Timiș Abuse Case: Cena’s Story & Parent Threats After Mario’s Death

A young man assaulted before killing the 15-year-old. Crowds of outraged neighbors, curious come to film for TikTok and an MEP who capitalized on the anger of the locals, fed up with the lack of action from the authorities. What is the situation in the two villages in Banat devastated after a child was killed by two others.

• A meeting with villagers at the Town Hall demonstrates what parents’ concerns look like and how man-to-man dialogue manifests itself in the age when citizens “go mad because of fear.”

Monday morning, around 8:30, in front of the City Hall in Sânmihaiu Român, it is quiet after the Sunday riot. The mayor went to the school to allay the fears of children and parents, he says.

More than 200 people had gathered in front of the house where the grandparents of the 13-year-old child involved in the Cenai crime live. People were angry, scared and convinced that the boy was there. It was shouted, filmed, broadcast live. Some demanded explanations. Others spoke openly of revenge.

The mayor who says, “I can’t make up answers to calm a crowd”

The mayor says that when he arrived at the scene, he felt that the situation could very easily get out of control.

“My role was to calm the waters, not to coordinate the investigation,” says Viorel Mărcuti.

The mayor says that people kept asking him where the child was. He told them he didn’t know. That, at the time he arrived, the minor was not at the grandparents’ house. That he can’t make up answers just to appease the crowd.

“Even last night, when I arrived, the minor was not at home.”

60-70 policemen came

The panic, says the mayor, came from the idea that the boy would stay there, in the village. “There was talk of lynching.” At that time, he called for additional law enforcement. 60-70 policemen and gendarmes arrived in the area. He did not want forceful interventions. He says that any brutal gesture would further inflame the crowd.

Even so, the mayor says the pressure was high. Some of those present were not from Sânmihaiu Român. They had come from other towns. They were filming, broadcasting, commenting.

“I have the impression that some also came for the circus. For TikTok. For the Internet.”

At one point, he was asked to resign. “I was asked to leave. But what do I have to do with a crime that didn’t happen here?”

When fear turns to anger

With the consent of the family, representatives of the authorities entered the house. The mayor stayed outside. The minor was not there. The child’s father, on the other hand, was hiding out of fear.

The night ended without violence. Gendarmes and police remained on patrol. In the morning, the people had disappeared from the street.

The mayor says that beyond the anger, he saw a lot of fear. “People have children. That’s why the fear was so great.”

When asked to “do something,” he says he felt the need to draw a line. “We’re not in the Middle Ages. We’re not stoning. We’re not burning witches.”

On Monday morning, he says he also went to school, just to keep the children quiet. The parents had asked him what would happen next, if they were safe.

From an administrative point of view, he says that he decided not to grant floating in Sânmihaiu Român to either the child or the parents. “The minor doesn’t even have a report card.” What will happen next, he says is none of his business. “The rest is up to the prosecutor.”

Cenei: A message board in Mario’s classroom

It is 17 kilometers from Sânmihaiu Român to Cenei. The Secondary School where Mario studied has a new principal, Nicoleta Rîșteiu. She refuses to make statements. He says that he took office on January 19 in Cenai and that he has nothing to tell about what happened before.

Mario’s manager doesn’t want to talk either. In the school, on the desk where Mario studied, there are 30 candles and the child’s photo. Colleagues also put a sign on one of the classroom walls with handwritten messages:

“You will be our guardian angel.” “Justice will be served.” “You were a good colleague.” “We will always love you.”

“And my girl was harassed by a gang. I made complaints, to no avail”

In Cenei, around 10 o’clock, the sky is gray and it is raining lightly. On the street, the few people say that the shock comes not only from the crime, but from a lack of trust in the authorities.

“My daughter, who is now 23 years old, was followed and harassed by a gang of older boys. I made complaints after complaints. To no avail,” begins one neighbor.

He explained that the situation lasted for years, that the fear doesn’t go away when you see that nobody gets hurt and that the feeling of abandonment accumulates over time.

