Napoli's Bruno Petrone, the young footballer stabbed in the hospital, will soon be able to leave.

Naples – The health of Bruno Petrone, the 18-year-old Angri footballer who was stabbed in the Baretti di Chiaia neighborhood on the night between December 26th and 27th by a gang of four confessed minors, is improving day by day.

The young man received a visit from one of his best friends yesterday, who posted a photo of them both smiling. Petrone could be discharged next week and continue his recovery at home while waiting to return to training with the Eccellenza team, where he plays as a midfielder.

Meanwhile, the Carabinieri investigation, coordinated by the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office, continues to gain a clear picture of what happened and, above all, to understand what went through the mind of the young, self-confessed attacker, 15-year-old MA, who attacked, beat, and then stabbed the young footballer with the complicity of four of his friends, all 17 years old, one of whom will turn 18 next June, and all of whom live on the same street between the Arenaccia and the Ponti Rossi.

The 15-year-old confessed to the crime and three of his friends and accomplices are being held in the Colli Aminei reception center, while a fifth minor has been charged and is at liberty because he did not materially participate in the attack.

The gang was identified thanks to footage from local surveillance cameras and the confession of one of the five, VC. Overcome by guilt and persuaded by his parents, he and his father showed up at the Pastrengo Carabinieri station the afternoon following the attack. He provided full details of what had happened and named the person who had physically stabbed the young footballer, who underwent a delicate surgical operation to remove his spleen.

And so after him, gradually all the other members of the gang also went to the Carabinieri and the police to tell their version of the facts.

“What have you done? You're causing us trouble because of you!”

“…I didn't see the moment when M. stabbed Petrone…when we left, after E. accompanied me and M. to get the latter's scooter, M. showed me the knife which was covered in blood.
and threw it into a drain near the garage. I asked M., “What have you done? Why did you do it?” but he didn’t answer. After we left, we all met again, along with other friends and strangers, on Via…, where we spent about half an hour, three quarters of an hour. On that occasion, I told him, verbatim, “What have you done! You’re causing us trouble because of you!” but he didn’t answer because he was so anxious. The other kids also couldn’t understand why M… had stabbed him.”

The rest is a story of confessions and agreed-upon versions, such as the one that the young stabber had armed himself out of fear of Bruno Petrone, who had allegedly shown them a gun the previous week. But at this point, one of the boys clarified that the young footballer, who a few years earlier had played on the same team as his stabber's older brother, wasn't the type to carry a gun.

It is no coincidence that the prosecutor Claudia De Luca of the Naples Juvenile Prosecutor's Office, who ordered the arrest of the four, wrote: “It is clear that the suspects showed up only because they were already hunted down (consider that the area where the injury occurred is notoriously monitored by cameras from multiple businesses located in the nightlife area and that since the early hours of December 27.12, news of the stabbing and the involvement of minors had been circulating on social media and in the media). 

Therefore, it must be considered that their presentation is not the result of a free choice but rather of a strategy that is certainly understandable but instrumental to a favorable prognosis of their position and behavior in this phase.

In this specific case, the fact remains that all the minors, after discussing what had happened less than an hour after the crime, went home and decided to "collaborate" the next day after another intermittent discussion, making statements that were not entirely truthful in an effort to downplay their role, only because they feared they had been identified at that point.