Crime in Villa Gesell: Fernando Báez Sosa's intimate album one month after his death

On January 18, the murder of Fernando Báez Sosa shocked the country. A group of rugbiers beat him to death. And their parents expect a crowd to march with them today to ask for justice. Clarín reconstructed with photos and videos part of the life of this young man who loved to play football and began to work in the field of advertising.

Paula Galinsky

02/18/2020 - 6:30

• Clarín.com
• Society

Fernando Báez Sosa, a little boy, five or six years old, poses for the photo with his parents in a brown armchair. He wears a Boca cap almost the size of his head and carries a stuffed Pluto. His teeth are minimal, he smiles innocently. His black eyes shine, barely thinned. Next, his mother surrounds him with his left arm and takes him by the elbow. With the other hand he holds a spiderman cloth doll. Silvino, his dad, completes the scene with a happiness on his face that does not look anything like the expression with which he has been seen for a month on television and in newspaper publications.

Along with the request for justice for the crime, Fernando's family and his girlfriend Julieta are slowly beginning to check his room and his computer files. The intention is to find those little shared moments, memories that are now resignified . The image of the family embraced in the brown armchair is one of those postcards that the Báez Sosa keep as a treasure.

Fernando Báez Sosa, as a boy, with his parents Silvino and Graciela.

The march called for this Tuesday afternoon in Congress, when one month of the crime is over, has that double intention: to demand that the rugbiers who beat him be condemned to death in Villa Gesell, and to honor Fernando. That 19-year-old boy sensitive and funny, supportive and friendly , as defined by those who knew him.

The sport was one of his great passions. He played soccer with his friends every Saturday morning in a championship at Bajo Flores. It was Boca fan.

Before deciding on the Law - the CBC had finished and planned to start the career in March - he had evaluated the possibility of studying for a Physical Education teacher. In fact, he had once submitted to the entrance exam.

Fernando Báez Sosa and his girlfriend, Julieta, whom he met at the Marianista de Caballito College.

In the Marianist College of Caballito, where he did high school, not only generated friendly ties. There he also met his girlfriend with whom this February 19 he had completed a year as a couple .

Fernando Báez Sosa (above, second from the right), participated with his friends of the Servir project.

Julieta and Fernando had not shared a division, but they had to agree on a solidarity proposal organized by the Marianist, the Serve project. Both participated in February 2018 and began seeing each other as friends.

Fernando Báez Sosa, in a boy photo. Sport, and particularly football, was his great passion.

Fernando Báez Sosa, in a recent photo playing football.

Only for December came the first kiss . It was during the trip of graduates, in Bariloche, inside the Brain pen at the fluo party. From then on they became inseparable. In March of the following year, the formal proposal came. "Do you want to be my girlfriend?" He asked. She accepted. They both cried.

Fernando Báez Sosa (with shirt 5) poses with his friends with whom he played a football tournament.

Cellular in horizontal, selfie mode. Julieta and Fernando accommodate him to stay in the center of the image. He with a red hoodie, she with a jean jacket. Both with glasses. "Today I don't feel like doing anything , " The Lazy Song , the subject of Bruno Mars, starts in the background. The boys move their heads nodding, from top to bottom, just like in the video clip. "Don't laugh," Fernando tells his girlfriend. She restrains herself at first, then laughs out. Also to him. They dance, sing, have fun . Everything is immortalized in a video. Fernando was also that: simple, healthy, affectionate.

He loved pasta and, according to his mother, always prepared noodles. He was also a fan of ice cream. He bought from rooms and did not like to invite. In his house in Recoleta, where he lived with Graciela and Silvino, some noonies cooked with Juliet. His mother complained that they left the dirty dishes.

Fernando Báez Sosa, in a domestic photo, cooking.

Today in front of that building, on Pueyrredón Avenue, strangers go on to leave flowers. There are also posters with his face summoning the march.

With Graciela they went around the neighborhood, although Fernando always walked faster and left his mother behind. She, jokingly, asked him to "turn" to see himself because he, like any teenager, lived busy. He had many activities among friends, Juliet, the CBC, football and his solidarity work. "You always have me, Mom," was the young man's response, which did take a little while to help her with the purchases. “He didn't like going to the supermarket but he was waiting for me at the exit to load the bags,” Graciela tells Clarín .

Fernando Báez Sosa, in the snow, during his graduate trip. There he gave the first kiss with his girlfriend.

With his friends, he went out to dance and also stayed at home playing the PlayStation. He had a hard time in math and had a classmate who helped him on Skype.

Fernando Báez Sosa (second from left), upon graduating from the Marianist College of Caballito.

He wanted to be a successful lawyer and his mother called him, jokingly, Fernando Burlando. He did it without imagining that, shortly after, that lawyer would become the complainant of the cause for the murder of his son.

In winter, Fernando toured the First Board area, in Caballito, to deliver hot food to people in street situations. He also tried to remain linked to his school, where he had become the idol of the fourth-grade students who he came to accompany in a camp they made at Casa Grande, Córdoba.

Among his objectives, which he enumerated in handwriting in a paper they found in his room, was his supportive task. He also cared about keeping his group of friends, being authentic, not being so connected to cell phones and television, and traveling.

Fernando Báez Sosa (in the center, pink shirt) poses with a group of friends in Miramar. The photo was taken this summer, days before the young man traveled to Villa Gesell.

With the money he had saved, working from home on an advertising project, he was able to plan and realize his vacation to the Coast . First, Miramar; later, a getaway to Villa Gesell, which had the tragic end that we all know. That one that angers and saddens, generates anger, impotence and a request for justice that will be heard strongly in today's march.

DD