Gaia and Camilla, on the tragic night of 21 December 2019, had not made any gambles: they were crossing on the strips, after the pedestrian traffic light had turned green.
An irreproachable behavior that however was not enough to save from death, from the violent impact with the car driven by Pietro Genovese who hit them by killing them instantly.
For the gup of Rome Gaspare Sturzo, who sentenced the 20-year-old to
8 years in prison for multiple road murder
on December 19
"The degree of guilt of the accused is very high, in terms of the quantum of avoidability of the event, since the accident is also the result of a negligent choice to drive after having used alcohol, even knowing that he was obliged to do not drink if he wanted to drive a car, according to his age and for the time he got his driving license ".
In 197 pages of motivations, the judge reconstructs the entire story of the two 16-year-olds from Rome, stating that Genovese hit them while
the two were "on the pedestrian crossing,
in the section of the third lane on the left of
Corso Francia
, after they had begun the crossing with the pedestrian green but they had stopped for noticing on their left three cars coming from the previous traffic light at high speed, in fact in
an overtaking race
, which showed no sign of slowing down ".
The defendant "made a series of overtakes while using a mobile phone with which he sent messages; exceeding the speed limit at night; starting a last overtaking of a car that had started to brake and then stopped" .
Genovese did not activate "the due diligence duties, in approaching an intersection, notoriously crossed by various users, especially on foot, well known for the danger of sudden crossings between commercial establishments and houses located on both sides of the dual carriageway "and" without verifying the reason for braking and stopping the car in front of him, in relation to the offending intersection, especially as regards the possible presence of other road users in front of the car he was overtaking ".
For Judge Sturzo, the accused "is a subject
capable of understanding and willing at the moment of the fact.
Before this judge he made spontaneous statements that showed his ability at the moment of the fact and that of perfectly understanding the gravity of the facts and that for these he was subjected to a criminal trial ".
And again: "it is true that despite the house arrest he had received some friends and listened to music, probably loudly, annoying some neighbors, but - continues the judge - this element too, together with the others noted above, must be framed in a complex of immaturity of the accused, due to his young age and the attempt to flaunt a student spirit, some instinct of a bully, to hide his insecurities and some excess of loneliness ".
For the girls' lawyers, "the motivation for the sentence is a clear confirmation of the
full regularity of the conduct of Gaia and Camilla,
thus definitively clearing the field of imaginative hypotheses of" risky "crossing which, in some cases, have constituted nothing but free and unjustified attacks on the memory of the two poor girls, initially included, even, in an invented game of crossing with the red light that did not have the slightest confirmation from the trial ".
