Ursula's femicide: life, dreams and nightmares of the young woman who got tired of warning that they were going to kill her

Rocio Magnani

02/13/2021 13:06

• Clarín.com

• Society

Updated 02/13/2021 13:06

"If I don't see you, I'll kill myself," Matías Martinez told him by phone on January 5.

Úrsula Bahillo (18) had already tried several times to cut off the relationship with the 25-year-old policeman, with whom she had been dating since the middle of last year.

I was changed.

Behind the chinstrap, "unrecognizable."

He had lost weight, he was walking down the street "like running" and his eyes were dark, without "sparkle."

She did not dare to denounce that whoever would be her femicide 

had beaten her for 7 months

, that she had been threatened.

However, that day, she made up her mind to finish and spoke with a friend.

He had met her in the field, by the river area behind the Boca Juniors de Rojas club.

"What can I do to you?

Kill you and throw you in the water? ”He had threatened her on another occasion, according to what she related in a message two days before he killed her.

She needed someone to accompany her.

For Ana Martínez, Úrsula was almost a sister.

“The two of us were going to go to see him, but at the last minute I didn't dare.

I convinced her to talk to her mother and, together in turn, we convinced her to go to the door of her house, ”she tells

Clarín

.

“Like me, the mother found out that day about the violence that he was exerting on her.

We didn't know anything before, ”he says.

Úrsula march for justice, his ex-partner Matías Ezequiel Martínez murdered.

(Photo Lucía Merle / Special Envoy)

Hours later, the girls celebrated at the river that Úrsula had finally been able to leave him, "who had made him go home and not her to the middle of the field as he had asked her to."

On the riverbank, they cried, laughed, listened to music and danced.

"She was happy without him,"

her friend recalls with a broken voice.

18 complaints, 18 years

It did not last long.

A few days later, she asked him to sleep in bed with her because of his fear of crossing him into the city.

Úrsula's mother, Patricia Nasutti, reported on January 9 at the Women's Police Station the policeman, who had already been on psychiatric leave since December.

They dictated a perimeter, but it was a dead letter.

Martínez already had a request for prison from a prosecutor who accused him of raping a girl with a disability.

Also, he had been denounced for gender violence by another ex, Belén Miranda.

On January 28, Nasutti denounced him again for threat and disobedience, after breaking the restrictions of approach.

A photo of the femicide Matias Martinez in the Plaza San Martín de Rojas.

(Photo: Lucía Merle / Special Envoy)

On February 5, exactly one month after I summoned her to the middle of the field, Úrsula herself ratified her mother's complaint.

On the evening of February 7, a friend saw the man harassing her on the street and reported him at the local police station.

There were 18 complaints in total.

Martínez killed her on February 8 at 8:30 p.m., and was arrested "in flagrante delicto".

It is not a case that is outside the norm.

In January, without going any further, there were 33 femicides

, one every 23 hours, and 24 attempted femicides, according to the observatory "Now that they see us."

78 percent of the femicides were at the hands of the victim's partner or ex-partner.

Of those 57 femicides and attempts, 6 victims had already made at least one prior complaint.

Rojas: from "tranquility" to femicide

“Úrsula was very sweet,” describes Morena Andreoli (19), who cannot stop crying while she waits to say goodbye to her friend at the Salari Hermanos funeral home.

He says he remembers a rape case in the spring of 2020, but no other femicides.

“Already at that moment, we were frozen.

Here, we all know each other, the town is very quiet and people don't talk so much about gender violence, ”he explains.

The city of Rojas has about 18 thousand inhabitants and is located in the northwest of the province of Buenos Aires.

(Photo: Lucía Merle / Special Envoy)

Rojas is a relatively prosperous party in the northwest of Buenos Aires, about 230 kilometers from the Capital.

