The Novi Ligure Massacre*

What is especially unsettling about the Novi Ligure massacre is that the behavior of Erika, 14, and Omar, 17, who on February 21 killed Erika’s mother and little brother, Gianluca, 12, inflicting approximately one hundred stab wounds, seems not to fit the usual etiology that in the mass media both experts and non-experts attribute to juvenile criminality. Here, there was no family conflict, no poverty, no divorce, no widowhood, no inattentive family. In fact, it appears that the mother was "executed" precisely for having been too attentive. Therefore, failing all the above-mentioned presuppositions, then - so reason families we define as normal - it cannot be ruled out that even our children could commit a similar act.

The interpretations suggested by experts can in part help to allay such fears, even though they fall on both sides of the watershed. In some ways they are reassuring, in others worrying.

"They should have understood", they say, "the signals that the adolescents had certainly been sending before committing such a grievous action". It is presumed that such an event must of necessity be foreshadowed by premonitory signs, which in itself is reassuring, as every family, so-called "normal", can think in the following terms. We must be careful and alert to these signs, so that things like this won’t happen to us.

On the other hand, that such an event must of necessity be foreshadowed by signals is a groundless claim. It is simply taken for granted. In fact, teachers and those who knew Erika rule out that there was any significant anomaly in Erika’s behavior, if not for her amorous attachment to Omar and her frequenting a slightly overspirited group of youths, who moreover seem not to have had any part in this tragedy.

Nevertheless, the experts fail to describe these signals that are allegedly predictive of such homicidal behavior. The use of light drugs is so widespread, that, obviously, it would lack any diagnostic significance. The use of heavy drugs, if a factor immediately prior to the event, could help us explain why the victims were continued to be stabbed, even after they were clearly dead, but it cannot be considered as predictive of such slaughter (whether or not the mother could be aware that her daughter took drugs; the press reported how the two youths were able to lie even to the police and while in jail).

Is it possible to scientifically extrapolate from rare and grave events such as these traits that characterize adolescents in general? The lack of values, excessive consumerism, the dearth of places to go (but in New York, where youths have all sorts of distractions, adolescent gangs are rampant), which are often cited when not dealing with poor and marginalized families, are conditions affecting most adolescents. Frankly, however, and fortunately, events such as those that took place in Novi Ligure are extremely rare.

What would the supporters of these theses say if - in a study on the psychological aspects of people aged between 50 and 60, as today we experts are - some specialists were to draw conclusions that concern us on the basis of events referable to a serial killer, a homicidal rapist, an inveterate con man? I am a university professor, and interact with two/three hundred students a year, aged between 20 and 23, and who therefore are slightly above adolescence. I see them as being greatly committed, hard-working, diligent, concerned about their future, and eager to be a part of society. Quite frankly, this is why I find it offensive to speak of them in terms such as I have come across both in reading and in conversations, and which are based on such flimsy grounds. I was shocked to read in the newspaper where Erika’s father, who I believe is experiencing the greatest pain a human being can feel, asked himself: "Where did I go wrong"? A question perhaps stemming from superficial and short-sighted interpretations of juvenile behavior. I do not know how to answer his question. Certainly, as all parents, he may have made some mistakes. But to establish a link between those "mistakes" and what happened would be an illusory correlation. It would be like thinking that storks bring the newborn only because, in northern countries, they perch on chimneys. The birth of a child being traditionally one of the occasions when the fireplace, the only source of household heat, remained lit.

However, I do know the error that the experts, who are omnipresent in the media, make when evaluating this case. By calling on adults to ask themselves where they have gone wrong, and what signals they failed to recognize, the result is that of eroding youths’ sense of responsibility. I do not know whether free will really exists. It is an extemely complex philosophical and existential issue. But, from the social standpoint, if we fail to posit free will as a given - albeit with conditions - we inevitably wipe out the concepts of blame, sin, responsibility, punishment and expiation. As Jean Paul Sartre said, "Man is what he does with what he has been made to be", and, elsewhere, "It matters not what others have made you, what matters is what you make of what others have made of you".

This is precisely the message that the media should convey to the young. Therefore, if on one hand it is true that children are to be closely supervised, since studies on juvenile delinquency show how the latter is correlated with low parental supervision, scant psychological and emotional support, and the slight demands parents place on their children, on the other, it is not necessary for parents to place undue blame upon themselves when their children go wrong. Parents will do well to acknowledge that their offspring may perform actions for which they as parents are in no way to blame.

If, as in this case, we observe the facts a posteriori , we can always be aware of a necessary chain of events, which, drawn from the various newspaper accounts as collected in Erica e Omar: la tragedia di Novi Ligure, edited by Giorgio Calcagno, and published as a supplement to Turin’s La Stampa newspaper (2001), can suggest several hypotheses:

The two are very much in loveè they take drugs è the mother objected to their relationship è she found them out è they killed her è they also killed the girl’s younger brother because he was a witness, and because Erika was jealous of him (also because he was his parent’s pet. He was an altar boy and good at school).

Or:

They wanted to be freer è they premeditated killing the entire family è they bought the rat poison which was found in the house è they put on kitchen gloves so as not to leave fingerprints è they stabbed the mother and little brother, after having tried to poison him and drown him in the bathtub.

Or:

Omar wanted to punish Erika’s mother because she opposed their relationship è he kills herè locks Erica in the bathroom è also kills her brother è forces her to claim an Albanian had attempted a robbery (Erika’s version?).

Or:

Erika, discovered at home with Omar, quarrels with her mother è kills her è convinces Omar to stab her as well as a proof of his love for her è Omar does so, but tries to oppose killing Gianluca (Omar’s version?).

However, going by the premises, did homicide have to be the outcome? Why not run away from home, as some do? Or quarrel with their parents, as almost all adolescents do? Each one of us - and therefore even Erika and Omar - is like everyone else, like someone else and like no one else. This is why the reason for their conduct is to be sought in their specific nature, not so as to explain their behavior, but to understand it. It is necessary to understand when and how the decision arose in them; when and how they contaminated one another psychologically and emotionally to the point of committing such an horrendous crime, only to stubbornly attempt to cover it, first by blaming an Albanian (fortunately with an ironclad alibi), and then reciprocally accusing one another.

Here, however, the true expert must draw the line. A psychologist is tied to the slow and painstaking method with which he works. Without this method, that is without his direct examination of the subjects whom he must attempt to understand, he can get nowhere. Just like a radiologist who, without his machines, cannot intuit what is going on inside the body of his patient. If, therefore, conclusions by experts are not empirically based, they simply remain opinions; nor do they become diagnoses simply because, albeit with different premises, they are be entitled to make them.

Guglielmo Gulotta

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* Further development of an article formerly in Viator, April 4, 2001.