“You get to be afraid for your child. And when you see that nothing works, you lose confidence.” That is why he says that the harsh reactions of the last few days do not surprise him.

“I’m not saying it’s good what happened with the riot, but people are desperate. Because they don’t believe anyone is standing up for them anymore.”

A neighbor intervenes. She also has children and says she is afraid. That there have been no murders in the village for decades, the last one being when she was young. That is precisely why what has happened now has broken the sense of security.

Meeting with villagers, Sosoacă and a woman who came, out of curiosity, from Arad

The villagers are on social networks and find out that SOS MEP Diana Șoșoacă is coming to the village. In front of the City Hall, like a magnet, villagers from Cenai, neighboring villages, several police cars and gendarmes gather.

Upon entering the town hall, the head of the extremist party is awaited by the president of SOS Timiș with bread and salt. The world is filming, the mayor and the deputy mayor invite those present to enter the town hall, in the meeting room.

Out of curiosity, a woman from Arad also came, arrived here after learning about the case from the public space.

“The fear also reached our children. My child is 12 years old. He didn’t want to get out of the car when I came to Mario’s funeral. He asked me: ‘Mom, are the criminals there?'”

The boardroom discussion begins abruptly. People demand explanations from the mayor, they want to know why “no one intervened earlier”, why “the signals were ignored”. Among those present are the parents of an 18-year-old man from Cenai, assaulted a few weeks before the crime in which Mario was killed.

The Moldovan case, the child beaten by the same aggressors

The boy’s father, Cosmin Moldovan, says that his son was attacked in the evening, close to the house, by the same teenagers later involved in the crime. “These two who are now incarcerated beat him. He was stabbed in the mouth. They filled him with blood, broke his lip.”

At the end of December, his son filed a criminal complaint for beatings and other violence. On January 14, the man says, the young man was called to the police station without his parents being notified.

“The kid has never had anything to do with the police. It’s normal for him to be scared.” He came home and told me he withdrew his complaint. I told him he shouldn’t have done it.”

From the hall, a young man intervenes and says, directly: “If they had intervened then, it would not have come to the Mario case.” The mayor agrees. “I agree with you. If they were arrested then, we also had them on record.”

What does the mother claim happened at the police station

The 18-year-old’s mother also speaks. He says the situation could have been much worse. “It could have been a lot worse.” She tells that, at the police, she was not listened to.

“They told us: ‘You parents, get out, the boy is an adult’. They didn’t even want to talk. They beat my boy on the street and we were told: ‘Go home’.”

The woman also says that, after the incident, she was threatened by the mother of one of the teenagers later involved in the crime. “She told me: “The husband is coming back from Germany and we’ll see then”. He told me that I shouldn’t have called the police, that she would handle it, as a parent.”

He says that after the man returned from Germany, he lived in fear. “I was locked in the house with the children. Since then I live only with stress. I always call the child: “Sebi, what are you doing? Where are you?”.

The problems started before. What IPJ Timiș says

The young man’s mother also says that the problems are even older.

“Shortly before they beat him, the 13-year-old boy broke the tiles from our window, it can also be seen on the camera when they attacked him later, that we have cameras. The boy entered the house full of blood. Out of fear, my child went to the street and told people that he fell off his bike.”

The woman says the family lived in fear after that moment.

“I was no longer calm. I was thinking that Sebi could be there.” She also says she warned the authorities that things could degenerate.

“I said then that if the police don’t do something, something worse is bound to happen.” A month later, she says, her fears were confirmed. “It was murder.”

IPJ Timiș confirmed, for HotNews, that the young man presented himself to the Cena Police on December 23, claiming that he was “physically assaulted by two 15-year-old minors”.

“Following the notification, the police have drawn up a criminal file under the aspect of committing the offense of hitting or other violence, and investigations have been carried out in order to establish the entire factual situation”, according to IPJ Timiș

The young man withdrew his complaint on January 14, and the Police say that, in the case of the crime of hitting or other violence, “the continuation of the criminal proceedings is conditional on the existence of the will of the injured person.”

