Delitto di Novi Ligure

The dynamics of the crime acquired in the proceedings were essentially derived from the reconstructions provided by the Carabinieri's RIS; however, the statements made by the two guilty who, once recognized as such, adopted a line of defence focused on mutual accusations, without ever drawing out a clear picture of the story^[5]. In particular, Erika's version, which tended to place all the responsibility on Omar, was judged to be highly mendacious.^[6]On the contrary, Omar's claims were more consistent with objective reconstructions: for example, it was found that the wound that Omar suffered from a hand was to be attributed to a bite infert by Gianluca, as claimed by himself, while Erika had stated that the wound was due to an accidental knife. Moreover, the boy demonstrated a greater and immediate repentance on the gravity of what had been committed, while minimizing his role^[5].

According to the reconstructions of the pollutants, around 19:30 on 21 February 2001 Susy Cassini and his son Gianluca De Nardo returned to the family house in via Don Beniamino Dacatra, 12^[1], in the neighborhood Novi Ligure of the Lodolino. A short time in the kitchen of the house began a diverb between Cassini and her eldest daughter: the reason was to be traced back to the poor school performance of the girl, student at the College San Giorgio address Geometri after two years disappointing to Amaldi scientific high school, and the fears of the mother linked to the possible bad attendance of the daughter.

In this circumstance Erika took a knife and inflicted the first fender on her mother: immediately her fiancé, who until then had been hidden in the bathroom of the ground floor where she had already worn a pair of gloves, eager to give strength to the girl, who only then put his gloves. One of the two covered Susy's mouth with one hand, and together they began to stab her. The woman at first managed to get rid of her and in an attempt to escape, she fought against the kitchen table, which broke out due to the violence of the impact; the young people again hurled onto her, continuing to inflict them on her, until they were sure to have killed her. In total, Susy Cassini received 40 stabs^[7]. Omar claimed that, before dying, Susy Cassini would have cried out to her daughter for forgiveness, begging her to spare her brother^[8].

Until then Gianluca was on the upper floor where he was preparing to wash, having just returned from a basketball game. Attracted by the hustle and bustle, Erika's brother descended to the ground floor and helpless and argued to the murder of his mother^[9]. Realizing his presence, the two engaged couples turned their fury against him: Gianluca was hit for the first time on the ground floor by his sister, as demonstrated by a splash of the child's blood found on the kitchen telephone cable, after which the two accompanied him upstairs, as will be proven by the drops of blood from the young victim also found on the stairs, trying to calm him down.

In the sewer, the two killers left blooded footprints on the stairs and prints on the wall, as well as hematic traces from blood-induced knives. Erika leaned his little brother towards the bathroom, saying he wanted to help wash and medicate his wound, but Gianluca was panicked and sought refuge in Erika's room: here he was reached by further coltellate^[10].

In the meantime, to prevent neighbors hearing cries, Erika raised the stereo volume to the maximum, on whose handpiece were detected other hematic tracks^[9]. The murder of Gianluca was probably not in the plans of the two assassins, but his unexpected presence at the crime scene and his reaction took the two young men by surprise, who made the decision to kill him.

Gianluca, with the few remaining forces, tried to escape looking for refuge in the bathroom, where he was trapped by the murderers: initially Erika tried to poison him by ingesting topical dust, of which traces were found near the bathtub, on the upper floor landing and on the stairs; later he attempted to drown it in the water tank. Both attempts failed and while Gianluca continued to defend himself desperately, he bit Omar in the area of the first interdigital fold of his right hand, causing him a bleeding wound. At that point, having one of the knives used to kill Susy, the two start hitting him again.^[10] for a subsequent quarter of an hour, until he took his life away^[7] with 57 pounded.

After the crime ended, the two boys returned to the ground floor, where a discussion broke out between the two about the opportunity to wait for the return of the girl's father to kill him too: Erika insisted, but Omar felt too tired and intimidated her to do it alone, after which the boys tried to wash blood from the environments, without failing; they still washed their weapons to try to erase prints^[10]. A knife was thrown into the closed waste in a bag together with a pair of gloves, while the other one remained in the house, on the kitchen floor. The Week 20:50 Omar left the house from the main door and left in a scooter, being seen by a passerman who, noticing his bloody pants, the next day informed the Carabinieri.^[11].

