The femicide and serial rapist shocks Bolivia and shows rotten justice

Mery Vaca / La Paz

The image of the mothers from El Alto searching through the charred clothes for some evidence that would lead them to find their missing daughters in the house of femicide and serial rapist Richard Choque Flores was a very hard blow to everyone’s conscience.

These women went to the Ballivián area of the city of El Alto, where Choque lived, abused and buried his victims. Once the case was discovered, the neighbors set fire to a part of the house and defaced the walls as a sign of protest against the atrocities committed by the murderer and that is where this improvised search for evidence took place.

Richard Choque Flores, the murderer and serial rapist.
Photo: Roberto Aranda/ APG

The macabre story of Richard Choque Flores shocked the entire Bolivia. Through social networks, in the media and in the streets, the outrage of the people was heard for the murders of women, but also because a judge released Choque, despite the fact that he had a conviction for another macabre crime committed in 2013 .

Two decomposing corpses were unearthed in a room of Choque’s house and with them emerged, also rotten, Bolivian justice.

Blanca Rubí, 20 years old

Of those that are known, Blanca Rubí, 20, was the first fatal victim of Richard Choque in 2013. He also buried her in her house and when he was discovered he was sent to the maximum security prison in Chonchocoro. In 2015 he was sentenced to 30 years in prison without the right to pardon and, according to the Minister of Justice, Iván Lima, this sentence had the quality of “res judicata”, which means that the murderer could not get out of jail even for a single day.

The country did not hear of Choque again until this week, when he was presented to the media as “a sexual psychopath” who abused 77 victims and murdered two of them, whose bodies had been found in a room in his house, in the that there was also dirt and garbage.

According to the report by the Government Minister, Eduardo del Castillo, the Police discovered Choque’s new crimes because they detected a false Facebook profile, in which he posed as a woman who allegedly hired young girls who were taken to lodging rooms, where he had previously planted marijuana or cocaine to incriminate them.

Then, the killer would put on the uniform of a fake police officer and proceed to blackmail his victims, asking for money and forcing them to have sex with him in exchange for not involving them in the alleged drug trafficking activity. In these contacts, the Police discovered 77 records, although it cannot be determined exactly how many of these women were raped or even murdered, but it is known that there were many because various evidence was found in their home.

Police uniforms, false police badges, 17 telephone chips and three cell phones, in addition to the clothes, rings and other belongings of the victims, were also seized from his home.

Lucy, 17, and Iris, 15

Lucy (17), the oldest of seven children, disappeared on May 18 last year. Her family, who also lives in El Alto, began to receive threatening messages from the girl’s kidnapper, in which he asked for a $70,000 ransom to return her alive. He sent the messages from Lucy’s own cell phone. Her parents, who are poor, could not do anything, only to suffer harassment and psychological pressure, which included the fear that her minor children would be kidnapped if they did not pay Lucy’s ransom.

The femicide and serial rapist shocks Bolivia and shows rotten justice — Iris, one of the girls who was killed by Shock.
Photo: RRSS

Iris (15) left the house in Villa Victoria where she lived on August 27, also last year, to go get some invitations and never came back. The killer contacted her family asking for $50,000 in ransom. Iris’s mother, who lives in Guanay, says that she doesn’t even have enough to eat, much less pay such a sum of money. She even remembers that as soon as she learned of the disappearance of her daughter, she arrived in La Paz to look for her and, finding no trace, she turned to the police for help, where they would have told her that she must have gone with her. boyfriend of hers

In none of the cases was there an investigation by the Police to find the missing girls and the parents had the bitter experience of learning from the media that their daughters were found dead and buried in a house in El Alto.

rotten justice

Choque was sent back to the Chonchocoro prison, but then the question arose about how he got out of prison, who is the judge who gave him alternative measures and under what arguments.

The answer came with the resolution issued by the judge from La Paz, Rafael Alcón, who granted him house arrest in the judicial vacation of 2019, with the argument, as he said, that the accused had “an incurable disease.”

Its own resolution denies it because in the recitals it says that Choque was diagnosed with chronic gastritis and cancer, although it also points out that the accused argued that he had cancer and that he had to take care of his mother.

The judge granted him 18 months of house arrest in record time, based on a medical report and on the condition that the court’s social worker verify the situation of the accused every three months. Two guarantors also signed the exit and the defendant paid 40,000 bolivianos as a guarantee in case he fled the country to bear the costs of the search.

Now it is known that the femicide was not sick, that the social worker did not follow up, that the Prosecutor’s Office did not object, that nobody worried that after 18 months he would return to jail, and that Choque can continue committing his crimes. at ease. All this, despite the fact that there was a conviction, which had the quality of res judicata and the warning from the criminologist Emilio Vizcarra that the accused should not be released from prison because he would commit the same crimes again.

Naturally, the news did nothing but increase the outrage, this time with justice, which is already considered one of the evils of the State, but which is muddied even more by this fact.

President Luis Arce repudiated the judge’s actions and requested an exemplary sanction. As is often the case in Bolivia, if the government moves, justice does too, so Judge Alcón was immediately arrested and charged with malfeasance. Minister Lima went so far as to say that this justice operator has been committing irregularities in office since 2006 and that he was under the protection of his brother, the former president of the Judicial Council, Gonzalo Alcón. An incredible fact, the person in charge of disciplining the judges protected the misdeeds of his judge’s brother from him.

horror house

The number 10 of Rafael Pabón street, in the Ballivián area, became a point of protest, wake, crying and investigation since the case was known. For example, very early on Friday, Iris’s family brought the coffin to watch over her at the door of the place where she was murdered; Only after this symbolic act were the remains of the young woman transferred to the General Cemetery of La Paz.

Then people crowded the place asking for the demolition of the house; In fact, the authorities arrived with heavy machinery to proceed with this task, but the Prosecutor’s Office refused to participate, hindering the search. Many experts entered the property to collect evidence, but after the place remained at the mercy of the people for several days and several nights while objects were removed.

It can be seen in the images that the house is a precarious construction and that it has a huge dirt patio, in which grass grows like in the field. The house of horror is now a silent witness to the crimes of the murderer and serial rapist of the Ballivián area.