Ten years without Candela: the narco revenge that shook the country and still has no end

2021-08-22T10:37:18.941Z

Candela Sol Rodríguez was 11 years old when she was abducted on August 22, 2011 in Hurlingham. Nine days later, his body was dumped about 30 blocks from his home. The monolith that remembers it is abandoned and surrounded by garbage. How the cause continues.

Crime scenes

Ten years without Candela

The narco revenge that shook the country and still has no end

Candela Sol Rodríguez was 11 years old when she was abducted on August 22, 2011 in Hurlingham.

Nine days later, his body was dumped about 30 blocks from his home.

The monolith that remembers her is abandoned and surrounded by garbage.

How the cause continues.

Candela's body was thrown naked, inside a black bag, under the nose of the Buenos Aires Police.

Virginia Messi

The neighbors say that, from time to time, someone approaches the monolith and leaves a candle, a flower.

They also explain that, due to the wind, those lit candles have caused more than one fire and that, for this reason, the small altar raised in the place where, on Wednesday afternoon, August 31, 2011, they threw the body of

Candela Sol Rodríguez

(11) today It seems so abandoned, so sad

Burned, surrounded by rubbish

, with four little plastic virgins peeking out from the broken structure blackened by fire, the monolith is not easy to find without the help of local people.

Little remains of that mini monument full of colorful red plastic flowers, crowned by an Argentine flag with the slogan "

enough of insecurity

It was built 10 years ago on Cellini street at 4700, about 30 meters from the junction with the collector of the Western Highway, in Villa Tesei.

It is attached to a field and the most alive thing that is seen by the square are the ducks of the neighbor across the street that squawk when any stranger appears.

The place seems completely abandoned.

Four handwritten posters on cardboard ask, pray, not to litter.

But it is useless and you can see everything on the grassy sidewalk.

And in the middle of that "everything" is the place where Candela's killers

shot naked and inside a black bag

The girl was forced into a Ford EcoSport after leaving her house to meet some friends, with whom she was attending a group of boy scouts, in the San Pablo Apóstol parish.

Nine days after having kidnapped her, they left her there,

under the nose of the Buenos Aires Police,

who swore they had saturated the area as much as they could with the sole purpose of finding her.

It is difficult to understand that Candela's murderers have "discarded" her body just five blocks from the so-called "

pink house

", located on 992 Kiernan Street. There -according to the Court's claim- lanena was held captive on August 29, shortly before she was killed.

In that house - which according to the prosecutor Mario Ferrario was "in transit" - a bowl with rice was found and seized in which there was DNA of the girl.

Suspicions that it

was planted at the site

could never be credited or fully cleared.

Carola Labrador, when she cried out: "Those who have it know that their time is up. Boys, give it back. They have the apple surrounded."

The house where Candela lived, in Coraceros at 2500, Villa Tesei.

Carola Labrador moved from there after the crime.

Gladys Mabel Cabrera (51), the owner of that house, which at the time was in the process of renting,

spent six months in jail

but was finally removed from the case.

Your situation is "on file."

The same did not happen with the carpenter Néstor Altamirano (60), whose wife (a friend of Gladys's late mother) had been asked to take care of the family dog while Kiernan's chalet was empty.

For him, the case for the "

illegal deprivation of coercive liberty followed by death

" of Candela Sol Rodríguez has

not yet ended

The Carpenter and Candela II

Altamirano continues to live in the same house on 1069 Charrúas Street in Villa Tesei (Hurlingham), where the police went to look for him on September 5, 2011, five days after Candela's body appeared.

He is still a simple man.

During the pandemic, he managed to continue with his carpentry work at home.

As he always did, 10 years after the crime he

cries out for his innocence

and says that the only reason why he stepped on the house on 992 Kiernan Street (located about 100 meters from his home) was to feed

Bobi

, the dog. from a friend of his wife.

The woman had died and no one could take care of

Bobi

because he was a fierce dog that bit anyone it came across.

He has nothing to do with it

. He was not even the one who was going to take care of the house. He was in charge ... but those days I just traveled to Tucumán," Nélida, Altamirano's wife, tells this newspaper.

"Give back to Candela", the cry of all Villa Tesei during the captivity of the girl, in August 2011.

Neither Nélida nor her husband have a problem being interviewed or having their photographs taken.

It seems to them that they are

victims of a great injustice

and they have learned to live with what happened to them.

"My dream is that everything ends at once and I go to live far away, in the country, calm, with many animals. We have been in this house since 1989. In the neighborhood everyone knows me and they know that I had nothing to do with it. I am

innocent and I don't hide from anyone

", synthesizes Altamirano in his talk with

Clarín

Altamirano is such a gaff that after he regained his freedom he took care of

Bobi

and cared for him until he died of old age.

The six months that he spent in prison, designated as the person who brought the baby to eat during his captivity in Kiernan, are a distant memory but one that he cannot definitively leave behind.

The reason: the accusation against him still stands as the first day.

And that is why he will go to trial.

Against Altamirano, the prosecution uses two arguments.

1: she was one of the two people (along with Gladys Cabrera) who had a key to the place where the Justice recognized that Candela was at least on August 29; 2: she lives next to a woman she used to visit Hugo Bermúdez (convicted as a material author), however he always denied knowing him or having ever seen him.

Carola Labrador, along with then-Governor Daniel Scioli and the Minister of Justice and Security, Ricardo Casal, the day Candela was found dead.

The oral trial of

Candela II will

not take place before mid-2022 because the Oral Criminal Court No. 6 of Morón already has its agenda busy until April of next year.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, judges Alejandro Rodríguez Rey, Cristian Toto and Andrea Biarzi had to suspend the preliminary hearing for the parties to present the evidence.

It was to be done in March 2020, just as the strict quarantine began.

It is known that the prosecutors of the debate will be Pablo Galarza and Mario Ferrario, the same one who carried out the investigation at the investigation stage.

Also that Carola Labrador, Candela's mother, will continue in the role of plaintiff at the hand of Fernando Burlando's study.

"I have a clear conscience, but even so ... sometimes I think ... if they screwed me once, they can screw me another.

I just think they will acquit me

. They have no evidence because such evidence does not exist," concludes Altamirano.

Color detail: his case was the one he presented to the lawyer Matías Morla, who at that time was far from dreaming of meeting Diego Maradona and becoming a millionaire.

Morla was unable to dissociate the carpenter from the Candela cause.

He never saw it again in his life.

"He sends me someone from his study. His secretary accompanied me when I testified before the new prosecutor," says Altamirano, without complaining.

The pink house on 900 Kiernan Street, where Candela was held captive by Justice before she was murdered.

Its owner, Gladys Mabel Cabrera, was imprisoned but was dissociated from the case.

For the Candela crime, there was already a first trial that ended in 2017 with

life sentences

for Hugo Elbio Bermúdez (64), as the perpetrator, and for Leonardo Jara (44), as a necessary participant, also with a lesser sentence ( 4 years) for Gabriel Fabián Gómez, as a secondary participant.

The ruling was issued by the Oral Criminal Court No. 3 of Morón on September 20, 2017 and confirmed by Chamber IV of the Buenos Aires Cassation Chamber on June 29 of last year.

The carpenter Altamirano was left in a second batch of defendants awaiting the so-called Candela II trial along with some teammates who have nothing to do with his profile.

In this group is

Miguel Ángel "Mameluco" Villalba (57), accused as the intellectual author

Also, the informant from the Buenos Aires province Héctor "El Topo" Moreyra (51) and the police officer Sergio Chazarreta (53), his wife's cousin, identified as the two people who on Monday, August 22, 2011, kidnapped the girl in Coraceros and Bustamante, almost at the corner of his house.

The massive farewell to Candela, on September 1, 2011. First there was an intimate wake and then people were able to enter the room.

The coffin with the baby's remains, which were taken to the Hurlingham Park Cemetery in the midst of the demand for "justice."

A married couple who were passing by saw how Candela - who was on her way to a scout meeting - was put on a black Ford EcoSport that, according to the researchers, is the one that Chazarreta was driving at that time.

Of all the defendants in the next trial, only Villalba is imprisoned and it is not for this cause but for a unified sentence of 27 years for drug trafficking and money laundering, a record that keeps him living in the Rawson prison.

For the prosecution, Villalba had Candela kidnapped because he thought that her father, Alfredo "Juancho" Rodríguez, had handed him over to the Federal Police, who detained him shortly before the girl's disappearance.

"Juancho", with a history of asphalt piracy, was in prison at the time of the crime.

One of the most suggestive eavesdrops of the case is the one that reflects a conversation, in the middle of the kidnapping of the girl, in which "Juancho" asks Candela's mother to tell the police everything.

The key points of the Candela case

8/22/2011

Cuirassiers and Bustamante, Villa Tesei (Hurlingham).

Candela Sol Rodríguez (11) leaves her house and is kidnapped while waiting for some friends to go to the meeting of the boy scout group to which she belonged.

They carry it in a black Ford EcoSport.

8/31/2011

They find the naked body of the girl inside a bag next to the collector of the Autopista del Oeste y Vergara, about 30 blocks from her house.

She had been sexually abused and suffocated.

1/9/2011

The Buenos Aires police raided the house on 992 Kiernan Street in Villa Tesei, where the victim is believed to have been held captive.

They arrest the owner of the property, the epilator Gladys Cabrera, and her husband, the carpenter Nestor Altamirano.

20-9-2017

Almirante Brown and Colón, Morón.

Bermúdez and Jara are sentenced to life imprisonment by the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) 3 of Morón, which considers them responsible for the crime of "illegal deprivation of coercive liberty followed by death."

Gomez receives 4 years as a "secondary participant."

The pedicure of the "pink house"

The "pink house" is now "vermilion", clarifies Gladys Mabel Cabrera, who has lived there with her son since 2012. When Candela's crime happened, she was about to rent the place to a man who painted it pink in one day and that he was never a suspect in the case.

Many do not explain why.

"I lived in the Federal Capital, I rented where I lived. When they put me in jail I was afraid I would never go out again, so I decided to leave that apartment ... and after 15 days they released me and I had nowhere to go with my son! from my aunt, in Lanús Este ",

Mabel

tells

Clarín

, sitting in Kiernan's living room where she does pedicures, manicures, dyes and massages.

