Fabian Debesa
03/05/2020 - 20:05
- Clarín.com
- Police
He made a detailed, accurate account of the saddest day of his life. Until in front of the judges and squeezed by pain, he could not resist the crying: "When I saw him, frozen, in the hospital morgue I did not recognize him . I wanted to believe that it was not Renzo," said Angela Donato, the baby's mother with Down syndrome that died when he fell - or was thrown - from a 7th floor of an apartment in downtown La Plata.
The episode occurred on October 10, 2017, but this Thursday began the oral trial in the Courts of the provincial capital. Father Diego Villanueva (38) and his partner, Rosa Martignoni (32), are arrested with house arrest, accused of " homicide aggravated by the link " and " simple homicide ".
The little boy was in the care of that couple when they found him dead in the internal parking lot by the fall from the apartment "A" on the 7th floor of a building of 9 between 55 and 56.
"From the first moment I knew that Renzo did not throw himself ," the woman told the Court. Ángela maintains an intense fight to get Justice to discard the first version that became known after the death of Renzo Villanueva (8). Then, the father declared that Renzo had climbed to the threshold of a window and stumbled before falling into a vacuum.
Diego Villanueva, accused of the murder of his 8-year-old son. Photo Mauricio Nievas.
She refuted that story with protests and marches to Courts, until a skill arranged by the prosecutor Marcelo Romero, made with a doll of the same weight and height of the baby, concluded: "When an impulse was applied to the doll to throw it through the balcony, the doll fell near the place where the child's body really hit, which did not happen when an accidental fall was simulated. "
Now, in his testimony of almost three hours in front of the judges of the Criminal Oral Court No. 3 (composed of Ernesto Domenech, Andrés Vitali and Santiago Paolini), Angela said that "since I was a baby (Diego Villanueva) I brought him with blows in the body. But being with me was not hit. "
He said that "the father was not careful" in dealing with his son and offered more details about the baby: "He lived seven years in a duplex with a spiral staircase and never got hurt ."
Dressed in a shirt with the name of the baby, the witness said that "Renzo did not like heights, knew how to cross the pedestrian, was careful, structured and obedient . I never challenged him. He was a baby who never misbehaved. He was perfect: good and obedient. "
The mother, with phrases broken by anguish, recounted the last hours she spent with her son. That day the baby with Down syndrome had breakfast "strawberry yogurt", then bathed with the help of the witness, played on the computer, had lunch "milanesas with rice salad", prepared the snack for school (cookies "Pitusas de chocolate and a 600 "Coca), took the mic and went to the Normal School 3, where he was in second grade.
Carolina Píparo was present at the hearing. Photo Mauricio Nievas
Donato always referred to that tragic day as " the day of the murder ." He recalled that she took him to school and that at sunset on October 10, 2017 he found four messages from her ex-husband on the cell phone. When he called, the man said: " Renzo fell. Go to the hospital ."
Villanueva arrived in the courtroom in handcuffs and sat behind his lawyer. Her partner broke down at the moment when the mother described her journey through the corridors of the Children's Hospital, where the victim arrived without vital signs, transferred by the SAME service.
At the first hearing, which lasted until mid-afternoon, Ana Galessio, a neighbor of the department, also declared. "We heard desperate screams, they knocked on the door and it was Diego telling us that the boy had fallen from the window. He was punching his fist against the elevator."
According to the data in the file, the property of Renzo's father and stepmother was "almost unoccupied" because they were moving.
The prosecutor's office, in charge of Victoria Huergo, said they will apply for Villanueva a sentence for " aggravated homicide " and Martignoni for " simple homicide ." The defense of the accused anticipated that they will ask for absolution.
The passage of at least 60 witnesses is planned and the trial will continue this Friday and next week, with the declaration of forensic experts, legist doctors and other relatives of the deceased baby.
EMJ