Nothing has been heard from Fernando Pérez Algaba (41) alive since the afternoon of July 18. The last people to see him alive, two former partners who owed him money, are under scrutiny. While there is speculation about arrests and raids for the next few hours, details of the autopsy and how they dismembered the trader were known.
"Lechuga", as he was known, was found between July 22 and 23 in the Arroyo del Rey of Lomas de Zamora: his murderers dismembered him to hide the body and threw him into the Arroyo del Rey, meters from the fair of La Salada, in Lomas de Zamora, 50 kilometers from the last place where they declared him alive.
The photos of the body went viral with the rapidity of the morbid but for the researchers a question arose: besides killing, who can dismember a body to hide it? How many people do it take? Where could they do it? With what elements? Did they leave traces?
The trader was found between July 22 and 23 in Ingeniero Budge.
To advance on this line of investigation, they asked the experts of the Institute of Forensic Sciences of the Southern Conurbano to develop the information regarding the dismemberment.
The autopsy determined that "the cuts made at the level of amputations of the cephalic limb, upper limbs and lower limbs, did not present characteristics of vitality, in the case of port mortem injuries, they could be made with an element endowed with edge".
Now, in a report presented over the weekend, they confirmed that "they could be divided into elements endowed with edge and weights and / or live force or cutting elements by manual or mechanical reciprocal movements, such as chainsaws or grinders."
The Land Rover Range Rover Evoque that Perez Algaba used before the crime.
According to the report that has already been incorporated into the file to expand the autopsy, to dismember the body of Pérez Algaba they would have used "an edge element to cut the soft parts (for example knives) and, when reaching the bone plane, elements equipped with edge and weights such as axes, shovels and machetes."
Fernando Pérez Algaba was killed by two shots, one of them that would have entered through the back, but the details of how they dismembered his body gave investigators some more clues about what his killers did to hide it.
The red suitcase in which they found Pérez Algaba's arms and legs.
First, in a red suitcase, two boys playing ball saw (it was later confirmed) the arms and legs of Pérez Algaba. After working for several hours in the creek, they found the torso and head the next day.
For the fact there is only one detainee, it is Nicol Chamorro (35). They came to it because, inside the suitcase, there were four identity documents. All from Nicol's family, who pointed to the trans woman: they say he took her away when she was kicked out of the shared house. With that element, she has been detained for 15 days and was denied release.
Nicol Chamorro (35) is the only detainee in the case investigating the murder of Fernando Pérez Algaba (41).
Threats
While secrecy surrounds the investigation, people linked to the file speak of "threats" and witnesses "are afraid."
Lucas Matilla, who testified spontaneously in the DDI of Lomas de Zamora, at the disposal of the Prosecutor's Office No. 5 of Lomas de Zamora, presented a habeas corpus in the Court of Guarantees No. 4 of Morón where he denounced threats, the presence of personnel of the DDI of Merlo in their homes and that "they follow him and photograph him".
One of the balls that was inside the suitcase seen by the boys who played ball and warned of the macabre finding.
Matilla said he had been friends with Perez Algaba for 11 years, said he met him when he bought him a jet ski and that since then they had a bond. Without much more to add, he contributed what everyone: that "Lettuce" was a gambler, that he had ventured into the cryptocurrency business and that he handled large flows of money.
The young man is indicated by another witness, one of the last two people who saw Pérez Algaba alive, Nahuel Vargas (43). Vargas pointed against him in his statement: "Last let us know when you pay him and there we give him because he is not going to pay us more," he paraphrased.
Pérez Algaba was dedicated to the purchase, sale and rental of high-end cars, cryptocurrencies and loans.
Matilla did not say in his statement that "Lechuga" owed him money, as Vargas noted. But he did report having been the victim of threats: "On August 5 at approximately 10.15 (...) two men who identified themselves as personnel of the DDI of Merlo asked me questions, including all my filiatory data and my parents. In addition to data referring to the investigation (...) for the death of Fernando Pérez Algaba, "he denounced.
"They asked me if I was right in that case, why I testified as a witness and if I was going on a trip," he added. In the same vein, he said that two other men who presented themselves as police officers of the DDI of Merlo interrogated the person in charge of a building of another registered address and "asked him about me and told him that if I did not collaborate he would be an accomplice."
"For about a week, everywhere I go, there are people who follow me, on foot, on motorcycles, and have even taken pictures of me and filmed me," said the man frightened by these interventions. That is why he asked that security cameras be requested to see who it was and if they really correspond to the DDI of Merlo.
MG
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