Fabio Ascione's cousin arrested for allegedly giving the killer the murder weapon.

Naples – There are crimes in which the Camorra's accounting intersects with Greek tragedy, leaving a sense of horror that transcends the prison bars. The pre-trial detention order signed by investigating judge Giovanni de Angelis puts an end to the bloody night of April 7, 2026, in Ponticelli. But the truth revealed by the investigations of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate and the Carabinieri of the Naples Poggioreale Company has left a deep scar in the victim's family.

One of the two young men arrested for illegal possession and carrying of weapons is Eugenio Ascione, 24, from San Giorgio a Cremano. He is the first cousin of Fabio Ascione , the nineteen-year-old killed that same night by a shot fired "by mistake." According to the prosecution, it was Eugenio who handed the semi-automatic pistol to the killer.

The frame of shame outside the bar

The hands of the horror clock turn back to 4:45 a.m. on that early spring dawn. The frames extracted from the video surveillance system of the "Bar Lively" on Via Carlo Miranda—a busy establishment at the time—depict a clear, almost cinematic sequence. The images show the victim, Fabio Ascione , entering the establishment, consuming a drink, and exchanging a few words with his cousin Eugenio. Then, Fabio leaves to return home, on Via Rossi Doria.

It is at that point that the camera captures the betrayal. Eugenio Ascione approaches Francescoscopio Autiero (already arrested on April 16th on charges of voluntary manslaughter). The investigating judge writes that Ascione, "with his hands in his pockets, opens his jacket, exposing his side to the latter." A calculated movement, made specifically to "hide from the camera what was happening." Under that jacket is a gun. Autiero removes it from Ascione's hip: in the high-resolution frames in the investigators' possession, the outline of the barrel is clearly visible.

The "scarrellamento" and the firefight

A few minutes later, tensions escalate in the bar's forecourt. An SH 300 scooter driven by KV arrives. Autiero climbs aboard as a passenger, and the surveillance video records another crucial detail: the young man makes a sharp movement, the classic "cocking" to chamber the bullet and prepare the weapon for death.

The reason for such investigative frenzy lies in an underground war between the Ponticelli criminals and the gangs of nearby Volla. A confidential note obtained by the military reveals that that night's raid stemmed from disputes over "territory division in connection with car thefts." A commando unit in a dark minivan arriving from Volla encountered Autiero and KV's scooter, resulting in a violent firefight in the middle of the street, as the terrified crowd fled, seeking shelter under the bar umbrellas.

The involuntary tragedy on Via Rossi Doria

But death doesn't wait on Via Carlo Miranda. After the firefight, Autiero runs at full speed toward the so-called "Mickey Mouse houses" on Via Rossi Doria to hide. There, he encounters Fabio Ascione again, who is returning home. It is at that moment that the irreparable happens: while frantically handling the still-hot weapon, Autiero accidentally fires a shot, piercing Fabio in the chest.

In his final moments, Fabio collapsed in front of a colleague, saying only, "Wow, he hit me." Rescue efforts and a desperate rush in a white Audi to the hospital were in vain, where the nineteen-year-old's dreams would be forever extinguished at 6:50 in the morning.

The shadow of the De Micco clan and the second arrested

The District Anti-Mafia Directorate charged Eugenio Ascione with the aggravating circumstance of mafia methods (Article 416 bis.1 of the Criminal Code). The investigating judge highlighted how the action was carried out to facilitate and exploit the intimidation capabilities of the "De Micco clan," the so-called "Bodo" ​​clan, who consider Via Luigi Crisconio and the San Rocco area their impenetrable stronghold.

Along with Ascione, the axe of pretrial detention also fell on thirty-year-old Emanuele Loquercio, born in Pollena Trocchia. The damning testimony of several witnesses present at the scene cemented his charge of illegal possession and carrying of another gun during the same bloody, mad night. Both men were sent to Poggioreale prison, while the neighborhood mourns an innocent victim betrayed, not only by the machinations of the clans, but also by the silence of his own family.