Naples, hit by a hit-and-run driver: 24-year-old tourist from Lecce dies

Naples – Four days of hope and prayer were shattered by the most tragic news: Rebecca Pepe, the 24-year-old student from Lecce who was hit last week on Via Antonio Dohrn, in the heart of Naples, has died.

The young woman passed away this morning in the intensive care unit of the Ospedale del Mare, where she had been hospitalized in desperate condition. The injuries she sustained in the violent impact, particularly a hematoma and compromised neurosurgical status, were too severe to survive.

The girl, who was in the city for a few days of vacation, was crossing the street when she was hit head-on by a car traveling at high speed.

The escape and then the surrender of the hit-and-run driver

Instead of stopping to provide first aid, the driver hit the accelerator and temporarily disappeared. Only hours after the crash did a 19-year-old man come forward to police and confess to his actions.

Officers from the Naples Local Police Road Accident Unit are completing the reconstruction of the accident, acquiring footage from video surveillance systems in the area to verify the vehicle's speed and exact trajectory before impact.

The young hit-and-run driver's legal situation has now been formally upgraded: the charges have been upgraded from serious injury to vehicular homicide, with the aggravating circumstances of hit-and-run and failure to provide assistance.

The Blood Map: A Pedestrian Emergency Continues

Rebecca Pepe's death risks being just another piece of a full-blown road massacre that shows no signs of abating in the shadow of Vesuvius. A few weeks ago, at the end of August, an 80-year-old man was struck and killed at dawn by a car on Via Nuova Poggioreale while crossing the reserved lane.

At the beginning of the year, the first victim of 2026 was Giuseppe Cafiero, 63, who died in Fuorigrotta after ten days of agony from the injuries sustained in front of the underpass exit.

A tragic trail that has not even spared the metropolitan hinterland and the main roads: just a few hours ago, the death of a twenty-year-old man who was hit on his bicycle on the Via Domitiana along with a fifteen-year-old boy, also hit by a hit-and-run driver, was recorded.

The city's statistics remain alarming: of the more than twenty deaths recorded on average each year on Naples' main roads, nearly half are vulnerable road users, pedestrians often hit at crosswalks or near key nightlife and tourist hotspots. The disappearance of young Rebecca has violently rekindled the debate about speeding in the city center and nighttime patrols in areas with heavy pedestrian traffic.