The Pantheon VI is almost in the heart of the Chacarita Cemetery. There, in niche 9.075, row 2 of gallery 22, is the body of financier Miguel Ángel Graffigna (42), killed by a bullet in the head inside Peugeot RCZ exactly 10 years ago, on the afternoon of June 7, 2013.
Grave 6, on board 3, in block 2 of section 12, is very close to the crematorium. It is a sector of uneven graves, many of them neglected, or directly abandoned, where many homeless people end up. There is buried businessman Alfredo Pesquera (46), who committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on December 20, 2013. The cross on which his name is read was put by the cemetery, and it is noted that it was recycled.
Between one grave and the other they measure about 150 meters. Both dead are united by a violent and complex story: Pesquera – a character who became known for starring in the road accident in which "El Potro" Rodrigo Bueno and Fernando Olmedo died in June 2000 – killed Graffigna because he claimed a debt with his boss, kickboxing fighter Jorge "Acero" Cali.
Alfredo Pesquera, during the trial for the death of Rodrigo "El Potro" Bueno.
When the Justice discovered that Pesquera had been the murderer of Graffigna, the prosecutor Paula Asaro requested his arrest. It was December 20, 2013 and the news immediately ended up all over the news.
A day later, his body was found by his lawyer in front of the house he shared with his girlfriend and her three children on Ramallo Street at 3300, in Parque Saavedra. He was in the back seat of his luxurious black BMW X6. He had shot himself in the head with the same .40 caliber Tanfoglio pistol with which he had murdered Graffigna months earlier.
With Graffigna and Pesquera dead – in a context of debts, check cashing, dollars and possible money laundering – the only one capable of providing clues or being investigated in this regard turned out to be "Acero" Cali, head of Graffigna and creditor of Pesquera. But Cali first denied almost having contact with Pesquera ("I saw him once because he came to cash checks," he said) and eventually died of cardiac arrest in October 2021.
Miguel Angel Graffigna was killed by Pesquera inside his Peugeot RCZ.
The two deaths
Homicide and suicide occurred 10 years ago and many have forgotten the case, which, however, has unrepeatable details. The last of them, the rarely seen fact that victim and perpetrator ended up buried a few meters away.
They are close, but apparently did not leave the same memory among their loved ones.
The niche of Graffigna is taken care of. He has a photo of himself surrounded by little angels, his name polished, the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a Virgin of Luján. The tomb of Pesquera is only identified by a wooden cross with his name and is one of the crosses that the cemetery itself puts.
The niche where the remains of the financier Miguel Ángel Graffigna (42), murdered by businessman Alfredo Pesquera. Photo: Alejandro Bar
Moreover, after committing suicide, Alfredo Pesquera's body spent two years in the morgue of the Supreme Court. Neither his ex-wife (mother of his son, with whom he had a terrible relationship) nor his last partner appeared to withdraw him.
This woman, a psychologist with whom he had lived for two years, would have been the last person to speak with him: on the afternoon of December 20, 2013, Pesquera asked him to take his three children from the common house on Ramallo Street (all children of a previous marriage of hers) so that they would not see him when the police took him away in handcuffs. As they crossed paths in the house that afternoon, she noticed him nervous, but normal.
Finally it was Juan Domingo Pesquera – one of the brothers of the deceased – who presented the request to remove the body, make the funeral and cremate it. He filed the formal request on December 17, 2014 (almost a year after the suicide).
Alfredo Pesquera's brother requested the delivery of the body for cremation, almost a year after his death.
After the judicial fair in January, he was told that there was no problem with him taking him, but that he could not cremate him. Pesquera was finally buried in December 2015.
From the state of the grave, it seems that no one is going to visit his grave.
The arrest warrant against Alfredo Pesquera.
Crossed lives
Both Alfredo Pesquera and Miguel Ángel Graffigna had a complicated past in Justice.
