He had been deemed dangerous for himself and for others, enough to confirm last Thursday’s arrests, but also to order his stay in a facility equipped for psychiatric patients. A precaution, the one adopted by the investigating judge of the Court of Naples, which did not serve to prevent a sort of announced epilogue: Antonio Betterthe 39-year-old responsible for stabbing a lawyer, took his own life.
A suicide even announced before the judge, at the end of the interrogation on Monday evening. Dramatic epilogue, the investigation begins, also in light of a complaint announced by Meglio’s defender. The facts: on Monday night, around 9.40pm, the 39-year-old took his own life by hanging himself with a noose made of fabrics inside the hospital St. John Bosco.
Naples, woman stabbed on bus. The attacker takes his own life: he was kept in a psychiatric ward
The backstory
He was stationed in the mental health ward and asked the prison officers to go to the toilet. Door half closed, he was found hanging. Antonio Meglio had tried to end it twice. Last Thursday March 5th, after ending up in cell for the attack on a woman he didn’t even know, Meglio had already tried to commit suicide. And he did it on two occasions: first by using a pen drive which he had in his pocket, with which he had tried to remove his veins; then he threw himself with his head against the wall, after being taken to the cell. An episode, the latter, which occurred in Poggiorealepromptly reported by the prison police officers. The rest of the story is quite clear. The prisoner ends up at San Giovanni Bosco, where the interrogation to validate the arrest was held last Monday.
Defended by the criminal lawyer Gianluca SperandeoAntonio Meglio was heard by the investigating judge Daniela De Nicoladuring a guarantee interrogation punctuated by the statements of the suspect himself: Meglio retraced the motivations that pushed him on Thursday night to stab – with at least ten shots – an unknown woman (a lawyer), attacked by chance, there inside the 132 in via Simone Martini. An epilogue announced, it was said, since at the end of the interrogation the man had reiterated his desire to take his own life. More specifically, Antonio Meglio had explained the reason for the senseless attack against a victim he didn’t even know. He said he felt trapped, persecuted, at the center of a sort of “erotic scam”. An abyss of suggestions and contradictions from which Meglio never emerged.
Naples, woman stabbed on a bus. Crazy free to kill: spotlight on health care
According to the words on record, the 39-year-old clarified that he had armed himself to defend himself from a plot organized by an escort. He had recounted elements in a complaint deemed unreliable, imagining himself at the center of a conspiracy. And he then attacked a woman, until he immobilized her for 15 minutes with his knee on her neck, on the floor of a bus at Vomero. Face to face with the judge on Monday. Why did you do it? Did they ask him? «To be heard», is the summary of a story bordering on hallucination. But let’s go back to suicide. Monday night, twenty minutes to ten, when the alarm goes off. The man was guarded, but evidently the custody did not serve to prevent an extreme and sudden gesture. Precisely in recent days, Meglio’s lawyer was busy collecting the medical documentation concerning the 39-year-old.
In nodi
Who had cared for him? Was there a treatment plan? Had he taken any medications? A collection of information that was used to ensure that Meglio ended up in a facility equipped from a clinical point of view, to guarantee the detention of those struggling with psychiatric problems. But there was no way. Now it is easy to understand that the Prosecutor’s Office has the investigations. The file on the attack in Vomero against the 32-year-old criminal lawyer was coordinated by the prosecutor Antonella Lauri, under the coordination of the deputy prosecutor Pierpaolo Filippelli. Now it is probable that an investigation will be opened into the suicide, at least to establish whether there were any omissions or critical issues in the care of the patient-inmate.
A matter that could be assigned to the deputy prosecutor Alessandro Militawhich coordinates files on crimes committed within the penitentiary system of the Neapolitan district. They intervene Giuseppe Moretti e Ciro Auricchio leaders of USPP, who speak of an announced tragedy resulting from the failure of the rems after the closure of the opg, dysfunctions which impact on the work of the penitentiary police”. However, it is easy to guess the next moves: the medical records linked to Meglio’s stay at San Giovanni Bosco will be acquired, but also the reports made by the staff who cared for (and protected) the 39-year-old: a man fleeing from himself and the monsters he brought with him.
