In Uruguay people kill for drugs or domestic violence. At least mainly. The report of the Violence and Crime Observatory of the Ministry of the Interior for the year 2022 stated that these two reasons accounted for 59% of the homicides committed that year. In addition, 12% had been the product of spontaneous non-domestic disturbances, 4% occurred in a robbery gone wrong, and in 16% of cases the reason was unknown. The remaining 6% responded to “other reasons”.
Because other motives is killed in Uruguay?
According to a document from the Violence and Crime Observatory to which The Observer, the reasons are varied. From cases in which the murderer sought to take justice into his own hands, to a woman who killed her husband due to her advanced state of senile dementia and an encounter with a prostitute in which her boyfriend interceded and ended in a crime. .
Although at the beginning of this year the Ministry of the Interior reported that in 2022 there had been 22 homicides for “other reasons”, that is, 6% of the total, after the investigations progressed and the Observatory purged its list, they reached the conclusion that there were 11 of them that could not be located in the four base motivations that exist. Thus, they fell into the “other reasons” category.
case by case
He January 30th a man with psychiatric disorders killed and dismembered another in the Colón neighborhood. The prosecutor in the case, Adriana Edelman, recounted at the formalization hearing – to whose record she agreed The Observer– That the man went at 4:00 p.m. to the property where he would commit the crime, a place where pigs are raised in the Colón neighborhood. His motivation was to do justice against those who, he believed, had raped his 4-year-old sister. What he thought, however, was the product of his pathology.
The victim, who had nothing to do with it, passed by the place occasionally and started an argument with the defendant who then hit him with an object. Later, she dismembered him and threw various parts of his body where the pigs eat so that the remains would quickly disappear. He used a grinder, scissors and a saw that he found in a shed.
The police entered the scene when they were called by the manager of the place, who saw the discussion between the men and recognized the murderer, whom he described as an “unbalanced and crazy” person. When the police arrived, they saw a bloodstain, dismembered human remains, and the person responsible sitting under a tree. As soon as they consulted him, he recognized what he had done, why and with what tools.
Prosecutor Edelman ordered an emergency examination to verify his mental state and it was determined that he was unaware of his actions, which is why he requested that he be considered inimputable and requested his transfer to the Vilardebó Hospital.
He February 13th, in Canelones, an elderly woman killed her husband, who presented an advanced state of senile dementia, and later committed suicide. Their granddaughter told the police that her grandmother was “totally overwhelmed by the situation” with her grandfather and that they had no other problems. There were no previous reports of domestic violence and other witnesses interviewed stated that this was not the reality of the couple.
Four days later, the 17th of that month, a man was found dead of a blow to the head at his home in San José. According to the police investigation, the man was having a relationship with a woman whose ex-boyfriend had already threatened to kill him several times. Finally on that date, the police indicate, he fulfilled his threat.
He February 25In a similar case that occurred in Lavalleja, a man killed another with a knife. He confessed to a friend that the motive for the crime was that the victim “sent messages” to his girlfriend.
In the country’s capital, the april 24, an elderly man killed a woman who was inside the property of his house. Initially it was investigated as a legitimate civil defense since they believed that the victim was trying to rob him, but in the end this was not the case and that is why it was classified as homicide.
He 28 of that same month, a woman killed a man in Salto. The hypothesis of the reason is that the victim refused to pay the service to the woman, who was a prostitute, and that caused an altercation in which she ended up killing him.
He July 31st there was a case of justice into their own hands in Las Piedras (Canelones). A 22-year-old man, who was known for stealing in the neighborhood, was killed by one of the neighbors (36-year-old) with a shot to the stomach. The murderer was seized a 16-gauge shotgun, with which he had committed the crime. The victim had three criminal records for theft.
He September 2 a 52-year-old man was found shot to death in the Borro neighborhood. The murderer was his nephew and according to the police interviews carried out, the motive was related to an inheritance. The victim and perpetrator had argued over land owned by a relative who had died.
Just over a month later, the 4th of October, a homicide took place in San José in which a man killed his ex-partner and that was not classified as domestic violence but because it was the product of “another reason.” The perpetrator was a married man who went to the house of an ex-girlfriend from a long time ago and proposed to resume the relationship. The woman already had another partner, she refused to reestablish the relationship and threatened to tell him about her proposal to his current wife. According to the ministry’s analysis, he killed her to prevent the woman from telling his wife about her proposal.
He 23 of the same month a man who tried to force a prostitute to have sex with him was murdered in Salto. The woman’s partner interceded and ended up killing him.
The last case occurred on December 5th in Montevideo. It was about a man shot to death in an iron warehouse. The man who executed the shot justified himself by saying that the victim was trying to steal iron, but for the Prosecutor’s Office he did not establish a case of legitimate defense. As reported by La Diaria at the time, the murderer was a 49-year-old night watchman who declared that when he heard noises he fired an “intimidating” shot, which was what killed him.
