The injuries that caused the death of Christopher Thomas Luciani, the 17-year-old killed last Sunday in the “Baden Powell” park in Pescara, affected both lungs and caused irreversible hemorrhagic shock. This is the first information that leaked out after the autopsy carried out by the medical examiner Christian D’Ovidio, in the presence of his colleague Ildo Polidoro, expert for part of the victim’s family. The number of shots that emerged during the body inspection was confirmed as 25. The boy, according to initial information, died quickly. The autopsy examination, described as long and complex, lasted six hours.
The only real intent was “to cause suffering and death”. This is a passage from the provision with which the investigating judge of the Juvenile Court of L’Aquila validated the arrest of the two 16-year-olds held responsible for the murder of Thomas Christopher Luciani, who was about to turn 17, brutally killed with 25 stab wounds last Sunday in the ‘Baden Powell’ park in the centre of Pescara, for a debt of 250 euros related to drug dealing.
For both boys, who availed themselves of the right to remain silent, the judge ordered their custody in a juvenile institution. The circumstantial evidence, writes investigating judge Roberto Ferrari, “highlights how the determining cause of the action is the harmful impulse, that of causing suffering and killing a human being”. An atrocious crime for ‘futile reasons’, a circumstance that is contested to the two minors (not premeditation) and that if confirmed in court, considering that life imprisonment is not prescribed for minors, could lead to the application, as per procedure, of mitigating circumstances and alternative measures. “The boy is in shock, absent, cold to emotions, but I think that’s normal, he’s a boy who is perhaps realizing that he’s done something bigger than himself” says, at the end of the validation hearing, lawyer Marco Di Giulio, who is assisting one of the two minors. Meanwhile, from the testimonies of the boys involved, other details of that afternoon of violence emerge.
“We didn’t think about calling anyone, neither the police nor the ambulance,” said a young man very close to one of the two sixteen-year-olds arrested. A testimony that confirms how the boys – despite all knowing what had happened – left the park, while Thomas’ body was lying in the brush, to go to the beach “in peace”, where they smoked hashish and took photos. In particular, on the phone of one of the two arrested there is a photo of him on the beach, with his fist on his chest and a proud position.
A selfie after the crime taken at 6.21pm on Sunday, with Thomas already dead. And from the images of the video surveillance cameras, the atrocious day of blood and indifference is shown in frames: at 4.54 pm we see the small group in the park, Thomas is also there, wearing Bermuda shorts and a white sweatshirt. Then in the fragment at 5.21pm he is no longer seen. But one of the two stopped can be seen dressed differently: he had time to change before walking away. While the autopsy on Thomas’ body is underway – the coroner Cristian D’Ovidio is carrying it out on behalf of the Juvenile Court – the comings and goings continue in front of the park with citizens leaving flowers and notes.
A banner with the words “Crox lives” was placed at the entrance. A prayer vigil in memory of Thomas, promoted by the Community of Sant’Egidio, is planned for the late afternoon. The city is still in shock and many are wondering about the causes of the episode and the problem of youth distress. “I think that the lockdown experience – Rosario Sorrentino, neurologist and science communicator, tells ANSA – has been a gigantic incubator that has brought to light, out of all proportion, various forms of mental distress. With the abuse of social media, it further delays the maturation of that part of our brain that should put a brake, a censorship on certain behaviors, certain impulses. In this specific case, we are witnessing a sort of sharing of a terrifying project that would aim to suppress, to make them pay for having failed to comply with very questionable rules or codes, thus bordering on tragedy. Irreproachable, unsuspected people, who then commit hallucinatory actions. We are faced with the tragedy of normality”.
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA
