Torture for hours: this is how the murderers sought to know where Fabián Gutiérrez had the money of corruption

Lucia Salinas

07/21/2020 - 9:42

• Clarín.com
• Politics

It all happened in almost four hours. A plan already overturned in a notebook, a meeting at 19:30, the simulation of something that was not in order to "comply with the economic crime" and a string of increasingly violent events. Those were the last hours of the life of Fabián Gutiérrez -ex-secretary of Cristina Kirchner-, a scene that judge Carlos Narvarte described as "a brutal torture unfolded" . Beats on various parts of the body, elements of torture, five cuts on the neck, more blows, items ranging from stones, sticks, bandages, everything was detailed step by step in the magistrate's brief where he resolved that Facundo Zaeta was the author of the crime and that it had two co-authors who “they provided necessary collaboration in consummatory acts, to reduce the possibility of Gutiérrez's defense . ”

The criminal raid began on Thursday, July 2 at 7:30 p.m. and Judge Carlos Narvarte estimated that the murder would have been committed before 11 p.m. As agreed, the former secretary of Cristina Kirchner searched for Facundo Zaeta at his home in his Amarok van. , the same that hours later would be used to move his body already lifeless. They went to the house where she had moved just 24 hours ago. It is one of the 36 properties that federal justice determined that he had purchased with illicit money from corruption.

They entered the two-story house. Facundo Zaeta had already decided everything, he had already, as the judge in the case said, "devised the plan", he wanted to steal money that Gutiérrez believed he had saved, "money from corruption," the young man declared in his investigation. As Clarín recounted , a study notebook kidnapped after a raid on his house, had notes on the prosecution for money laundering, a number that he estimated was the amount of money that the young people imagined the former secretary of Cristina Kirchner would have.

In that property, which Gutiérrez had prepared to spend three days with Zaeta, everything happened, or the first part of the events that took the young people to prison. Facundo managed to reduce the former secretary"And blindfolded him and then called Facundo Gómez Chavez"so that he can go along with his "trusted person", Pedro Monzón, so that the three of them can "carry out the agreed fact". Those named as co-perpetrators of the murder, parked the car a few blocks from the house and walked towards the property with a bag where investigators presume "they were carrying items to subdue the victim."

The three defendants were already inside the house. Then they began to tell Gutiérrez to hand over the money, "by hitting his fists." Failing to obtain the desired responses, they "continued the torture."

As the Justice reconstructed, the former secretary received blows to the arms, hands, torso, head and face, various lacerations and of different lengths, fracture of the proximal phalanx of the left thumb and a total of five stab wounds in the neck area, which they reveal rampant conduct in the execution of the crime.

A series of objects linked to the torture suffered by Gutiérrez are expert: a butcher-type knife with a white handle, another "Tramontina-type" knife, seals, and ropes ; a stick with traces of blood. The 19-year-old was already inside the house, the judge recounted there, "repeatedly assaulting the victim" on various parts of the body: on his hands, torso, neck, face and head.

For the scene that earned him the accusation of homicide aggravated by treachery, Facundo Zaeta, as investigators reconstructed, used "his own hands and other elements to torture him . " The last minutes of Fabián Gutiérrez's life were marked by violence, something that confirmed the autopsy as well.

The elements used by the young man prosecuted for doubly aggravated homicide were, on the one hand, a "cutting punch" with which " he would have intentionally caused five cuts in the neck area." The situation worsened, Zaeta after that violence continued with the "strangulation" that he committed "with a tie or with an element of similar characteristics causing him with said act of death".

The violence in the mouth of the accused

The body lay on the floor, they estimate so far, of the bathroom of the house. One of the defendants said that he had seen and heard Zaeta tell Gutiérrez, and in an exalted tone, "you didn't want the good way, and this happens to you the hard way." The description went further: " Facundo Zaeta hit him with anything, with his hands, with his feet, apart from being tied ". Then Monzón said that Gutiérrez had "suffered all the mistreatment", when asked to give details about it, he indicated: "When I arrived at the house his face was swollen, he had already been beaten." Near the body, they said they had seen "two bloody stones." 

The main accused was not alone. The crime scene has two co-authors: Gómez Chávez and Monzón. Both wanted in their inquiries to hold Zaeta responsible for everything and he, in turn, said that the idea of ​​the economic robbery had belonged to his friend, Facundo Gómez Chávez. They are crossed and confronted statements, but Judge Narvarte located everyone in the house where Fabián Gutiérrez spent his last minutes alive. The other two youths involved " provided necessary collaboration in consummatory acts, to reduce the possibility of Gutiérrez's defense . "

According to Gómez Chávez, when he entered the house where Zaeta was with his friend Monzón, there was "blood on the wall, in the window opening, while we were walking he told us that everything had to be cleaned, a lot of blood on the wall, in the heater, on the stairs, on the door ”. Inside the bathroom was the body, "leaning against the toilet, with his hands behind him." Fabián Gutiérrez was still alive, he was badly beaten. The scene was impossible to digest.

The autopsy confirmed the degree of violence: “there was blood on the upper trunk, face, neck and scalp, and in the area of ​​the beard and face partially covered with sand; the head and neck were swollen, in the right frontal area, he had a 7 cm wound on the eyebrow, various cuts, both arms were semi-flexed with multiple injuries, head trauma ”. There were more details: "the contusions were made by a blunt object, and that the death was due to a strangulation or similar."

The former secretary was reduced, handcuffed and was already beaten by that time of night, something that the judge defined based on forensic reports and autopsy, as "brutal torture unfolded." They loaded him into the puppet and took him to the cabin where they sought to hide him. There the violence did not stop. Monzón said that they also gave him " stab wounds, the body was no longer moving, everything was very bloody." And it was when he recounted that they dropped a stone on his head and then followed blows "with a broomstick in the face." Fabián Gutiérrez had already been dead for several minutes, but they kept hitting his body.

All the evidence in the case led the judge to calculate that the schedule of "torture and violent death on the person of Fabián Gutiérrez would have been between approximately 21:00 and 23:30." On July 4 at 11 am they found the body, half buried under a tree. 

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