At around 9 p.m. on February 21st, 45-year-old Susy De Nardo and her 12-year-old son, Gianluca, were brutally hacked to death in their home in the northern Italian dormitory town of Novi Ligure. Susy and Gianluca died after a violent struggle which left 97 stab wounds on their bodies.
Public opinion, outraged by a crime initially attributed to Albanian migrants, was soon stunned into horrified bewilderment when it emerged that Susy and Gianluca had been killed by Erika De Nardo, Susy's 16-year-old daughter, acting along with her 17-year-old boyfriend, Mauro "Omar" Fasaro.
Since that grim February night, Italian public opinion has been wracked by a debate about the nature of the text-message generation of alienated Italian youth.
On Friday, the debate moved a step forwards when a Minor's Court in Turin sentenced Erika and Omar to 16 and 14 years prison respectively. Basic to the court's judgment was the rejection of the defence's plea of mental infirmity. In other words, according to the court, Erika and Omar knew exactly what they were doing when they killed Susy and Gianluca that night.
Perhaps the pair did indeed know what they were doing but so far it remains unclear as to just why they carried out the killings, wiping out two lives and destroying their families.
Francesco De Nardo, husband of Susy and father of Erika, has been plunged into a torment of Greek tragedy dimensions since the only family member left with whom to share his grief is the daughter who killed his wife and son.
Notwithstanding the horror of what has happened, Mr De Nardo has tried to go on living a "normal" life.
He moved back into the family home, cleaning up the mess and repainting the house. He has remained at his job as manager of a local sweetmeats factory.
Omar's parents, who together ran a small bar in Novi Ligure, have been so fazed by the publicity and morbid curiosity that they have moved out, changing both name and town.
The parents have grimly stood by their killer child, desperately trying to prepare for a post-prison future which will almost certainly come long before the sentences have been served (allowing for good conduct and "social rehabilitation").
Ever since that grim night last February, there has been a lot of talk about "normality". Both families were in a relatively comfortable economic bracket.
In material terms, Erika and Omar did not want for anything. Both children performed reasonably well at school while neither had a history of troublesome or disturbed behaviour.
Both children enjoyed a high level of autonomy, so much so that they spent four hours together in Omar's bedroom nearly every afternoon after school. (Lessons at many Italian secondary schools end at 1 p.m.).
According to Mr Adolfo Ceretti, a criminologist who helped prepare a pyschoanalytic assessment of Erika and Omar for the state prosecutor's office, this story brings one "face to face with the profundity and banality of evil". He does however believe that a partial explanation of their crime may be found in the all-exclusive vacuum of their relationship - one lived out against the background of a world that bombards children with "the exaltation of absolute freedom, of rights and expectations but not duties or responsibilities". So strong was the dynamic of the couple that within days, prison authorities moved Omar to a different jail in a different city (from Turin to Milan) to stop Erika communicating with him. Since their arrest, too, the couple has splintered under the weight of mutual recrimination with each accusing the other of being the main instigator of the crime.
Inevitably, Italian parents worry that these apparently "normal" children might be all too similar to their own.
Inevitably too, public opinion appears to be strongly in favour of a harsh sentence with 55 per cent in one weekend poll arguing that the sentences were too lenient.
As he walked into a posse of journalists outside morning Mass in Novi Ligure last Sunday, Fernando De Nardo was asked for a comment: "I have nothing to say," he answered, "because whatever I say would be misinterpreted. The ideal thing would be for you to stop talking about us."