Meeting with scandal

After the parents’ testimonies, the tone in the hall changes. Sosoacă takes the floor and addresses the mayor directly. “You are part of the community that killed him, through lack of involvement.”

Mayor Sîrgean Tanasin tries to answer calmly. “It’s not quite as you say.”

From the hall, the woman from Arad intervenes again. “Mario’s Blood Demands Justice.” Soșoacă continues, raising his voice, and extends responsibility to all institutions.

“Everyone is guilty: the DGASPC, the police, the mayor’s office, the deputy mayors, the councilors. Where are you in this community, where a child was slaughtered by other children? What are you raising here?”.

The room is getting more and more agitated. The mayor no longer answers. He remains silent in the face of accusations.

“Cenei, the commune of criminals,” says Diana Soșoacă, raising her voice. At that point, they no longer speak in turn. People say what they have to say, over each other. Applaud.

“Before he’s killed?” says the mayor, trying to defend himself. “We were not informed of this stuff.” The reply comes immediately from the hall. “But a boy was beaten!” The mayor repeats: “I didn’t know.”

Diana Șoșoacă intervenes again, sharply: “Don’t you worry that you are the last in the community to find out?”

“Where was the welfare?”. The assistant appears

From another corner of the room, another question: “Where was the social worker?”

The room is becoming cramped. People want to talk, they shout across the line. Someone asks directly, “What does the social worker do? What is the job description?”

The social worker employed by the town hall is called to answer. He says he had no experience in the field when he was hired last July through a competition. He has a degree in psychology and says he attended training sessions at DGASPC.

Asked what she does in a typical day at work, she replies: “Everything to do. I get emails, answer them, go out in the field and do investigations.”

Another question follows: “How much do you go on the field?”. “A few hours, once every few days,” the woman replies. He adds that, at first, he had a lot to learn. “At the moment I also had a lot to learn. I was alone. The lady who was before me retired, I had to take over all the documents. There is work and there is more to learn.”

As she speaks, she defends herself and looks visibly cornered. The roles were reversed, she became the accused in a much more volatile environment than a court: the crowd.

The community did not address him

The social worker explains that she has received no complaints from the community and that she “doesn’t have any list of problem families”. It states that no social investigation was done either with the family of the 13-year-old child who was at large, or with the other families of the teenagers involved in the crime.

“Because no one reported it to us. No one told us. The school, of course, no.”

The social worker adds that she is part of the violence prevention council at the school, along with a police officer, and that there was no discussion of situations of this kind either.

The vice-mayor of the commune of Cena, a member of the school’s board of directors, says that such situations have never been discussed within the institution’s official framework. “No. The problems that were and are now with these children (…) have not been discussed. The gossip is coming out now, but so far none of you have come forward to say anything.”

What a former teacher says

The discussion moves to the responsibility of the school. People ask if there were episodes of aggression between children, if the teachers knew, if there were cases of violence or bullying that were ignored or covered up.

A retired local speaks up and says that the problem was not only the child’s behavior but also the mother’s reaction. “The mother of the 13-year-old boy threatened the teachers as well, when they complained about the child’s violent behavior.”

There is also a former teacher in the room, who confirms the story.

“I was trying to manage a situation and I was pressured by the school leadership, by everyone. The former leadership.” The woman states that she has made official reports. “There are two written notifications, one to the School Inspectorate, the other at the local level, to the school. I tried. I won’t go into details.”

About the 13-year-old, the former teacher says he was considered a problem student. “The children complained that they were being bullied by him since they were six years old, in the primary classes.”

Again the mother of the aggressor is mentioned

The former teacher says that, later, several fellow teachers reported problems to her. “Religion, English, French, sports teachers complained to me that they couldn’t do their classes because of him. I couldn’t believe it.”

Each time, she says, he intervened. “I took a stand. The kid was asking for forgiveness.”

However, the idea that the child’s mother was the main source of conflict comes back. “The mother did not allow the teaching process to take place as it should. She came over us, she took the children.”

About the school psychologist, the former teacher says there was only one discussion.

