A woman that reported the gang rape of a son teenager and finished preyaccused of having murdered one of the abusers despite the absence of evidence, was benefited from house arrestas feminist organizations mobilized for his acquittal had been requesting.
Is about Nancy Montiel (47), to whom the Criminal Court No. 1 of the Mercedes Judicial Department agreed to moderate his deprivation of liberty, taking into account that the 17-year-old daughter in his care lives with a profound maturational delay that prevents him from speak, control their sphincters, move around, bathe or eat on their own.
In the meantimethe other abuser of her son was declared incompetent and there are no others charged by the murder of Jose Palavecino (40), despite the title page, it is “aggravated homicide” for having been committed in a gang.
How the events happened
Mother of 12 children and organizer of a popular community pot in the Raffo neighborhood of General Rodriguezwhere he lives together with the five minors, Nancy reported on September 2, 2020 that her brother Claudio and a neighbor had drugged and abused one of her sons.s, who was then 17 years old.
“Twenty-three days later, they find one of the abusers dead and the first suspect is my mom only because he had reported the abuse days before,” he told Télam mayra gomezone of Nancy’s daughters.
According to judicial sources, Palavecino’s body was found half-buried in a vacant lot and in an advanced state of decomposition; and the autopsy revealed that he suffered several blows to the head and two stab wounds to the back.
The same day of the discovery, the police went to Montiel’s home from where -according to Mayra’s account- “they took her away deceived, telling her that they had delayed one of the abusers and they had to go testify with my brother.”
“It turns out that when they arrive they begin to harass them separately, my mother assuming that she was the one who killed him, my brother repeating the same questions to her, despite the fact that he cried saying that he did not know anything and was still upset about it. what they had done to her,” said Mayra.
“My mother tells them that she doesn’t know anything, that (Palavecino) had reported him for abuse but that she hadn’t killed him, but they still leave her behind bars,” she said.
“Twenty-three days later, one of the abusers is found deceased and the first suspect is my mother only because she had reported the abuse days before”Mayra Gomez, daughter of Nancy
According to Mayra, the entire accusation is based on “an anonymous call” from a person who said he saw her with the deceased and that he heard her say that, if nobody did anything, she was going to do justice, “something that any mother can say”; and in the discovery of “a shovel and a hammer” during a raid in which “they did not find the alleged weapon” used in the crime.
“His accusation was random, because my mother had just denounced this person who was found dead, they did not investigate anything and they bring her to trial,” he said.
“It could have been any person who killed him because Palavecino was a person who had his vices and in the depths of the neighborhood the voice reached me that they had already threatened him not to appear here anymore because they had it sworn to him because he had already touched another creature,” he said.
After having denied it on two previous occasions, on August 1 the court chaired by Daniel Machain and made up of Jorge Pablo Vieiro and Eduadro Federico Losada, accepted the defense’s request and granted Montiel the house arrest that Law No. 24,660 provides for “the mother of a child under five (5) years of age or a dependent person with a disability”.
“She took care of my 17-year-old sister who, since my mother is in Los Hornos, is more vulnerable because she doesn’t want to eat and has lost weight,” she said.
“Free Nancy Montiel”
Convinced that her mother was being the victim of a great injustice, Mayra began to organize together with other women from the neighborhood and thus the “Freedom for Nancy Montiel” campaign was formed. which mobilized on different occasions to the courts of Mercedes, to the municipality of Morón and Luján, along with other groups such as the Mercedinas Women’s Assembly, Workers’ Plenary and Gender Ombudsmen.
Last Monday, finally, she was notified that she was granted house arrest.
“It is a great advance towards the liberation of Nancy and also of other women in the same situation. The way in which she was detained and the cause plagued by irregularities cannot be ignored and we have the task of continuing to forcefully make visible, even with Nancy at home,” Natalia Pérez, a member of the Gender Ombudsman and the Campaign, told Télam. “Free Nancy”.
For Pérez, “Nancy represents the struggle of thousands of working-class women who approach criminal justice trusting that they will find redress” but instead receive “an almost immediate accusatory response and criminalization, one obstacle after another. on that journey.”
“Mothers who protect children do so with practically no legal tools because they begin to see that those tools turn against them, apart from the fact that the processes are very slow compared to expectations and the real dangers in situations like this,” he said.
“If the family did not make this case visible, Nancy would have been one more woman sentenced for life, today both she and her children are a reference in the struggle. Justice is forced to back down in the face of the mobilization and organization of family members and feminist organizations. The fight is in the streets and once again it was in evidence, despite the fact that most of this process took place in the middle of a quarantine, ”she added.
The trial – which will be oral and public – does not yet have a date, although it is scheduled for 2024.
