Teenage boy in Milan confesses to fatally stabbing family

A 17-year-old boy in Milan has confessed to fatally stabbing his family on September 1. The victims included his 51-year-old father, 48-year-old mother, and 12-year-old brother.

Prosecutors revealed the teen began by stabbing his sleeping brother. His mother, alerted by her younger son’s cries, entered the room and was attacked next. The father, unaware his son was the assailant, called for help but was also stabbed by the teenager.

The teen allegedly told police, “I stabbed dad while he was yelling at me to call for help,” and added, “I thought one stab would be enough to kill, then I realised it wasn’t like that.” He reportedly inflicted multiple neck wounds on his father, stating he did not want his family “to suffer.”

After the attack, the teenager called the police, admitting to the murders. Officers found him sitting on a wall outside, covered in blood. Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera reported that the victims had a total of 68 stab wounds, predominantly around their necks.

Before the killings, the teenager had been listening repeatedly to The Beatles’ song ‘The Long and Winding Road’. He told police he felt like an outsider in his family, saying, “There is no real reason why I killed them. I felt like a foreign body in my family. Oppressed. I thought that by killing them all I would free myself from this discomfort.” However, he admitted that he realised this was not true shortly after the murders.

The shocking crime has left Italy in mourning. Sociologist Massimo Crepet told Il Messaggero that the family unit was “shattered,” and noted that many parents do not know where their children are on Saturday nights.

Milan juvenile prosecutor Sabrina Ditaranto stated there was “no real motive,” and that the teen understood he had done something irreversible. She said, “The boy expressed his own discomfort, not related to the family. From a judicial point of view, we do not have a technically valid motive. From a sociological and psychological point of view, obviously, the investigations are open.”

A father of one of the teenager’s classmates described the family as “fantastic” and “happy.” He recalled, “He went to school with my daughter, elementary and middle school. We vacationed together. I saw the father a month ago for the last time. We spent good days together in the past.”