Luis Escobar / La Paz
Richard Choque did not hesitate to take the life of his cousin, friend and childhood companion: Fidel. Since 2011 he has made extortion his way of life. He got used to asking for money from the families of his victims.
In 2013, Choque kidnapped, raped and killed a 20-year-old girl. He buried her in her house, where he also hid the remains of her cousin Fidel from her for years. The day he went to collect the money he requested in exchange for the victim, he was arrested, revealed the crime, and was sent to the Chonchocoro maximum security prison.
He was released in December 2019 by then-judge Rafael Alcón. When he got out of jail he went back to crime. He disguised himself in a police uniform to blackmail and rape dozens of women. He murdered two teenagers and buried them in his house.
Choque was born on Wednesday, November 9, 1988 and lived his first seven years without setbacks, like any child his age. The departmental prosecutor of La Paz, Wiliam Alave, revealed that the murderer faced difficult moments in his childhood.
“His dad was a policeman and he passed away a long time ago (in 1995). From that moment on she did not have a regular or normal childhood. There were alterations in his life and we understand that in the field of criminal psychology this greatly influenced the form and behavior with which this man ended up. He had sexual alterations and that transformed the personality of this subject, ”explained Alave.
In any case, no alteration can be used as a mitigating factor, explained specialists.
A relative of Choque – who asked to keep his name confidential – told Página Siete that Choque’s father was a police non-commissioned officer and died during a “curfew” that occurred during the interim government of Víctor Hugo Cárdenas. He indicated that the grandmother managed compensation and thanks to those efforts, the family received the land of the house in the San Martín area of El Alto, where after a few years Choque buried the bodies of his first victims.
When Choque’s grandmother died, she inherited him and his family a 900-square-meter house in the Ballivián area. As the papers were lost, Richard’s mother began the paperwork to obtain the property documents through a usucapion trial.
In his childhood days, some weekends, Richard Choque would visit the house of his cousin Fidel Lecón. “Since his father left him when he was little, he always came to play, he always came to play as a family. He came on Saturdays and Sundays. It wasn’t constant,” the victim’s mother recalled.
According to Richard’s own accounts to the investigators, he would have entered the Military College in 2005, but was later discharged, although he did not explain the reasons. In 2011, Fidel graduated from high school at the age of 18 and was interested in entering that military training center.
“Richard said that he would help him and I trusted that he would,” said the mother and for this purpose, the woman gave the criminal $5,000. Richard took the young man to his house in San Martín, where he was supposed to train him, but he violently killed him.
After more than 10 years, the Police found Fidel’s body. He was wrapped in two black jute bags “because he was a relative,” the killer replied, revealing that he committed the crime out of envy.
In order not to be discovered for this crime, Shock began to lie to his aunt. He first said that Fidel should be “in quarters” for a year; after he entered a skydiving course or he went on a mission to Haiti. In all that time, the murderer asked his family for 200 to 300 dollars from time to time.
Around those same years he met Blanca, a 20-year-old girl whom he took to that same house in San Martín. He kidnapped her, raped her and killed her. The forensic report revealed the cruelty of the crime. This fact shocked people.
Ever since he entered prison, Richard was looking for a way out. He wrote -for example- a letter with falsehoods in which he attributes to other people the torture and abuse suffered by the victim, the former defender and one of the first lawyers of the feminicide, Álvaro Elías, told this medium.
“In that letter I perceived something of fantasy and I looked for the forensic psychologist (…) to whom I made known the background and the note. He told me that it was totally imaginary, false because he himself (Richard) wanted to escape and release responsibility, “he pointed out.
In the letter, Choque commented that two of his “dangerous” friends gave a person sleeping drugs and he gave them to the young woman. He wrote that when the victim died, his so-called friends came and harassed the lifeless body. Everything he said was a lie.
After murdering her, Choque asked for a ransom of 2,000 dollars and the victim’s relatives got the money. When the criminal went to collect the money, he was arrested.
He was confined in the Chonchocoro prison and learned everything about the functioning of the Penitentiary Regime. He got him transferred to San Pedro, a lower security one. In La Paz, he managed to be delegate attorney despite failing to meet the requirements.
He lived in the Pinos sector and was “one of the inmates who ran the prison,” according to testimonies from inmates at that prison. “He worked as a ‘discipline’ in the offices of the council of delegates and they received a salary and enjoyed benefits for their position,” said an inmate who preferred to keep his name confidential. However, many prisoners, tired of the abuses of this group, mobilized and the council was dissolved. “Many inmates were tired of the abuse and extortion. They charged them flat fees and many other things. It is known that they could even go out without a custodian. One of them was caught in a store with false bills”, recalled a prisoner.
To get Choque out, his lawyer indicated that he had 24-hour outings for his good behavior.
In December 2019, when Choque turned 31, he was released from prison. In his statement, Choque said that he gave the lawyer $3,500 to obtain house arrest without a custodian. In 2020, already free, she needed money and disguised herself in a police uniform to continue extorting money. He placed advertisements on social networks in which he offered to pay large sums of money to carry packages from one place to another. The interested young women responded to the call and the criminal accused them of transporting drugs and in the end he filmed them and they admitted that those packages were theirs. In order not to take them to the police, he extorted amounts of money from them and raped them. In his cell phone they identified 77 victims.
In 2021, Choque captured -separately- Lucy (17) and Iris (15). He raped them, killed them and buried them in his house in Ballivián. He was discovered thanks to a police cyber patrol and revealed the crimes, but he still keeps information.
dead cat found
- Crime The departmental prosecutor of La Paz, William Alave, said that Richard Choque asked to take care of a cat in the Chonchocoro prison, since he is a lover of these animals. “One of the deaths occurs when he was drinking and the woman he was with kicks the offender’s cat and he reacts and kills her. In the excavations we have carried out, we found bone remains wrapped in a blanket. We thought, at first, that he was a boy, but later we saw that it was a cat because he had hair,” he said.
- conclusion Alave, in this regard, warned that “there is a coincidence of having killed a person just for kicking his cat. He killed her and buried her in the last room of the courtyard. He sprinkled the bodies with lime so that they would not be detected”.
The murderer and serial rapist who disguised himself as a policeman
- nineteen ninety five Richard Choque’s father died during a curfew when he was working for the Police. After his death, the grandmother asked for compensation and the land in the San Martín area, El Alto, was given to her.
- 2005 According to Choque’s own accounts, he managed to enter the Military College, but was discharged.
- 2011 Out of “envy”, Richard Choque killed his cousin Fidel and began the extortion.
- 2013 When Choque turned 25, he murdered Blanca, a 20-year-old girl. He then tried to extort money from her relatives.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison - 2019 At 31 years old, he initiates his contacts to get out of jail, and he gets it in December after paying 3,500 dollars.
- 2020 The killer returns to the streets. He needs money again, there he creates the police profile that makes him almost unpunished, he quotes women, accuses them of carrying drugs, extorts them and rapes them.
- In May 2021, Lucy (17 years old) disappears. She said that she had a job as a secretary. In August, Iris (15 years old) disappears; but she left her house to collect invitations for a baptism. In 2022 he is arrested and behind bars he confessed to the deaths.
