Monte Hermoso: the crime of a teenager who unleashed a violent and unprecedented town went unpunished

Four convicted for the fire

at the police station and various municipal offices and

of an alleged suspect.

These are the only judicial results achieved so far in the

that surprised the town of

, on the cold night of May 23, 2015.

That afternoon, Katherine Moscoso (17), whom they had been looking for for a week, was found

, two blocks from her house, one of the many places searched during those seven days of uncertainty by the police.

On the resolution of the crime that triggered that violent and unprecedented neighborhood reaction,

.

"Almost 8 years after the fact, there are no longer any reasonable

," argued the prosecutor Luis Humberto Piotti to

.

There it will be, if it is not destroyed beforehand, "until new elements emerge that allow its reopening," remarked the investigator from the Azul Judicial Department.

The case derived in that jurisdiction at the request of Katherine's family, who on April 8, 2020 filed a brief with the Procurator of the province of Buenos Aires.

In the note, of more than 300 pages, they pointed to prosecutors and judicial officials, police officers, firefighters and former officials and municipal employees of Monte Hermoso, for

.

In principle, the main file to find the authors continued in Bahía Blanca, but the head of the Buenos Aires prosecutors, Julio Conte Grand, did not sit idly by at the family request.

He arranged for a prosecutor's office in Azul

for the alleged crimes of concealment and breach of duty.

Neighbors set fire to the police station upon learning of the crime.

Photo File

The task, initially in charge of the prosecutor of Complex Crimes of Azul Ignacio Calonje, later derived in the prosecutor's office 3 of Piotti in Tandil.

"He took a year to take up the case and he did it because the Azul attorney general warned him," said lawyer Leandro Aparicio, who sponsors the Moscoso, about the last investigator in the case. 

He added that at UFIJ 3 they collected some 40 testimonies proposed by the complaint.

However, they failed to convince Piotti that there was anything to investigate.

"The production of evidence that allows, at this point, and for the moment, to clarify the authorship of the facts investigated here is no longer reasonably envisioned," the prosecutor determined. 

On the contrary, he was of the opinion that the action of the family, by accusing more than twenty people and the media coverage of the case,

.

"The case had great media coverage and a reward was established for those who provided useful information," Piotti recalled in his resolution.

The violent town, which ended with the lynching of a 70-year-old man.

Photo File

"The favorable environment was created for the indiscriminate generation of data that naturally complicated the investigation, which was further strengthened when

," the prosecutor concluded.

When requesting in his resolution an express recognition for a judicial investigator, he remarked that, in addition to fifty statements, there were confrontations, new expertise, extensions and several raids. 

Piotti's decision disappointed the Moscoso family, which is suspicious of his motives.

"He had been working well, but obviously the latest testimonies

of Monte Hermoso and the police," Ezequiel Moscoso, Katherine's uncle,

told

, a young woman who suffered from a slight developmental delay and who had gone to the night of her disappearance. to dance in a bowling alley in the center of Monte Hermoso.

The night of the crime, Kathy had gone dancing at a nightclub in the center of the city.

Photo File

In the complaint, they had sought to involve relatives of the mayor and municipal officials, among others, in the cover-up.

As an example of his statements, Moscoso, who in 2020 walked to Buenos Aires to publicize the case, cited one of the most recent episodes in the file.

"One of the last testimonies was that of a boy who, before Kathy's disappearance, saw her near the car of the nightclub owner, who is the mayor's brother," he said.

According to the girl's uncle,

and warned him that they were going to open a trial for false testimony.

“They questioned him that he had not declared what he said before.

But if he was threatened, how was he going to testify! ”, exclaimed Moscoso, who assured that other people

.

“There are more and more compelling elements to accuse people and put them in jail.

If there was a fair trial tomorrow, that's how it should be, ”he resigned himself.

"The only good thing is that

," said Moscoso ironically, who placed four people in that category.

They are Juan Carlos "Canini" González, the 70-year-old man who was targeted as a suspect and was lynched by a mob and died from the multiple injuries they caused him. 

Also Daiana Sánchez, a friend of Kathy's who, like the victim, has a developmental delay, who was detained and later released along with her boyfriend, nicknamed Pemo. 

A patrol car burned in front of the municipality, the day after the pueblada.

Photo File

The fourth is Josué, a grandson of Canini, who was also being investigated as a suspect and was found

three years after the crime.

"He was committed suicide," said Aparicio, who also described the last young man who testified before the Azul prosecutor's office as a "new parsley."

He announced that he will request the removal of the prosecutor Piotti and does not rule out resorting to the Attorney General again.

In addition, he has already initiated contacts with the

to take up the case.

In Monte Hermoso, it will be even more uphill for Kathy's family, friends and relatives to keep her memory alive, without the support of Justice.

The claim is still present in the murals and trees that remember the girl in the square of the Fonavi neighborhood, where she sat every afternoon.

White Bay.

Correspondent

ACE

look also

Rosario: operation against police officers linked to drug trafficking and three other crimes in two hours

Walk more than 600 kilometers to see President Alberto Fernández for the unpunished crime of his niece