One seems too many. It would be the vain motivation that would drive the fifteen-year-old Neapolitan youth to turn into a cruel murderer and kill in cold blood, on the night between Saturday and Sunday, nineteen-year-old Marco Pio Salomone was outside the games room in via Generale Francesco Pinto, in the Neapolitan district of Arenaccia, north of Central station.
The story was told to investigators by the victim’s friends, who were with him in the Panda stationery and who tried in vain to save his life by rushing to the hospital, but he arrived soon after suffering serious brain damage, in an atmosphere of great tension fueled by the victim’s family members gathered at the hospital at that time. Friends have discussed the futile reasons behind the execution, but it could be a story of convenience, aimed at hiding the picture of the story. The police actually believe that the motive should be traced back to a dispute that arose due to differences in drug dealing, an activity that apparently involved all the young people involved in the murder. The victim had been arrested a year earlier on drug trafficking charges.
In fact, according to the first findings of police investigators coordinated by the district anti-mafia directorate – which transferred responsibility to the Neapolitan Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office – it is possible that the target of the fifteen-year-old was not Solomon but one of his friends sitting in the small car. The fifteen-year-old, who turned himself in on Sunday morning to confess to the murder and is now locked up at the Colli Aminei juvenile justice center, apparently acted alone, approaching the car on foot and opening fire at what he thought was his rival. Sulaiman sat in the back seat, while the intended victim was in the front.
What is certain is that Solomon and his very young killer knew each other. It is unknown whether they were friends, or whether they were in business together or were competitors leading to misunderstandings and rivalry. And of course there is the emergency of juvenile crime plaguing the city.
Don Luigi Merola, an anti-Camorra priest and leader of the foundation «A voci d’e Creature» based in the same neighborhood as the murder, said: «Minors and teenagers who have just turned 18 move in gangs, aware of the fact that police control is often inadequate: they are the ones who feel like the masters of the streets, carrying guns and knives. This is why I have repeatedly asked for more police cars in the Arenaccia district, and especially in the areas where betting shops are located, which require greater attention.”
