The victim, identified as Yanicel Valdés and known as “the Russian”, was found dead in a garbage dump in the municipality.
MADRID, Spain.- A woman was murdered, dismembered and buried in a garbage dump in the municipality of San Juan y Martínez, in the province of Pinar del Río. The victim was identified as Yanicel Valdés, as initially reported by the page Child reporting a crime and could confirm CubaNet.
According to that source, the woman was known in the community as “the Russian.” His identity was established after the circulation on social networks of screenshots of publications made by his daughter, who had reported his disappearance days before, which made it possible to link the search with the body found.
According to preliminary information and testimonies from neighbors cited by Nio, the main hypothesis under investigation points to his romantic partner as the alleged perpetrator of the crime.
Unofficially, these same versions suggest that the suspect could be related to another homicide that occurred in the same municipality approximately three weeks ago, in which a Cuban-American citizen lost his life. Community sources indicate that the individual would have been arrested for that previous case and that he allegedly confessed his involvement in both events. Although this has not been confirmed.
In the first two weeks of January, the magazine’s Gender Observatory Tense Wings (OGAT) and the Femicide Observatory of IYesI Believe in Cuba (YSTCC) confirmed two femicides. Since 2019, both platforms have verified at least 300 cases on the Island, despite operating in a context marked by the criminalization of feminist activism, limited access to institutional sources and the absence of a specific classification of feminicide in Cuban legislation.
In this context of violence, also recently emerged in San Juan y Martínez the murder of Gerardo, an elderly Cuban-American citizen who frequently traveled from the United States to Cuba, where he collected his pension and resided intermittently.
Gerardo was attacked in his home. During the assault, he and his wife were tied up; The man was beaten with extreme violence and still showing vital signs to the local polyclinic, where he later died.
