Jairo Cordero Barraza (36) accepts the charge of aggravated homicide charged by the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office for the murder of his partner Edixmar del Valle Henríquez González, a 23-year-old Venezuelan woman who was found dead and cremated on the morning of Monday, March 16. May in the ‘Ye’ of the Chinese on the road to Puerto Colombia, Atlántico.
The newspaper The Herald reports that in the charges filing procedure, the investigator reveals that Jairo Armando Cordero Barraza, the victim’s partner, would have murdered Edixmar on the night of Saturday, May 14, at his home in the Santa Inés de Soledad neighborhood in the middle of a altercation between the two.
The prosecutor is based on the interrogation that the captured person renders on the afternoon of Monday the 16th when he arrives at the URI of the Prosecutor’s Office to report the alleged disappearance of the young woman, but, deep down, he was trying to hide the facts or sow a cloak of doubts about his whereabouts.
But at that time, investigators already had the information on the discovery of Edixmar’s body, as well as probative material, consisting of video images where the moment in which the act of incineration of the body was committed was captured. Due to this situation, the man would have changed the version of the disappearance for that of his responsibility in the events.
“On a voluntary basis, he explains that his wife came home from work on Saturday, May 14, 2022, and at around 11:00 pm, she (Edixmar) began to tell him that it was her turn to cook and he (Jairo) tells him to order food at home. Angry, she started to wash the bathroom and threw water on them (on Jairo and the 3-year-old boy). Supposedly, after that, (Edixmar) grabbed a knife to commit suicide and later tried to attack him (Jairo). At that moment he grabbed her by the neck, choked her with his right hand and slammed her against the wall. That after that (Jairo) tried to help her, but she was already dead. That was at 11:30 p.m. in the Santa Inés neighborhood, in Soledad, ”reads the investigator, in the middle of the diligence that is carried out virtually.
In this same procedure, the prosecutor also details that on Sunday morning Cordero Barraza goes to the Barranquilla Center to buy a suitcase or briefcase for 50 thousand pesos and a gallon of gasoline at the service station on Carrera 38 with Calle 34.
Later, he returned to the house at noon and around 10:00 on Sunday night, that is, about 23 hours after the murder, he called a taxi by phone and asked that the vehicle bring a trunk, but it did not. A small taxi arrives at Santa Inés and Cordero Barraza puts the suitcase in the back seat of the vehicle, so the driver asks him why it smelled ugly and he replies: “It’s just that they are some tools and gasoline that I have there” .
“So he asked the taxi driver to go to Vía al Mar because he was going to meet some co-workers. When he arrived at the place, in the Ye de los Chinos sector, he got out, paid 30,000 pesos and, when the vehicle left, (Jairo) poured gasoline on the suitcase and set it on fire, ”says the prosecutor.
Then, according to the story, the man walks along the Vía al Mar, in the Puerto-Barranquilla direction, and when he was at the height of the German School, he asks for an “In-driver” to return him to his home.
After the accusation, Jairo Armando Cordero Barraza, partner of Edixmar, accepts the charge of aggravated homicide.
This, in the midst of tears, apologizes for what happened. And he states: “I had never acted in this way in my life. I made a very big mistake and I’m willing to pay for it. I took the most precious thing from my son, who was his mother.”
Homicide and not femicide
In the midst of the interventions carried out between the judge, prosecutor, lawyers and representative of the control entity, the imputation of the charge of aggravated homicide to the defendant Cordero Barraza and not that of aggravated femicide was questioned.
In this sense, the prosecutor of the case argues that “he did not find evidence”, in a preliminary way, that he was facing a case for the crime of femicide to be configured. “I can’t find any evidence, and as a prosecutor, lawyer and person I can’t file a charge based on suspicion,” Restrepo mentions.
This, in reference to the fact that there is no history or evidence of any type of violence or threat in the domestic sphere of the home made up of Edixmar Henríquez and Cordero Barraza.
In his turn, the representative of the Attorney General’s Office, Germán Cure Celis, although he considers the imputed crime to be adequate and adjusted, states that in the future of the investigation against Cordero Barraza some elements could be found that indicate that it is a femicide.
The representative of the court accepts the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, in the sense of putting Cordero Barraza behind bars after he accepted the charge of aggravated homicide. The order was to send him to the El Bosque District Prison, indicates the El Heraldo report.
The Colombian Medium 45 seconds tweeted in @45secondCo the video of the hearing in which Cordero accepts the charges and shows remorse for taking the life of the mother of his three-year-old son.