Graffigna had been arrested in 2011 for the bloody murder of a swinger couple in 2004. He was imprisoned for three months, accused of torturing and killing Nicolás de Sousa (28) and suffocating his girlfriend, Antonieta Zárate (29), to steal a painting by Pablo Picasso that could never be proven to exist.
Pesquera was found inside his BMW. Clarín Archive
He was eventually dismissed, as was his ex-wife, the exotic dancer Iddon Silva, with whom he would end up having a terrible relationship.
Tensions between Graffigna and Silva over the possession of their daughter, and the woman's alleged ties to a Mexican drug trafficker, convinced the financier's family in 2013 that she was behind his murder. However, the Justice proved that the murderer had been Alfredo Pesquera.
The gun Pesquera used to kill financier Miguel Angel Graffigna and shoot himself in the head.
Pesquera also had his own history in court. The most resonant case in which he was involved was the death of quartet singer "El Potro" Rodrigo Bueno, which occurred on June 24, 2000 on the Buenos Aires-La Plata highway.
The businessman was acquitted, although the Prosecutor's Office always maintained that the musician overturned because he purposely locked him up with his truck.
This is how the truck in which Rodrigo Bueno was traveling. Clarín Archive
His lawyer in that trial was Fernando Burlando, one of the last to receive a message from him a few hours before he committed suicide. "Everything was enquilombado. I'm not for another round like Rodrigo's. Take care of my baby," Pesquera wrote in an email.
In 2001 – in the midst of the investigation into the accident – Pesquera had been arrested, accused of repeated fraud. La Plata judge Carmen Palacios Arias ordered his arrest in the framework of a case opened two years earlier for the fraudulent sale of cars.
Graffigna's car, a Peugeot RCZ. Clarín Archive
In that case he was dismissed, but he again had problems with the Justice in 2007. At that time he was accused of attempted fraud in the purchase of a property in Capital that was in succession.
The relatives of a man who died in 2003 reported that through false documents – such as a forged power of attorney – Pesquera had bought the house. The businessman then tried to mortgage it but did not succeed, and that is why he ended up prosecuted for "fraud" in the degree of attempt.
Alfredo Pesquera, when he was tried for Rodrigo's death.
During his life he did not make great friends.
His ex-wife did not want to know anything about him and his girlfriend was left in a very bad economic situation after his death. She even had to move elsewhere with her young children to cut costs.
The sketch of how they found businessman Alfredo Pesquera inside his car.
Sources in the case said that, some time before, this woman legally divorced her husband, collected money for the sale of a house they shared and gave it to Pesquera. The silver vanished. And also the part that corresponded to her ex-husband, who suffered a suspicious salidera after finishing the real estate transaction.
Pesquera was neither well-liked nor very trustworthy, as Graffigna discovered. The Justice rescued several emails in which the financier claimed to his "friend" the debt he had with "Acero" Cali.
Jorge "Acero" Cali. Pesquera owed him money. He died of cardiac arrest in October 2021.
"Hello, Alfredo. Do not fail and today send the 50 thousand to the club. And give them to Paul. Next week you deliver the apartment, I warn you. Collect the 9,500 for deliveries. Hug," Graffigna wrote by email to Pesquera on April 26, 2013, referring to the Primera Junta club (Lavalle 3461), owned by "Acero" Cali.
It is the same place where in May of that year a raid was made on the suspicion that there was a clandestine casino and a brothel.
The white truck that Pesquera was driving when he locked Rodrigo up on the Buenos Aires-La Plata highway. Clarín Archive
"And Alfredo? We are coming back. Don't make Jorge come to the club and the money isn't there," Graffigna insisted shortly after.
Pesquera replied on May 14: "Hello Miguel. I have the money you lent me on Thursday. If you want, tomorrow before 13 step and we will personally talk about two more topics."
But it all ended badly.
According to the GPS of Graffigna's car, on June 7, 2013, he stopped by Pesquera's house to talk and insist that he pay. Instead of answers and debt repayment, a .40 caliber bullet was found in the face.
EMJ
See also