Around 21 Erika, still with her bloody clothes on, went out of the house passing through the garage and began to wander along Via Dacatra, invoking help loudly^[12]. Upon the arrival of the police, alerted by the neighbours, Erika said that two non-EU criminals, whom she described as "Albanian", also inventing a brief description of their appearance, had entered the house for a robbery and that the situation had degenerated into a double murder.^[13].

This version was initially considered truthful by the inquirents and resumed by the main information bodies and political representatives, leading to the call for protests against immigrants throughout Italy^[14], Novi Ligure included^[15]. Within a few hours the police entered the house of Cezar Tellalli, a seventeen-year-old Albanian indicated by Erika as one of the two perpetrators. Tellalli was taken to the barracks and interrogated, but having a valid alibi he was released^[14]. The next day, Tellalli returned to the barracks with a friend who was supposed to confirm the alibi, there he met Erika and Omar: he knew them, having attended the oratory with the girl and playing in the same football team as the boy. On that occasion they talked about this and that, since Cezar didn't know that it was Erika who had accused him or that the double murder involved his family members.^[16].

Reliefs of the pollutants ascertained that no door or window of the house showed signs of forcing and that no object of value had been removed from home environments. Also, the neighbors reported that that that night the two guard dogs of the De Nardo family had not barked. In addition, the weapons with which they had been tasted and killed the victims belonged to the family, being two knives belonging to the kitchen service; they then aroused perplexity the time, not particularly late and therefore unusual for a robbery in the house^[17], and the fact that a robbery, moreover not even consummated, could be the motive for such ferocity. This caused the version of events provided by Erika to lose consistency, upon which suspicions soon arose; Omar's position was soon also examined, and he was called into question following the aforementioned testimony given by the passer-by who had seen him traveling along Via Dacatra on a moped with his bloodied trousers on the evening of the crime.

In the afternoon of February 22, the two boys were called, officially as people informed about the facts, and left alone for a few hours in a room of the nineteenth Carabinieri barracks where microspies and hidden cameras were installed.^[18]. Without the knowledge of the two teenagers, the investigators were thus able to listen to the conversation which made their guilt clear^[5]: in fact, the boys took a look at the sketches that the girl should draw for the police and, at some point, Omar rebuked Erika to have drawn a face too similar to him, ammonendola also not to trace even one similar to that of some of his schoolmates of Albanian nationality. In the course of the dialogue, the two reasoned that they could be discovered and therefore suggested that they should flee if suspects had been trained on them.^[19]. The hidden cameras also filmed Erika who, intent on recalling what she had done that evening, mimed the gesture of stabbing her, asking her boyfriend, who addressed her with the epithet "murderer" and feared the risks of a heavy criminal sentence, if he had enjoyed killing Susy and Gianluca. Finally, Erika herself recommended Omar to dress well at the funerals of their victims, scheduled for the following day.^[20].

On February 23, the following day, around 19, the two boyfriends were finally placed in a state of detention and then taken to the juvenile prison. Ferrante Aporti of Turin^[5]. Having revealed the version of the robbery as false, Erika and Omar then began to blame each other for the crime. Thanks to the hostile attitude of the other inmates, mostly inmates for minor crimes, and following the discovery by the penitentiary police of an attempt she had made to contact Omar clandestinely to agree on a common version of events such as to lighten the position of both, the girl was transferred to the juvenile prison Cesare Beccaria of Milan.

Given the contradictory and incompleteness of Erika and Omar, the dynamics of the facts had to be reconstructed through the reliefs of Parma's RIS on the scene of crime: the analyses attributed both a virtually equal responsibility for the execution of the murders. Inquiring on the backstage of the life of the engaged, the pollutants discovered the existence of a latent and quarrel situation between Erika and her mother Susy, disappointed by the poor school performance of her daughter and fearful of the consequences of her relationship with Omar: in fact, the two tended to isolate themselves from friends and Mrs. De Nardo feared that they would attend unrested companies and use substances. In fact, the investigators learned that on some occasions the two young people had made use of cocaine and cannabinoids when they were together, but excluded that the couple were addicted; it was also excluded that they were in a state of alteration caused by drug use on the evening of the crime.^[21].

