A series of fingerprints found in the car used by the gang and a sequence of videos are the main clues to identify and arrest the five perpetrators of the crime of Rolando Omar Villafañe, the murdered 61-year-old merchant on Monday from a bullet when he resisted an assault on his cotton products factory in the town of Caseros, Tres de Febrero district, judicial and police sources reported today.
Meanwhile, the merchant’s remains were buried in the Pablo Podestá cemetery, amid scenes of pain from his relatives.
Five are the criminals who participated in the crime and despite the fact that they are wanted by the police, they still remained fugitives.
The Buenos Aires Security Minister himself, Sergio Berni, stated this morning to radio Miter that they are “looking for them tirelessly” and said he “is sure” that murderers “should be in jail for crimes they committed before.”
“We are oriented. Obviously the times of justice are not the times that we intend, but we can assure you that from the Police of the Province of Buenos Aires we are making every effort to find these criminals,” explained the minister.
The case is being investigated by the prosecutor Gabriela Disnan, from the Functional Instruction Unit (UFI) 5 of San Martín, who is trying to identify and locate the gang from the videos collected in the case and the traces that could have been left by the perpetrators of the murder in the car they used in the act, which had been stolen on Friday in El Palomar and which they discarded 20 minutes after the crime in Ramos Mejía.
“Work is being done on the images and the footprints and traces obtained from the vehicle used by the gang that was abandoned. We have some data that we reserve for now”One of the judicial investigators of the file told Télam.
The fingerprint traces raised from the car were being analyzed by the Scientific Police to see if any is suitable for a comparison and it is expected that the AFIS system (the database of fingerprints of people with criminal records), can put a name and surname on any of the murderers.
This Tuesday, the funeral procession with the remains of Villafañe departed at 9:20 from the wake house located at San Martín 3150, Tres de Febrero, to the Pablo Podestá municipal cemetery.
Without making statements to the press, the relatives who on Monday, in a march in front of the factory, They demanded “justice” and the arrest of the murderersthey moved from the wake room to the cemetery where the remains were later buried.
This morning, in statements to radio Miter, Julieta, one of the merchant’s daughters said: “We are heartbroken. We still can’t believe it, it seems like a lie. Who is going to be next?”
“We need justice. What will happen if they get caught? Because they are surely minors, they go out and kill again. Throughout the pandemic they released many criminals. We live in no man’s land. What am I going to do now without my dad?“concluded the victim’s daughter.
The crime
The incident, which was recorded by security cameras from the same factory, it happened at 0.41 yesterday in a cotton plant located at Calle Ángel Pini 5445, between Martín de Álzaga and Spandonari, in Caseros, a town in the northwest of the suburbs.
Villafañe arrived with his Ford Ranger truck, remotely activated the opening of the gate of his cotton goods factory and reversed his vehicle.
Thirty seconds later, it can be seen in the videos that a few meters before the door of the cotton plant, a Peugeot 208 car stops moving, of which Four criminals get out, some armed, who approach the factory gate with the intention of stealing.
Villafañe reacted by opening fire with the 9-millimeter caliber pistol that he had in his possession, so the assailants, who practically did not get to enter, fled in the opposite direction, one of them staggering and firing shots towards the interior of the factory, while a fifth accomplice awaited them in the Peugeot who acted as a driver and also escaped by starting the vehicle.
Neighbors who heard the shots called 911 to report the presence of a person with gunshot wounds. Inside the factory, was its owner, Villafañe, wounded in the abdomen and lying next to his Ford Ranger.
The merchant himself, who used to work only at dawn to get the morning orders ready, called his daughter’s husband to ask for help because he had been shot. The son-in-law arrived at the scene and took him in a vehicle to the Trinidad de Ramos Mejía clinic.where despite attempts to revive him, he died after a cardiorespiratory arrest.
Inside the victim’s truck, a 9-millimeter Browning caliber pistol was seized, which is believed to have been fired by the merchant. The weapon, which has the inscription “Police of the Province of Buenos Aires”, was mounted, there were 11 bullets in the magazine and five cases served at the scene.
According to the victim’s family, the gun had all the documentation in orderalthough at the moment it is not a reason for investigation.
Although at first different hypotheses were considered, the observation that the prosecutor and the Police made of a series of videos from the security cameras of the same cotton plant made it clear that it was an attempted robbery, which was resisted by Villafañe himself.
On Monday afternoon, the prosecutor received a preview of the preliminary result of the autopsy, which revealed that The victim suffered a gunshot wound with an entry hole in the abdomen and an exit hole in the back.