It lives from agricultural production, especially from the cultivation of soybeans, corn and wheat, as well as from agri-food companies, such as the María Eugenia de Bayer plant (Ex Monsanto), which processes corn, or Cabodi, which installed the first plant there. flour mill in Argentina in 1853.

The head of the municipality, where the writer Ernesto Sábato was born, today has about 18,000 inhabitants and a basic service network, which is generally complemented by a day visit to Junín or Pergamino, less than an hour away.

The river is the main point of recreation and there is no place in the city that cannot be reached in less than 10 minutes by bicycle.

Femicides are seen as something distant, although they are two thirds of the intentional homicides against women in Argentina, according to the Ministry of National Security.

And it is "at home" where they occur in more than 50 percent of cases.

A neighbor looks out the window at the people approaching Úrsula's wake.

(Photo: Lucía Merle / Special Envoy)

The square where she grew up and was cried

Úrsula

was known to all as the daughter of the owner of the Urbana bar and ice cream parlor

, located next to the church, on Plaza San Martín, the typical town civic center where religious and government buildings are located.

There, he grew up among tables, American cream cones and coffees.

She had no siblings - her mother had undergone treatment for ten years to be able to have her - and Luna Rodríguez (19) remembers spending entire afternoons playing, while her parents drank coffee.

"Since we were little girls until now, we screwed that we were going to do the famous old rabble of the square and that we were going to go to Urbana to have some ice cream or a coffee while we told each other our lives," says Nicole Ormeño, a friend and colleague of the high school.

He says they

planned several trips, like going to see River at the Monumental.

Úrsula was a fanatic.

He wore the shirt everywhere on match days and had gotten “River Plate” tattooed on one ankle.

The Plaza San Martín de Rojas, where Úrsula went with her friends since she was little.

(Photo: Lucía Merle / Special Envoy)

For some reason that her maternal grandfather does not remember now, the teenager became a fan of the "millionaire" club at the age of ten.

Miguel Angel Nasutti remembers that he got angry "a lot" when he learned that the granddaughter did not want to know more about the blue and gold shirt, although he quickly forgave her.

“She was 'my little girl', a different girl, calm.

My daughter raised her taking great care of her.

He did not like smoking, or alcohol, nor did he want to know about drugs in the nightclubs, ”he portrays her in dialogue with

Clarín

.

It was also in the bar where the teenager celebrated her birthdays.

For example, she had a party there for the last one, number 18, on February 26, 2020, contributes Francisco Rodríguez (21), one of her friends, who describes her as a “good person” and “humble”.

There were 18 days until she was 19, when her ex killed her.

The fury of an entire town

On Tuesday afternoon, Plaza San Martín, with the Bahillo bar closed due to mourning, was the epicenter of the largest mobilization against femicides and gender violence that Rojas remembers.

It's not that the district hasn't had other femicides in recent history.

Among the most prominent cases, on February 1, 2007, Gladys Castro (43) was murdered in broad daylight and in front of witnesses by her ex, who is still at large.

On March 13, 2013, the body of Angélica Inés Gómez (26), murdered by her former partner Roque José Ibáñez, was found.

An entire town marched in Rojas for the Ursula Bahillo femicide.

(Photo: Lucía Merle / Special Envoy)

But none of them impacted the town like Úrsula's.

None - it is true - were so preventable.

In fact, at that time there was not even the Women's Police Station, located just two blocks from Plaza San Martin, where today between 10 and 15 situations of violence are reported per day, according to

Clarín

Carolina Olivera, in front of the Women, Gender and Diversity Area of ​​the municipality.

"I am not listened to either," read a pink poster in the middle of the mobilization for Úrsula.

Carla (not her real name) says that a year ago she denounced her former partner for abusing her son, then two years old.

"They gave us the perimeter but he always broke it," he says and details that he lives in fear.

The stories, like hers, are many.

The Women's Police Station was inaugurated in Rojas in April 2015, before the first Ni Una Menos, which established the fight against gender violence as a social priority.

