Mario Cerciello Rega was an Italian
police officer. He was murdered on 26 July 2019 by two American students visiting
Rome.
Deputy
Brigadier Rega, age 35, was a member of the
Carabinieri, Italy's national military police force.
He was stabbed to death as he investigated a drug deal. Carabinieri Officer Andrea Varriale, Rega's police partner, was injured. In May 2021, two American students from California were found guilty of the murder. Finnegan Lee Elder, age 19 at the time of the crime, and Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, age 18, were each sentenced to life in prison.
In March 2022, an appeals court confirmed the homicide verdicts but
commuted the life terms for both men, reducing Elder to 24 years in prison and Natale-Hjorth to 22 years in prison.
In July 2024, after a retrial ordered by the Corte di Cassazione in 2023, their conviction was upheld by the Court of Appeal with reduced sentences of 15 years 2 months and 11 years 4 months respectively.
Perpetrators
Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth became friends while attending
Tamalpais High School in
Mill Valley, California
Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...
. Elder had previously attended
Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory
Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, commonly known as SHC or SH, is a Catholic school located in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Founded in 1852, Sacred Heart Cathedral is the oldest Catholic secondary school and wa ...
in
San Francisco, California, but was asked to leave after an altercation with another student.
''32 Seconds: A Deadly Night in Rome''
/ref>
Killing
On the night of 25 July, Elder and Natale-Hjorth went to the Trastevere
Trastevere () is the 13th ''rione'' of Rome: it is identified by the initials R. XIII and it is located within Municipio I. Its name comes from Latin ''trans Tiberim'', literally 'beyond the Tiber'.
Its coat of arms depicts a golden head of a lio ...
district to buy cocaine. Only Natale-Hjorth could speak Italian. When they realized that the pusher had sold them crushed aspirin, they stole a backpack from Sergio Brugiatelli, who had led them to the dealer. Brugiatelli borrowed a phone and called his own number. The two young men answered, telling him that if he wanted his backpack back, he would have to bring them 100 euros and a gram of cocaine. Brugiatelli called the Carabinieri, telling them he needed his backpack back because it contained his documents. The Carabinieri sent two officers, who went unarmed and in plain street clothes to meet the two men, while Brugiatelli waited nearby. At the meetingplace, Elder stabbed Rega 11 times. The two Americans immediately went back to their hotel, a block away.
See also
* Crime in Italy
* Law enforcement in Italy
Law enforcement in Italy is centralized on a national level, carried out by multiple national forces, helped by few limited local agencies. The Italian law enforcement system is considered complex, with multiple police forces and other agencies ...
References
Sources
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2019 murders in Italy
Murder in Italy
American people imprisoned abroad
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