Mistaking a film for a reality, a 24-year-old uneventful former worker gave in to a fit of madness and committed irreparable harm.
When fiction surpasses reality. The drama took place in Italy, in the city of Treviso. The young Riccardo De Felice brutally killed his father there in the middle of the night, first by hitting him a violent blow to the head with a heavy object – which could be a dumbbell – then slitting his throat with a kitchen knife. But what is behind this sordid crime? According to the first findings of the police, these are strong psychological disorders which would have pushed the 24-year-old young man to commit this massacre. According to the daily Corriere Del Venetoit had been some time since those close to Riccardo no longer recognized him, one of her friends going so far as to say: “he was a normal boy, and at the end of the summer he went crazy.”
It started with a extreme estrangement from the young man, who cut himself off from the world, lost his job and then began to suffer from depression. Still according to those close to him, Riccardo De Felice also seemed persuaded to live in a film that would have contributed to making him paranoid : The Truman Showfamous film by Peter Weir with Jim Carrey, in which the latter plays the role of a man who evolves in a fictional life where he is constantly spied on without knowing it. “He had convinced himself that he was living like in The Truman Show, that everything was staged and everyone was watching.“explained one of her friends to the Italian daily.
Persecution delusion
This is the reason why, on Tuesday November 15, Riccardo De Felice went to his father’s room where he was watching television and then, after telling him that he could not sleep, hit him to death. He then went to his mother’s room to shout “Dad is dead!“before saying other things than, again according to the Italian daily Corriere Del Venetohis mother did not understand because they didn’t make sense. Once the police were there, the young man was quick to tell the police that he did not want to kill his father before going back on his words to assure them that his father wanted him badly and persecuted him. A few days before the crime, the young man had contacted a psychologist. He is now incarcerated and awaiting a psychiatric examination.