Asked what answer she received from the School Inspectorate, the woman says: “We were told something like: manage. Solve the problem at your school.” The former teacher says that, after the reports were made, the school inspectorate came to the school, but things stopped there.

The neighbors demand the arrest of the criminal’s mother

As the discussion progresses, the tone tightens. Several locals say that they do not only consider the 13-year-old child responsible, but also his mother, whom they directly accuse of complicity.

“The boy’s mother washed the sidewalk with blood. Blood from the child,” says a neighbor.

The man claims that the woman tried to erase the traces of the crime. “Moreover, he slaughtered one hen and spread the blood to cover the blood of the other.”

He says he saw her washing the sidewalk himself. “I saw it. I stand fence to fence with them.”

He revolts and asks a direct question, in front of everyone: “Why isn’t she arrested?”.

The man also says that, although he lives right next to the family, he was not interviewed by the investigators. “No one called me as a witness. Only the journalists came.”

“When they saw me, they played catch”

Another neighbor speaks. He says he lives nearby and saw the 13-year-old on the night of the murder.

“Monday evening, around 10 o’clock, I was coming from my brother’s, from the station. When I arrived in front of the 13-year-old boy’s house, he was with another boy, at the neighbor’s house behind the house, in line with the gate.”

He says that when they saw her, the children acted naturally. “When they saw me coming, they played, as if they had played for the first time. They gave me “Good evening”.

He describes the atmosphere in the area as one known by the neighbors. “They were gangs of kids. They drank, smoked, filmed themselves. We often met with them.”

The woman says the 13-year-old boy was known to be in trouble. “He was a troubled child. All year, the police were at their gate in a car, once every two or three weeks.”

What people are asking for: “Remedial School”

At the end of the discussions, the parents and the locals say what they want. If the minor cannot be held criminally responsible and cannot go to prison, as the law provides, then they want another solution: “To be sent to correctional school.”

The meeting ends after almost three hours. The mayor has had enough, he doesn’t want to talk to the press anymore.

The Prosecutor’s Office of the Timiș Court announces, almost simultaneously, that the 13-year-old minor involved in the crime has been placed under specialized supervision by the Timiș Child Protection Commission. Sîrgean Tanasin stated that “we cannot say where the child is. We know, but we cannot say”.

Walk to school

Sosoacă leaves for the police station in Cenei. It’s raining harder outside. Some of the locals follow her, in line, with their phones in their hands. There is no one at the station.

From there, excited by the discussion at the town hall, people go to school together. The hours are not over yet. There are gendarmes and policemen in front of the building. Locals ask to enter, to receive explanations from the principals and teachers, but they are not allowed.

The director does not answer. He’s at the window, but he doesn’t come out. The woman from Arad approaches the window and claps her hand: “Madam director, come out and explain.”

What two of Mario’s classmates say

HotNews talks to two of Mario’s classmates as they get out of class.

The two say that they have known him for a long time and that they have been his colleagues “since kindergarten”. They describe him as “a good kid” who “shared everything he had.”

The teenagers say that in the class there were classmates who approached Mario “out of fear”, in the context where he was part of the same gang as the teenagers later accused of the murder. However, they state that they do not fall into this category.

The two confirm that Mario was friends with the aggressors and that they were part of “the same gang”, adding that they “visited each other daily” and “walked[u] together”.

Asked if they knew of any conflicts before the night of the murder, one of the colleagues says, “They had argued before,” without being able to provide further details.

“I started crying”

About the evening of the disappearance, the two say that initially they didn’t think it was anything serious. “I thought he was making a joke,” says one of them. “He used to make jokes like that,” confirmed the other.

The shock came only in the morning when they learned that Mario had died. “I started crying,” says one of the teenagers.

The two reject the rumors related to the consumption or sale of drugs. “We don’t know any of that,” they say.

One of the colleagues concludes that, after what happened, he is afraid. “I’m scared now,” he says, adding that he fears the teenager on the loose. The same colleague adds that he is emotionally affected by Mario’s death: “My soul hurts.”

HotNews also tried to contact the Timiș County Inspectorate and sent a written request.