Mauro Aguilar
09/10/2021 2:35 PM
Clarín.com
Police
Updated 9/10/2021 3:01 PM
María Isabel Ruglio, a 73-year-old retired teacher, was murdered in Rosario between the night of February 6 and the morning of February 7, 2020.
For the investigators, a couple who lived with her had the objective of seizing the property that belonged to the lady, whom everyone knew as “Titi”.
The case had another macabre feature: to hide the murder they dismembered the victim's body into seven parts, placed it in garbage bags and threw it into a stream.
A remisero, designated as the person in charge of carrying out this task, surrendered spontaneously on Thursday and was detained.
Last Monday the remisero had been mentioned as part of the criminal plot by Marcelo Fernández (44), one of those accused of the homicide.
The other is his partner, Josefa Carrasco (58).
They both occupied a place at the back of Uriburu's house at 500, which belonged to Ruglio.
According to Fernández's statement,
the remisero was a friend of hers
and the night he killed the retired woman, he happened to pass by the Uriburu street address and when he saw the light on, he knocked to see if he could find him.
Once inside, always according to Fernández's sayings, he offered to take charge of cutting the body and discarding it.
In return, as a form of payment for taking care of that, the man who had killed Ruglio
had to give him an apartment
that belonged to him.
Fernández stated on Monday that he did not see how the remisero dismembered the body because he fell asleep, that he did not see him again after that night and that the blood stains that the investigators found in the house must actually be traces of a pigeon that his cats had hunted.
In his testimony on Monday, the first he has offered since he was arrested last year, the man said that the relationship with Ruglio had been complicated.
He said that on the night of the murder he was drunk, that they began to argue and that the retired woman took a knife.
“I grabbed her by the neck and she got out of hand.
I never wanted to kill her, ”he
confessed.
He released his partner in the statement.
He said that he was not at home that night because he had gone to take care of an old man.
Carrasco, a Spanish national, insisted that she was oblivious to that plan, assured that she knew what happened weeks later and that both she and Ruglio had problems with Fernández.
Regarding the remisero, he admitted that he was a friend of his partner, but that one day he disappeared and they did not see him again.
The discovery of the bags with the dismembered body, in the waters of the Saladillo stream, allowed to begin to reveal the plan that was hidden behind the macabre crime.
According to the reconstruction of the prosecutors, Ruglio met the couple after they installed a kiosk in front of his house.
The relationship grew closer and closer.
The retiree invited them to live in the back of her house.
He even offered to install a greengrocer at the front.
The idea was that they take care of her.
The couple sought to acquire Ruglio's property and began negotiating.
The idea was to sell an apartment and add the severance money.
It is believed that the growing tension in coexistence changed the plans: the retiree stopped the transaction and asked Fernández and Carrasco to leave.
They then thought of killing her, hiding the body and keeping the house, according to prosecutor Adrián Spelta, who charged them with the "murder qualified by greed to a consummate degree and as co-perpetrators."
For that crime they could receive
a life sentence.
The macabre plan
The reconstruction of the crime marks that the couple carefully prepared the plan to eliminate Ruglio.
They even worried about finding out if the security cameras of a bicycle shop that operated next to the old woman's house were active.
They wanted to make sure they go out with the bags without being searched.
They walked about thirty blocks to the stream, carrying the bags with carts from the grocery store.
It is estimated that they used a grinder to dismember her, a job that forensics confirmed was post-death.
That would alleviate the judicial situation of the remisero, if his participation in the fact is proven.
The couple said that on February 15, a week after the murder, they went to make a complaint to the police because they did not know Ruglio's whereabouts.
There is no record of it.
Just on the 21st, at the insistence of neighbors and relatives of the old woman, they formally appeared at a sectional.
They sought to cover themselves from crime.
They justified the delay in reporting by ensuring that since Ruglio had relatives in Santa Fe Capital, they thought he had traveled to visit them.
The homicidal couple exhibited strange behavior in the days after the crime: they occupied the front of the house, a place to which they were not allowed access.
They even answered the phone.
For prosecutor Spelta that marks what
the owners of the property
already
felt.
Rosary beads. Correspondent.
GL