Luis Escobar / La Paz
Richard Choque, his mother and sister returned yesterday at three in the morning to their house in the Ballivián area of El Alto. They arrived accompanied by a strong police contingent and a team from the Prosecutor’s Office. At that time -according to the family of one of the victims- the criminal murdered Iris (15) and Lucy (17) last year and declared that he committed the crimes at dawn “so that the neighbors would not listen”.
After the reconstruction of the crime, the municipal machinery demolished the construction that was in the front part of the building. Now, the Mayor’s Office will begin the process of expropriation of the property to allocate the land to a social purpose or another that the authorities have.
María Zambrana, Lucy’s mother, participated in the reconstruction of the crime and when she left she told what Choque declared inside the house. “The murderer said: ‘at three in the morning I killed her so the neighbors wouldn’t hear me’”. She indicated that the offender claimed not to remember more details of that day.
Choque arrived escorted by some 50 uniformed Police officers along with specialized personnel, the departmental prosecutor and Firefighters. In addition, the three dump trucks of the Mayor’s Office were moved like a backhoe. After the reconstruction of the crime, the Police divided the land of approximately 900 square meters into eight grids to search for more buried victims, as happened with the two adolescents.
Photo: Carlos Sánchez / Page Seven
Boris Gutiérrez, head of the human trafficking and smuggling division, assured that they advanced “quadrant by quadrant.” “It is an outdoor (research) technique, therefore, the canine duos are already working,” he said yesterday at 9:00. Seven specialized dogs arrived in the search for human remains, one of them was the one who found the exact place where Fidel, Choque’s cousin, was buried in a second property of the femicide located in the San Martín area, also in El Alto. “These investigations are carried out in order to rule out or confirm more victims of Mr. Richard Flores,” he added.
However, at 10:00 p.m., one of the prosecutors in the case informed Red Uno that after 19 hours of work, the teams reviewed the entire land and no human remains were found.
Mothers, fathers and other relatives of missing girls also came to the building hoping to find traces of their loved ones.
At 10:30, the Mayor’s backhoe began the demolition of the two-story adobe rooms that were in front of the house and the municipal dump trucks removed all the debris. “There are places with rubble and it doesn’t have any kind of pottery,” said Gutiérrez. It is urgent and necessary to carry out excavations to find any other victims of Shock. It is a field work that we carry out with a multidisciplinary team, ”he assured.
Mayor Eva Copa confirmed that this property will not return to Choque’s family. “It is a private asset and the authorities will see what they should do with the land. We will work on a bill for its expropriation, ”she said.
Copa assured that there are three alternatives. “The residents of the area ask that it become a police module. The victims demanded that the properties be sold to provide compensation. Other people mention that it becomes a shelter for women named after the victims (Iris and Lucy).” The previous week the Government suggested converting the place into a chapel.
In order not to alert the neighbors, he killed them at dawn
In the reconstruction of the murders, which took place yesterday, Richard Choque said that he killed the two adolescents at three in the morning “so that the neighbors do not listen.” He made this confession in front of the victims’ parents.
“(…) Since they were drugged, they didn’t feel anything. I got scared, I looked at them, I touched their nose and they were no longer breathing, “Choque said yesterday in the reconstruction of the crime, according to the statements of María Zambrana, mother of Lucy, one of the victims.
“Then he said that they drank that whole night and at three in the morning he killed her. Later she indicated that he buried them himself, but a mason made the grave, ”she explained.
