Italy suspect’s story untold, family says

SAN FRANCISCO — The family of one of the two California teenagers held in the slaying of an Italian police officer is looking “forward to the truth coming out and our son coming home,” an attorney for the family said Saturday.

“We feel the public has an incomplete account of the true version of these events,” Craig Peters said.

Peters read the short statement in front of the home of Finnegan Elder’s parents in San Francisco in which he said the family also expressed their condolences to Carabinieri officer Mario Cerciello Rega.

Peters also said that Elder “was OK. Tired, remorseful and scared. He has our full support, and we stand by his side.”

Italian prosecutors say Elder, 19, confessed to knifing Cerciello Rega, 35, during a July 26 scuffle.

According to court documents, Elder said he thought a strange man was strangling him and he didn’t know Cerciello Rega was a plainclothes police officer.

Cerciello Rega was stabbed 11 times with a 7-inch military-style attack knife that investigators reported finding in the drop ceiling of the Americans’ hotel room, police said.

Elder and 18-year-old Gabriel Natale-Hjorth are in custody while the investigation continues.

A judge who upheld the teens’ detention a week ago wrote in her decision that Cerciello Rega’s partner said they identified themselves as Carabinieri and showed their badges but were attacked right away. Judge Chiara Gallo also said that Elder did not have marks on his neck consistent with an attempted strangling.

AP/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/JESSIE WARDARSKI Attendees play pinball Sunday during the Replay Foundation Expo at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. The event is dedicated to promoting the preservation and restoration of pinball and arcade gaming technology.