Killed and buried. Luca Bruni, regent of the Bruzio clan of the same name, was lured into a trap by trusted “friends” and murdered by gunshots in the rural area of Rendese on 3 January 2012.
The man had recently been released from prison after serving a final sentence for possession of weapons. His elimination was decided as part of the operational strategies defined by the so-called “New Family” which was headed by today’s life prisoner Maurizio Rango. Bruni demanded respect, consideration and space, after the death of his brother, Michele, who died of a serious illness while in prison. Things, however, had rapidly changed in the urban area and the renewed leaders of the coterie of which the Bruni brothers were originally part did not tolerate intrusions and demands.
Two of his most trusted “companions” delivered the victim to death: Daniele Lamanna and Adolfo Foggetto. The crime was widely “directed” which involved Rango and other members of the gang which was then defeated by the Catanzaro DDA.
Among the people held jointly responsible for the crime are the brothers Luigi and Marco Abbruzzese, sons of Fioravante Abbruzzese, known as “banana”, a historical figure in the Bruzia crime scene, who were however acquitted in the first instance by the Court of Assizes of Cosenza. For the two brothers, the deputy general prosecutor of Catanzaro, Raffaela Sforza, asked for a life prison sentence at the end of a detailed indictment delivered in the appeal process. Accusing the Abbruzzese family, who claim to be innocent and are defended by the lawyers Antonio Sanvito and Cesare Badolato, are Lamanna and Foggetto who chose to collaborate with the justice system in the phases following the murder. Bruni’s remains, identified thanks to Foggetto’s declarations, were found in the “Orto Matera” area in March 2015. Daniele Lamanna confessed to having fired the gunshots that killed his old friend. The two repentants were definitively sentenced for the crime (Fobjects to 6 years, Lamanna to 11 years) and, with them, also Franco Bruzzese (repentant, 11 years) Maurizio Rango (life imprisonment) and Ettore Sottile (20 years), belonging to the clan that had a marginal role in the execution phase of the crime,
The two Abbruzzese men, also brought into play by their brother, Celestino, known as “kitty” and his sister-in-law, Anna Palmieri, who in turn became collaborators of justice, are accused of having played a role in the deliberative phase of the execution. The Court of Assizes of Appeal listened to all the “deep throats” of the investigation during the hearing to evaluate its reliability. Some discrepancies relating to the phases following the assassination emerged in the stories given by Foggetto and Lamanna. The first claims to have moved together with his “companion” after the bloody incident, the other, however, reported that he left alone. The lawyers Sanvito and Badolato contest the entire accusatory reconstruction and will intervene in defense of the Abbruzzese Germans on October 27th.
Today the “New Family” no longer exists: the Catanzaro Anti-Mafia District Directorate dismantled it with investigations that led to the definitive conviction of most of the members.
