Just over five months have passed since the tragic dawn of 15 July 2025, when a Fiat Grande Punto, launched into a wild race in the city center – according to the technical consultant of the Prosecutor’s Office at a speed of 132 kilometers per hour – shattered the lives of two young students and shocked two families who lost their children and the entire city.
The two inseparable friends Mattia Stefan Caruso, 16, and Simone Marzullo, 17, lost their lives while returning to their respective homes on a moped: they were traveling at a moderate speed on an “Aprilia Scarabeo” when the terrible impact occurred.
They were run over along Via John Fitzgerald Kennedy, at the intersection with Via San Vito, in front of the courtyard of the D’Alcontres comprehensive school where the two boys had attended middle school together. A devastating impact: their bodies were thrown onto the asphalt and found several meters from the point of impact by the first rescuers who arrived on site.
A heartbreaking tragedy for the two families and a tremendous shock for their respective school communities: the Copernico ITI and high school in Barcelona attended by Simone Marzullo and the Majorana technical-technological institute in Milazzo where Mattia Stefan Caruso was enrolled. In these five months the technical consultant, the engineer Santi Mangano, appointed by the magistrates directed by the prosecutor Giuseppe Verzera, has reconstructed the dynamics of the accident.
And on the basis of the data collected, the day before Christmas, the deputy prosecutors Veronica De Toni and Dora Esposito, asked the investigating judge Giuseppe Sidoti to commit Paolo Mangano, the eighteen-year-old from Furnari, a newly licensed driver at the time, driving the car that hit the moped.
The investigating judge, having received the documents, set the preliminary hearing in chambers for February 11th. The young motorist is now accused of double road homicide, pursuant to article 589-bis of the penal code.
He is charged with the aggravating circumstances of having committed the crime by proceeding in the city center at a speed exceeding more than double the permitted speed and of having caused the death of several people.
According to the reconstruction of the Prosecutor’s Office, Paolo Mangano, driving a Fiat Grande Punto, came from Milazzo and was traveling along via Kennedy, when, having reached the intersection with via San Vito, he traveled at a speed of 132 km/h, violating the limits and without adopting the necessary caution near the intersection.
At that moment, therefore, he would have hit the Aprilia Scarabeo on which Mattia Caruso and Simone Marzullo were travelling, coming from the side Via San Vito, in the sea-mountain direction. The impact was extremely violent and left the two very young people no escape. It was a heartbreaking scene that deeply affected the Barcelona community: a double tragedy that rekindled the debate on road safety and uncontrolled speeding in urban centers.
In the preliminary hearing, Paolo Mangano will be defended by the lawyers Sebastiano Campanella, of the Court of Barcelona, and Paola Barbaro, of the Court of Messina. The families of the victims will appear as civil parties in the proceedings: for Mattia Caruso the offended persons are his father Paolo, his mother Catena Villa, and the father also for Mattia’s younger brother and his maternal grandmother Grazia Recupero, who will be defended by the lawyers Paolo Pino and Claudio Cannas.
For Simone Marzullo, his father Andrea, his mother Francesca Rossello, his sister Chiara and his grandparents will appear as civil parties, assisted by the lawyer Alessandro Pruiti Ciarello, of the Court of Patti. Already, before the request for indictment, after the notification of the conclusion of the preliminary investigations, the accused did not ask to be interrogated. It will be up to the judge at the preliminary hearing to decide whether to order the indictment.