Mystery surrounds the death of Pasquale Petrillo, the former hitman turned informer who brought down two clans.

Naples – A mystery shrouded in mystery surrounds the death of Pasquale Petrillo, a former Camorra hitman and former justice collaborator, who fell four days ago from a balcony on Via Acton, a short walk from the seafront and Piazza Municipio.

The Prosecutor's Office has ordered the seizure of the body to determine the true cause of death: an accidental fall, a deliberate act, or, a possibility that is far from excluded, a push into a void.

Petrillo wasn't just any name in the court records. His criminal history has its roots in the most violent years of the city's feuds and intersects with some of the historic clans of central Naples.

First a man of action, then a collaborator with justice, his statements helped dismantle first the Mariano clan of the Spanish Quarters and then the Elia clan of the Pallonetto di Santa Lucia, paving the way for the major raid of 2017, one of the hardest blows inflicted on the Camorra in the historic center.

Born and raised in an environment marked by organized crime, Petrillo began his criminal career at a very young age, eventually becoming a trusted hitman within the power dynamics of the Spanish Quarter. This role led to his involvement in a long series of bloody episodes, culminating in the murder of Maurizio Russo, the twenty-one-year-old son of the Spanish Quarter boss, who was murdered on April 9, 2001, on Via Santa Maria Ognibene.

An excellent murder, committed in the heart of the city, which marked a watershed in the wars between clans and had enormous weight in subsequent investigations.

It was precisely after that murder that Petrillo began to fear for his life. In his statements, he also recounted a dramatic and revealing detail: his father and brother had allegedly revealed his hideout to the Misso clan, effectively sacrificing him to protect the rest of the family from retaliation. This decision marked his definitive break with the criminal world and prompted him to cooperate with justice.

Alongside his criminal career, his figure had also attracted unexpected media attention. Petrillo was in fact linked to the Neapolitan neomelodic crime scene: he emerged as the author of the song "Ma si vene stasera," which became famous for being featured in one of the most iconic scenes in "Gomorrah," Matteo Garrone's film based on Roberto Saviano's book.

A song that became the symbol of a generation caught between criminal fascination and social decay, capable of transforming the very violence that Petrillo had practiced on the streets into a soundtrack.

After cooperating with the justice system, the former killer had lived for years away from the spotlight, under protection, searching for a new identity. But in Naples, the past rarely stays buried. And it is precisely this past that now weighs heavily on the investigation opened by the Prosecutor's Office.

Investigators are combing through all the footage from public and private security cameras in the Via Acton area, reconstructing the man's last movements and checking for any suspicious presence. No leads are being ruled out: from accident to suicide, to the more disturbing possibility of a belated settling of scores, which developed years after his revelations.

Pasquale Petrillo's death thus risks becoming yet another Camorra mystery, where the truths of the trial of the past intertwine with the silences of the present. An ending yet to be written for a man who lived, on the front lines, through the darkest periods of Neapolitan crime.