According to Italian reports, the hitman who killed fashion icon Maurizio Gucci shot his own 37-year-old son in the face before committing suicide on Tuesday.
Benedetto Ceraulo, 63, was hosting family for the Easter holidays in his Pisa, Italy, home when the shocking attempted filicide occurred, according to Italian newspaper La Stampa.
On Tuesday, a family argument erupted, and the high-fashion hitman allegedly resolved the situation by firing a small-caliber pistol into Gaetano Ceraulo’s face, according to Il Tirreno.
According to local reports, Ceraulo then turned the pistol on himself in the front garden of his Santa Maria a Monte home, indicating a suicide attempt.
Despite being shot in the face, Gaetano remained conscious and drove himself to a bar in the nearby province of Valdinievole, gushing blood. He was picked up by first responders and taken to the hospital, according to Il Tirreno.
He is currently in stable condition following treatment at Felice Lotti Hospital, according to the outlet.
Meanwhile, Il Tirreno reported that his father, Gucci’s assassin, is still in critical condition at Cisanello Hospital in Pisa.
Ceraulo was convicted, along with another hitman, of the 1995 murder of the third-generation Italian fashion house head on orders from the deceased businessman’s ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani.
Gucci, 46, was fatally shot outside his Milan offices.
Ceraulo was granted semi-liberty in 2023 after serving only 18 years of his sentence, on the condition that he participate in a social reintegration project, La Stampa reported.
Reggiani, known as the “Black Widow,” was sentenced to 29 years in prison in 1998 but was released in 2016 after only serving 18 years.
The high-profile assassination became Hollywood fodder in 2021, when director Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci” premiered, much to the dismay of Reggiani and Gucci’s daughter, Allegra Gucci.
The “bad caricature” of her beloved father inspired the devoted daughter to pen the book “Game Over” in which she tried to set the record straight on her “hardworking” father and her “elegant” mother, who was portrayed by Lady Gaga in Scott’s film.
Allegra insisted on her mother’s innocence for years, bringing “Black Widow” care packages to prison and even being inspired to study law as a result of what she saw as an unjust legal accusation against her mother.
Reggiani eventually told her daughter that she had hired hitmen to kill Gucci.