Since then, many things have changed, but not the statistics, which show an average of 300 femicides per year, one every 30 hours, according to the Casa del Encuentro.

One in every five femicides is committed by members of the security forces

, according to the Ni Una Menos movement, which called for a mobilization for next Wednesday in the City of Buenos Aires, in front of the courthouse.

The march reached the Women's Police Station, where they put up posters and posters calling for justice for Úrsula.

(Photo Lucía Merle / Special Envoy)

Radio, music and the dream of being a teacher

On Tuesday February 9, the day all Rojas exploded in anger over her femicide, Úrsula had arranged to bring the missing papers to enroll in the primary level teachers of the “Nicolás Avellaneda” Normal School (ENSNA), where the girl had done from the second to the sixth year of high school, they tell

Clarín

from the building under construction in Lamadrid to 200.

"

Ursu

was a very loving girl, super innocent, she was one of those 17-year-old girls who looked 15"

, says teacher Johanna Benítez (33), who had Úrsula in 2019. "I was pregnant and she always asked me about her belly.

She was super cheerful, her nails always impeccable with phosphorescent colors, pinks, yellows or with drawings.

I was happy to finish high school ”, she details.

Juliana Casanovas, a classmate from the last year, also describes her as “always in a good mood”, even early in the morning, when they came to the classroom with laughter.

“Then the recess bell rang and I ran to be the first to get to the speaker, to put on music, those re-handle songs.

She even wanted to take the speaker into the classroom, and she would ask the teachers or go to the office to ask if they would let her, ”she recalls.

One of his favorite singers was Rombai.

Úrsula at her Nicolas Avellaneda de Rojas school, along with her classmates.

Úrsula did the orientation in communication.

He tried to sit at the back, from where he drank mate, and he participated in the school radio for many years, in a small classroom going up the stairs, which now gathers dust after a year without face-to-face classes.

He went live, produced and even handled the gray board of the operation.

Many remember her in the long silver dress she wore to the graduation party.

The girl would tell whoever asked that she was going to be a psychopedagogue, like her aunt, who was the vice principal of the school.

"He had very clear objectives", defines Martín Navarro, another friend with whom he shared the classroom.

In 2020, she went to Instituto 5 de Pergamino to start her degree, but like so many others, the pandemic forced her to turn around and study in a virtual way.

"If I don't come back, break everything"

In December 2020, Johanna ran into her in a supermarket.

“I didn't recognize her, she was someone else.

She was very skinny, her eyes were not as always, bright, happy.

My husband tells me: “Johana, your student”.

And she lowers her chinstrap and says: "It's me, Úrsula, teacher."

Her friends tried to contain her.

Especially Milagros Almirón (16), who was one of the first to learn of the torments to which Martínez subjected her friend.

One of the first requests for help came to him on November 19 on WhatsApp.

"I'm shaking.

Do not answer me anything I say.

I was beaten badly.

And this time it was very straightforward ”.

On the day of her femicide, Úrsula wrote several messages on Twitter.

“

I haven't eaten for two days, I live on mate and water.

I don't think it ends very well, ”

said one.

He tried to alert on social networks that he was afraid: the last resort he found to ask for help from friends and the feminist movement, after finding no response from the police, justice and the state.

"As we promised, we are going to break everything," would reply one of the thousands of posters of the march in Rojas.

GL

In the last ten years in Argentina there is an average of one femicide every 30 hours.

According to statistics from the Office of Domestic Violence of the Supreme Court, in 2018 alone there were 278. Most murders occur in the homes of victims and are committed by partners or exes.

Where to call

Line 144

Care for women in situations of violence.

Line 137

Attention to Victims of Family Violence.

911 Emergencies

Look also

The emotional goodbye of an ex of Úrsula: "Your round face, as a tapa of alfajor, we always laughed at that"

Ursula femicide: they ask for impeachment of the judge who dismissed Martínez's arrest