PESCARA. The names and surnames of the murderers of Christopher Thomas Luciani published on Tik Tok. This is the reaction of the friends of “Crox”, as the 16-year-old was called, killed with 25 stab wounds last Sunday in Baden Powell Park. Anger invades social networks: for kids who grew up on bread, Nutella and the internet, unmasking Christopher’s killers by revealing their identity on social networks is like a court sentence. The murder of Christopher, shot by two 17-year-olds for a drug debt of about 250, triggers the desire for revenge among minors. And kids entrust their thoughts to the internet, like a sea in which everything can float. “In the meantime, I’ll put the names and hope to have and see the photos of these two disgusting, filthy infamous people”, says the post that violates the secrecy on the names of those arrested and adds: “The two infamous people who killed a 16-year-old friend of theirs to bully each other in the group… Rot in prison”. “You can find the photos on Tik Tok,” says the first comment. The lives of kids are played out on the virtual stage of the internet: what happens online is true, and so even feeding the identity of the murderers to social networks takes on the specific weight of an official act.
But it’s not just anger, the sharing of pain is also spreading on the internet and the kids are relying on one song in particular to describe this moment, “Bimbo in quartiere”: “Those who were once his friends betrayed him for a few pennies”, says the song. He doesn’t have Ezz which is compulsively relaunched in these days of tears and pain. A rap with 2 million views that tells the story of a boy from the suburbs, without parents but with social workers. That rhythm is the soundtrack not of a film but of an unfortunately true story. And then a flurry of comments, even from shocked adults: «A boy abandoned by everyone. Rest in peace, beautiful angel». «Poor families, all destroyed. But the boy who died breaks our hearts. What is happening with young people in today’s world? The boys must be listened to». «Poor unfortunate boy, as a mother my heart breaks. How can a mother abandon a son, 15 years old, to die like this is not right. Rest in peace, beautiful angel».
A week ago, Pescara woke up stunned by the murder of a boy in a public park in the city center. A feeling amplified by the lightning arrest of the alleged murderers: two normal boys, like many others, both 17 years old, one is the son of a teacher and the other is the son of a carabiniere on duty at a station in the Pescara area. They are now locked up in juvenile prisons in Rome and Bari: they are accused of voluntary homicide. But the investigation also aims to discover whether the killing of Christopher Thomas was premeditated. Had the two murderers, Gianni and Michele, fictitious names because they are minors, planned to make one of their peers pay up to this point? Beyond the testimonies of the boys from the gang who took part in the meeting between Christoper and Gianni and Michele between the Pescara central train station and the bus terminal – Gianni had a diving knife and a change of clothes in his backpack –, the answers could come from the cell phones confiscated from all the boys, the two arrested and the other four friends: the IT consultant appointed by the juvenile prosecutor’s office in L’Aquila, Fabio Biasiniwill comb through chats and photos to see if there had already been contact between Christopher and his killers before 4.30pm last Sunday.
After the meeting in the center of Pescara, the group moved to the park and here, in a secluded nook, at around 5pm Gianni was the first to attack the 16-year-old with 15 stab wounds to the back; then Michele intervened and, snatching the knife from Gianni’s hands, finished Christopher off with 10 more stab wounds. Why did he do it? “Because they are friends”, the words of the boy witness. A brutal crime, which left the boy shocked and as he witnessed the scene he became “yellow” in the face even though he then went to the beach with the rest of the group: he regained consciousness only at around 9pm when he told his father, also a carabiniere, what had happened shortly before in Baden Powell park. By that time, however, Christopher was already dead.