"At first, ladies came to attend to each other and told me: '

Candela was here

! I would take them out carp. I don't know if I would have to say it

: for me the girl was never here, it was an invention

. I was imprisoned for six months, it was tremendous", recalls Cabrera, who likes to be called by her middle name, Mabel.

At the moment he prefers a conversation without photos.

Candela's parents: Carola Labrador and Alfredo "Juancho" Rodríguez, who at the time of the incident was detained for asphalt piracy.

In the middle of the talk, his 20-year-old son - a third-year biotech student at National Hurlingham University - comes out to say hello.

Part of the decision to move to Kiernan was for him to have his own room, his space.

"When we arrived, this was abandoned. We came with my son and

Beto

(his dog) and we went into a small room. And little by little we fixed it. It occurred to me to paint it vermilion, I like it," he says.

For Mabel, Kiernan has difficult memories, prior to the Candela case: "I lived here until I was 16 years old. But I have a particular story: the lady who raised me as my mother, was actually my grandmother. I never liked this house, this zone, but now we're fine, "concludes Mabel, who from time to time crosses the street with Altamirano.

The two consider each other good neighbors.

As the press saw it

Cuirassiers without Candela

In August 2011, Coraceros Street at 2500 was taken over by journalists, television mobiles broadcasting live and various curious people.

In Cuirassiers 2552 (Villa Tesei, Hurlingham) Candela lived with her mother, CarolaLabrador, and her two brothers.

His father was imprisoned as a pirate of the asphalt.

From there the girl left walking to meet some friends and never returned.

Today in Cuirassiers barely a painted gray color recalls it.

You hardly notice that the graffiti says

Candela

Another family lives in the house who have no interest in talking about the case.

The embrace of Candela's parents on the day the sentences were handed down against Hugo Bermúdez, Leonardo Jara and Gabriel Fabián Gómez in the Courts of Morón.

Hugo Bermúdez (in a green jacket) was sentenced to life, in 2017, as the material author of the murder.

The house from which Carola moved almost immediately changed its facade several times and in 10 years she lost the lush tree that she had on the sidewalk.

"I've been in the neighborhood for 40 years. The girl's family was my neighbor for eight years. After what happened they left and I didn't see them again," says Osvaldo, who remembers Candela perfectly.

The 10 years that have passed since the kidnapping - which took place just a few meters away - erased any trace of what happened.

People are queuing in front of the refrigerator that is right in front of what was the home of Candela Sol Rodríguez and they do not understand why someone would take pictures of that house with so little charm.

Leonardo Jara, like Bermúdez, received a life sentence, although as a necessary participant in the murder.

Miguel Ángel "Mameluco" Villalba, arrested for drug trafficking and accused as the intellectual author of the murder, will go to trial in 2022.

The last thing that was publicly known about Carola Labrador was that she signed a letter against Carolina Píparo demanding that the provincial legislator resign from her position in the Municipality of La Plata.

"A Victim Assistance secretary cannot continue with her car after hitting one or two motorcycles, then driving away and leaving the injured people unattended," the signers warned.

Carola described her as a "maleficent" woman.

Héctor "El Topo" Moreyra, accused of being a police buchón, will be tried in the Candela II case next year.

The monolith where the victim's body was thrown, today, in the collector of the Autopista del Oeste and Vergara, looks abandoned.

In addition to the Candela II trial, Carola - who did not want to speak to

Clarín

- continues to promote

another case in the civil jurisdiction against the State of Buenos Aires

for its poor performance in the investigation of the case.

The State is part of the group of material authors of the crime" (...).
That crime has gone absolutely unpunished

. "Everything happened"

by the actions of a calamitous, indolent, carefree and uncompromising State for truth and Justice,

"says the lawsuit"

Labrador Nancy Carola c / Treasury of the province of Buenos Aires s / Indemnification claim

The civil lawsuit was filed on September 12, 2014 in the Contentious Administrative Court No. 1 of La Plata and is still there, in "pause" mode, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The initial claim figure is

8,860,000 pesos

, to which interest must be applied.

For now, in the midst of a pandemic, bad news came for Labrador in this regard.

In December 2020, the Buenos Aires Criminal Cassation Chamber confirmed the dismissal of the three police chiefs whom prosecutor Mario Ferrario had investigated for their performance during the investigation of the case: Juan Carlos Paggi, former head of the Force;

his powerful number two, Hugo Matzkin, and who was head of Investigations, Roberto Castronuovo.

The three were part of the "crisis committee" that centralized the investigation during the days when Candela was kidnapped and analyzed the clues about the crime, when her body was finally found inside a bag, naked and with clear signs of having been abused. sexually.

In 2011, Paggi, Matzkin and Castronuovo were at the height of their power and yet they could not find the babe alive.

Although they used 1,500 agents, helicopters, 140 patrol cars and 16 sniffer dogs,

the killers dumped his body whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted.

And they did not even find it, but a cartonero who passed by the place, a place where today - a decade later - a sad monolith barely survives, burned and surrounded by garbage.