14 December 2001^[22] Erika De Nardo and Omar Favaro were first convicted by the court for minors in Turin, coordinated by magistrate Graziana Calcagno, respectively at 16 and 14 years of imprisonment^[23]. Subsequently, the sentences were confirmed, first by the Court of Appeal of Turin on 30 May 2002 and then, definitively, by the Court of Cassation on 9 April 2003.^[24].

During the three judgements Erika was defended by lawyers Mario Boccassi and Cesare Zaccone, Omar by lawyers Vittorio Gatti and Lorenzo Repetti. Defence pointed to mental seminfermity^[25], but the boys were declared capable of understanding and wanting. The public prosecutor Livia Locci had asked for more severe sentences for the two boys, i.e. 20 years of imprisonment for Erika and 16 for Omar^[26].

According to the judgments of conviction, even in the apparent absence of a comprehensible motive, the idea of crimes is to be written to Erika, remaining the role of Omar who, in the course of the crime, gradually gained importance until it was equal.^[27]. The judges defined the premeditation of the crime as "lucid and utilitarian"^[28].

In May 2006, the media reported a temporary exit of Erika from prison as part of a recovery program for prisoners, with disputes of an amateur volleyball match.^[29][30][31]. Advertising to the event by television and newspapers came from more observatories considered excessive and misleading.^{[without source]}

During the detention, Erika began a close relationship with Mario Gugole, a Veronese musician, who some of his publications indicated as his new boyfriend^[32]: the young man, according to the attention of the press, released several interviews and participated in some TV lounges^[33]. Gugole died in October 2008 in a car accident^[34][35].

On March 3, 2010, Omar was discarded after about 9 years of detention following the benefits of the indulgence and discounts recognised for good conduct. The young man settled in Tuscany and began to work as a bartender, declaring he wanted to form a family with his new girlfriend and not wanting to think about Erika, towards which he nevertheless claimed that he did not bring any grudges.^[36].

On December 5, 2011 Erika's scarceness was arranged, which after graduating in philosophy in April 2009, claimed to want to remake a life, still declaring innocent and attributing Omar the entire responsibility of the massacre.^[37].

The next day De Nardo left the Exodus community of Lonato (BS) by Don Antonio Mazzi and a free person returned. Don Mazzi stated that the young man would be "changed" during detention and that the responsibility of the crime would be due to the abuse of narcotics, although in its time it was excluded that the girl had made use of drugs, if not sporadicly.

Shortly after the dismissal, after meeting his father's new wife, who in the course of detention remained close to her, claiming that she had forgiven her and had to protect her from the consequences of what happened, moved to a house owned in Lonato and expressed the desire to go to teach at a school in Madagascar^[38].

In January 2013 Erika was interviewed by several newspapers, complaining that she could not find work because everyone recognizes her and reconnects her to the double murder of twelve years before, obtaining the offer of an indefinite employment as a secretary in a construction industry in Rieti, which has fueled controversy. From September 2013 to March 2015 the young man worked in a store of musical records and instruments, subsequently closed, near Lonato. The store belonged to a musician in the area, presented by mass media as his new boyfriend.^{[without source][39]}

Fabri Fibra's songs are inspired by this fact. “Cuore di latta” and partly “This life”, “Gonfio so” And “Friday Seventeen”, the song by Subsonica “Still body” (contained in Love), the song “300 Days To Consciousness” of the Motherstones contained in Biolence of 2008, the theatrical show “The strong hands” and in 2014 the song of LowLow and Monster “Erika and Omar”.

Omar and Erika are cited in the song “S.E.N.I.C.A.R.” by Marracash, in the song “The drama” by the Truceboys, in the songs “Hip Hop Bang Bang”, “Ruff Combo” And “Spaghetti Western” ("here everyone wants a sheriff's star: they stab their mother and then blame the caliphs") by Club Dogo and in the song "Felin' Good" by Noyz Narcos. Erika and Omar are also mentioned in the single Killer Star by Immanuel Casto^[40].

The number 392 (February 2002) of the cartoon Alan Ford “Tell yours” is always inspired by this story.^[41][42]