was afraid of having been seen: “He talked about the cameras that could have filmed them. While we were walking,” says the witness, “I think Gianni said that this had to stay between the five of us.” A secret between brothers, to be kept like in TV series.
«YELLOW IN THE FACE» Another boy tells the Flying Squad what his eyewitness friend told him: “My friend told me that while they were stabbing him they were insulting him. My friend, when he came out, was completely yellow in the face and it looked like he was about to die.” And yet another, again about the boy witness, says this: “When he comes out I notice that he is completely shocked. We ask him what happened and he tells us ‘he’s dead.’ Shortly afterward Gianni and Michele come out of the alley. I don’t remember the exact words they said, they made us understand that he is dead and that they had stabbed him. I think they said that they stabbed him about fifteen times.”
SPEECHES AT THE SEA Then everyone on the beach: «At the seaside they told a summary of what happened», says another of the pack, «I know that either Gianni or Michele gave the stab wounds. We didn’t think about calling anyone, neither the police nor the ambulance.” With the investigators, this boy talks about a gun which however was not found: «I remember that Michele had a gun. He showed it to me after it was all over. He had it in his pocket. I don’t know how he had it. He told me it was unloaded, without shots.”
