Pollena Trocchia – The smell of burning still lingers in the air, as acrid and heavy as the anger that sparked it. A 54-year-old man, after twenty years of violence and abuse, set fire to his ex-wife's home.
Then, with blackened hands and a half-charred identity card, he turned himself in to the Carabinieri in Cercola, confessing everything.
An extreme act, yet another in a long history of abuse, threats, and humiliation that had dragged on for years within a family marked by addiction and emotional decay.
The spiral of violence
At first, as often happens, it was a "normal" family: a couple, four daughters, a house at the foot of Vesuvius. Then, in 2005, everything changed. The man fell into a spiral of drug addiction and gambling; from then on, violence took over.
The first screams, the first slaps, then the threats, the obsessive checks, the fear. wife She resisted as long as she could, then separated. A formal separation, however, because the two's lives remained intertwined by a forced cohabitation and a never-ending resentment.
She tries to start over, a new relationship, a breath of freedom after years of silence. But for him, that freedom is an open wound.
"I will change, I will dress you in gold like the Madonna," he promised in moments of respite. Then, when he realized there was no turning back, the threat became a prophecy: "Things will be done in due time." That "due time" has arrived.
The flames of vengeance
A few hours before the fire, the 54-year-old had attacked a man in front of his ex-wife's home: he had accused him, baselessly, of having an affair with her.
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Then, the final fury. The man doused the house where he had lived with his family with gasoline and set it on fire. The flames devoured everything: furniture, clothes, mementos. Only by chance did no one happen to be inside at the time.
The woman, rushing to what remained of her life, could only whisper tearfully to her daughters: “Look what he did... my house, my things.”
The arrest and charges
After the fire, the man went to theCarabinieri from Cercola. He didn't try to escape. He simply handed over the burned document and said it was over.
He is now in prison, accused of mistreatment, arson, kidnapping and robbery.
Investigators are reconstructing the last 24 hours of his madness, as well as the twenty years of violence that preceded it—a long trail of complaints, retractions, threats, and fear.
A drama that repeats itself
Pollena Trocchia's story is yet another example of a growing phenomenon. In Italy, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior, one woman dies every three days at the hands of a man.
Behind every statistic, a story like this: a love turned obsession, a sick bond consumed by control, humiliation, and violence.
This time, fate meant that no one would die. But the invisible wound—the one that marks those who survive violence—burns more than the fire that destroyed a home.
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8 September 2025 - 21:43
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24 August 2025 - 19:40
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27 August 2025 - 10:01
Comments (1)
The story told is truly sad and makes us reflect on how violence can ruin lives. It's incomprehensible how someone could get to this point. We hope this serves as a lesson for others.