Not an inexorable prostate cancer as they said, but a deadly toxin administered stealthily, would have been the cause of the death of the poet Pablo Neruda, Nobel Prize for Literature, almost 50 years ago.
A tragedy that occurred just 12 days after General Augusto Pinochet's coup that put an end to President Salvador Allende's democratic experience in Chile.
And now a new group of experts, the third convened since 2013, will try to establish without a shadow of a doubt the cause of Neruda's death on September 23, 1973.
Five years ago, the second group of scholars established that Ricardo Neftali Reyes (Neruda's real name) had not died of the prostate cancer that afflicted him, and for which he had left the embassy in France with the aim of retire to Isla Negra to finish writing his memoirs 'I confess that I have lived'.
In fact, the experts had discovered a toxin in a molar called Clostridium botulinum, considered as the microorganism responsible for botulism, highlighting the need for further analyzes and insights.
The Chilean judge for human rights cases, Paola Piazza, recently recalled that specialized laboratories were commissioned to study bacterial genomics to find out if it was a bacterium grown in the laboratory.
The new team of experts, concluded the magistrate, "will have to start from the results of these studies to clarify the implications relating to the discovery of Costridium botulinum in the remains of the poet".
The body of the author of 'Twenty love poems' was exhumed on April 8, 2013 from his grave on the beach of Isla Negra, where he rests next to Matilde Urrutia, his last wife.
Fifty years ago the official version of his death was that of prostate cancer, although his physical condition had not shown deterioration sufficient to lead to imminent death.
For this reason, the suspicion that Neruda may have been assassinated by the regime of General Augusto Pinochet was consolidated.
Furthermore, 10 years ago, when this hypothesis was evaluated for the first time, the figure of Michael Townley emerged, a former CIA agent known in Italy for his links with neo-fascist groups who, in the guise of an enigmatic 'Dr, Price', he approached Neruda in the hospital.
But the first group of experts of that time ruled out poisoning, so this lead was temporarily abandoned.
Now the national coordinator of Human Rights of the Chilean Supreme Court, Mario Carrozza, underlined that "we are about to put an end to an investigation that seems to us to have been transcendental, since in this case there is evidence that can allow the group to experts to determine whether a substance may have been instrumental in Neruda's death".