An independent analysis of the autopsy of Agostina Jalabert defends that she was tortured

Agostina Jalabert in a photograph of social networks.RR SS

An independent analysis of the autopsy of Agostina Jalabert, the Argentine model allegedly murdered by her partner in Playa del Carmen, provides new data that supports the hypothesis that the young woman was a victim of femicide.

The expert report, to which this newspaper has had access, speaks of beatings, signs of torture and sexual assault.

These revelations reaffirm the thesis of the woman's relatives and refute the version of the Quintana Roo Prosecutor's Office, which from the beginning has defended that the death was a suicide.

The report was commissioned by Jalabert's relatives from an Argentine doctor, who studied the autopsy issued by Mexican forensics.

The expert opinion is signed by Dr. José Micieli, who is accredited as a forensic doctor with more than 20 years of experience in the police, the Argentine penitentiary services and as former chief of the scientific police of Patagones, the municipality where the family originates. Jalabert.

The Quintana Roo Prosecutor's Office, asked by this newspaper about the new analysis, maintains its position and defends that the main line of investigation continues to be suicide.

The corpse of Agostina Jalabert (31 years old) presented injuries such as the mark of a punch in the mouth and a cranial trauma that, according to the report, "could have been produced with the aim of making the victim faint in order to manipulate her and finally place her in a the position in which it was found.

Her model was found by her sister, Candela, hanged by a belt to the towel rack in the bathroom of her house, at a height of just over one meter.

"I have never seen a person commit suicide by hanging with support on the floor," says her expert report.

The autopsy carried out by the Mexican forensics also revealed that the young woman had cigarette burns on her cheek and the left side of her neck "caused hours before her death", as EL PAÍS has been able to confirm.

The independent report defends that these marks are a "clear data of torture."

Agostina Jalabert also presented "vulvovaginal lesions" close to the time of her death, according to the autopsy.

"It can be inferred that the sexual relationship was not consensual," says the expert opinion.

Another wound on the inside of the thigh "demonstrates the victim's denial of the sexual act, using force to not separate the legs, a fact achieved by the violence exerted by the perpetrator."

According to the independent analysis, "the injuries he described are recent, although he does not determine approximate data, I would place them within everything that occurred during that night until death."

That is to say, that all the injuries that the young woman presented occurred the same early morning in which, according to the hypothesis of the Prosecutor's Office, Agostina Jalabert committed suicide.

Throughout his report, Dr. Micieli points out mistakes or omissions in the autopsy that could have helped to obtain more information.

The model's corpse was finally cremated.

For example: "As a piece of information is missing, and already insoluble due to the cremation of the body, there is no referral to pathology, or at least it is not reported, of parts of the neck that are compromised in hangings, such as sternocleidomastoid muscles, bundles lateral vessels of the neck or trachea.

The pressure exerted on them could be determined.

I do not see that the organs (spleen, liver, lung, brain) have been sent for histopathological and biochemical study.

Too bad because it would have produced toxic data and hemoglobin saturation and the presence or absence of ecchymotic spots, signs of suffocation”.

For the Jalabert family, the expert opinion is one more piece of evidence that shows that Agostina was murdered.

For them, the main suspect is Juan Manuel Reverter, the victim's partner.

The two began dating during the coronavirus pandemic and, according to the young woman's relatives, were in a toxic relationship.

The woman finally abandoned the relationship and in September 2022 she moved from Patagones, in the province of Buenos Aires, to Playa del Carmen, where she sought her life as a model.

In December, Reverter reappeared and they resumed their relationship.

The young woman died in the early hours of February 18.

Three days earlier, she had discovered that Reverter was unfaithful, which strained their relationship again.

It was Candela, Agostina's sister, who found her body.

That Saturday she returned home at seven in the morning to find the door closed, something strange, since the entrance was opened with a numerical code that seemed to work, but the door was still locked from inside the residence.

The security guard of the building informed him that during the night the police had appeared on two occasions at the place, alerted by a fight.

Candela got scared, called again and finally Reverter opened.

He had been in the house while, according to the hypothesis of the Mexican authorities, Agostina committed suicide.

The police let her go and now she is missing.

The Jalabert family has denounced from the beginning "the clumsiness" and "negligence" of the Public Ministry of Quintana Roo.

According to her lawyer, Betina Teuly, during a meeting held on Monday between her, representatives of the Prosecutor's Office and the Argentine Foreign Ministry, the Mexican body agreed to reclassify the investigation as a femicide instead of a suicide.

The institution denies it and continues to defend its hypothesis.

Now, the independent expert opinion calls his version even more into question.

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