Femicide in Beneventano: Ocone admits killing wife and son

The escape of Salvatore Ocone, the 58-year-old from Paupisi (Benevento), lasted twelve hours. The man, who was interrogated last night in the Campobasso Carabinieri barracks, where he had been taken after being stopped in the countryside of Ferrazzano, admitted killing his wife and 15-year-old son and reducing their 16-year-old daughter to death in the Benevento area. At the end of the interrogation, which lasted about an hour and a half, Ocone was transferred to Campobasso prison on charges of aggravated double murder, attempted murder and kidnapping.

He killed his wife, Elisa Polcino, 49, at dawn in her bed, hitting her in the head with perhaps a stone. A real manhunt was set up by the police to stop the fugitive, who was tracked down after being spotted by the Carabinieri helicopter 70 kilometres away, in the neighbouring province of Campobasso. There, the horror was completed by the discovery of the lifeless body of his 15-year-old son, who was with him in the car. With them also their 16-year-old daughter, who was hospitalised in serious condition: the girl suffered a fractured skull, lost a lot of blood but there were no stab wounds. It is therefore not excluded that she was hit with a stone, like her mother.

It is still unclear whether the man - who, according to his friends, had suffered from depression in the past - also hit his children already at home or in the course of his escape. The feminicide in the early hours of the day, just before dawn. First the quarrel, then the blows to the head. Elisa Polcino died instantly. Her corpse was found by her mother-in-law. Unlike other mornings, she had not left the house to take her children to school. So the woman became suspicious. She lives in the same cottage and had also heard some suspicious noises earlier. Enough to decide to go upstairs and check that everything was OK.

That was how she discovered Elisa's lifeless body. "When my aunt came in," reports a relative of the couple, "she started screaming". Asked if there had been other quarrels between Elisa and Salvatore, she replies that 'there were, as in all families. Salvatore was a very quiet person, I do not know what triggered what he did. He was not very well, he had health problems'. A couple above suspicion, Salvatore and Elisabetta, known to everyone as Elisa. Who would have celebrated 25 years of marriage on 19 October.

Safe the third son, the eldest, who was reached by the news of the family tragedy while he was in Rimini for work. Warned of what had happened, he returned home. The other two, however, not having gone to school, had caused alarm in the village. A search was immediately launched by the Carabinieri of the Provincial Unit. A helicopter was also scouring the area, which proved to be crucial in tracing the man's car. The last time Ocone's car, an Opel, was seen was around 6 a.m., and he was still in the village. Then nothing for twelve hours until it was found shortly after 6 p.m. in the Molise town of Ferrazzano, 70 kilometres from Paupisi.