Two American teenagers who were classmates at a California high school spent a second night in a Rome jail on Saturday after they were interrogated for hours about their alleged roles in the murder of an Italian policeman.
Investigators contended in written statements Saturday that the pair had confessed to their roles in the grisly slaying. Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega, a member of the storied Carabinieri paramilitary corps, was stabbed eight times, allegedly by one of the teens, leaving him bleeding on a street close to the teens’ upscale hotel near Rome’s Tiber River.
Italian authorities identified the two as Gabriel Christian Natale-Hjorth, 18, and Finnegan Lee Elder, 19, and said they were born in San Francisco.
Police said they were apparently vacationing in the Italian capital without family members.