Anahí Cazas / La Paz
Bolivia is in mourning. Five women and one girl were cruelly murdered in one week. Of the six victims, two were sexually assaulted. The cases were registered in the departments of La Paz, Cochabamba and Potosí.
Of the six cases, four are being investigated as femicides, one -for now- as homicide and another as infanticide, according to reports from the authorities.
On Friday, April 29, Laura was cruelly murdered by David V. in La Paz. Weeks before, the 19-year-old girl ended her relationship with her executioner, but he did not accept her decision and began to harass her. According to friends and relatives, the aggressor insisted on returning to the victim. The defendant planned the femicide, according to a police report.
The victim was 19 years old and in the second year of law school at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA). She was part of a trio of cousins and a quartet of friends, with whom she shared many experiences: playing, dancing, buying clothes and helping people. “We knew very little about her relationship with him, but since it began, I asked her to end it because she always gave me a very bad feeling,” Mayra Orellana, Laura’s cousin, told Page Seven.
The report by the Minister of the Government, Eduardo del Castillo, shows that the crime was planned. According to the authority, David took the young woman to the Juan XXIII lodging with false identifications, the first proof of the planned crime. “Laura C. entered the accommodation around 7:00 p.m. (Thursday) together with Sergio RGL with a false identification that was used by the femicide,” he said.
The next day, Friday at 9:00, the defendant left the room and indicated that he would go buy breakfast, but did not return. At 11:00, the administrator knocked on the door of the room and since there was no answer, he informed the Police, who hours later found the body of the young woman. The autopsy report indicates that Laura died of cerebral anoxia and mechanical asphyxiation from manual strangulation.
On Tuesday, in the municipality of Tinguipaya, in the department of Potosí, Hilda CG, 46, was murdered after being the victim of multiple rape by her partner Casiano H. and two other people, Daniel N., 34, and Estanislao D., 50 years old. The accused have already been apprehended, informed the director of the Special Force to Fight Violence (Felcv) of Potosí, Fernando Véliz.
According to the police chief, the victim would have come from the city of La Paz to that town to visit his partner.
Prosecutor José Rocha said that the victim’s partner, Casiano, called the doctor on duty at the health center where he worked as an ambulance driver to report that Hilda was unconscious. “When (the doctor) arrived at the scene, he found the woman without vital signs and with visible signs of violence, so he immediately contacted the Police,” he said.
Photo: Unitel
That same day, Marilin, a 12-year-old girl, was raped and murdered by a 16-year-old adolescent in the town of Vichaya in the municipality of Viacha de La Paz. According to the police investigation, seeing that the victim was left alone in her house, the aggressor took advantage of her moment to rape her and then kill her with a cell phone cable.
The president of the Vichaya Educational Council, Avelardo Quisberth, said that according to the defendant’s account, he removed the body, carried it along the river bank and dumped it on the edge of a house at the crossroads of route 107F19. “There he throws it away and the young man runs away,” he added.
The girl was buried yesterday in El Alto amid tears and calls for justice. Eva Mamani, sister of the victim, said that the family fears that the accused could go free and demanded the maximum sentence. The aggressor was sent yesterday preventively to the Male Therapy Rehabilitation Center. For being a minor, according to jurists, the accused will only receive a six-year sentence.
On Thursday, María S. was found dead in a chaco in the community of Apharumiri de Shinahota, in the Cochabamba tropics. According to the Police and statements from the community members, her husband Carlos Q. confessed to the crime and identified the place to dig up her body.
Relatives said that the victim left her Apharumiri community in Shinahota on March 21, together with her partner, bound for Potosí, but never reached her destination. The defendant was presented yesterday by the Police.
The community members of the Central 12 de Agosto marched on Thursday to demand justice for the femicide of María.
On Friday, a 27-year-old woman was found dead and with signs of violence in a building that is in the Ovejuyo area, in the city of La Paz.
The body showed signs of violence according to preliminary examinations, explained the departmental director of the Special Force to Fight Crime (Felcc), Rolando Rojas. The victim’s friend was arrested and is one of the suspects in the crime.
That same day, at dawn, Laura, 32, was found dead on the Bolivia circuit of the Alalay lagoon in Cochabamba. She was killed with 14 stab wounds to the chest, abdomen and back, according to the Police. The case is being investigated as a femicide. In Santa Cruz, after an operation, the Police yesterday apprehended Reynaldo S., the alleged perpetrator of the crime.
According to a relative of the young woman, Laura was a native of Santa Cruz and was the mother of two children, four and 10 years old.
