The investigation into the crime of Roberto Wolfenson
(71) took an
unexpected turn
.
They arrested the maid and raided the house of a security guard in the La Delfina neighborhood.
The evidence seems solid but there are some questions surrounding the investigation.
This Monday
Graciela Orlandi
(70), Wolfenson's widow, testified for the second time before prosecutor Germán Camafreitas, from Pilar's prosecutor's office No. 3.
Investigators want to obtain information that will be key to delving into this line of the file, the only firm one month after the crime.
It all started during the early hours of Saturday in a house of
Rosalía Soledad Paniagua
(34), the last person who saw Wolfenson alive.
The woman, who worked as a domestic worker in Pilar's house, had
only been on the job for 20 days
because she was replacing staff on vacation.
It was Orlandi who hired her on the recommendation, supposedly, of
José J., a doorman hired by the neighborhood administration.
Orlandi maintained, through her lawyer Alejandro Broitman, that her husband's crime was in the context of a robbery.
Roberto Eduardo Wolfenson Band was murdered in his home located in the gated community of La Delfina.
He was 71 years old.
Photo: Facebook
It was she who, days after the crime, noticed that a red
Thonet Vander
brand
Bluetooth speaker
was missing and that it would be key to achieving Paniagua's arrest.
In expanding her statement, Orlandi acknowledged that money had been transferred from her husband's accounts.
Part in dollars and part in pesos, which she would first do to her daughter's account but later she decided to do it to hers.
Far from considering the movement suspicious shortly after learning of the death of her partner, she said that she did it "out of fear that – in the absence of Wolfenson's cell phone – the money would be transferred."
Also that she entered her WhatsApp from the businessman's computer and that
she had been the one who had hired the detainee
.
There was, during the testimony, a strong confrontation between Tomás Farini Duggan, the lawyer for Wolfenson's children, and Broitman, who
accused him of pressuring the widow as an "instigator of the crime."
For the prosecution, there does not seem to be any evidence in that sense and they point to the hypothesis of robbery as a trigger for the crime.
A cell phone, a speaker, a menorah (a seven-armed candelabra typical of the Jewish religion) and headphones were the missing items detected by the family.
Also, there could be some cash, outside the safe, that was left untouched.
The chronology that led to the arrest
The raid was achieved thanks to security cameras and the joint work of Camafreita with the prosecutor's office specialized in cybercrimes, headed by Alejandro Musso.
The investigators analyzed the
security cameras of Trenes Argentinos
where the employee is seen arriving at the Derqui station at 2:18 p.m., at the same time that the cell phone antennas detected the activation of the victim's Motorola cell phone.
In the images you can see her handling two phones at the same time.
One with a case similar to the one described by the family and that corresponded to the victim's phone.
Video
Country crime.
The video that compromises the domestic worker.
The interweaving of antennas and security cameras established that Wolfenson's phone was activated for the last time at 9:28 at her home in La Delfina.
The next connection occurred on February 22 between 2:21 p.m. and 2:22 p.m. but
in the center of Derqui
, at the antenna that corresponds to the train station.
At 2:04 p.m., Paniagua's SUBE card confirmed that she took bus 228F in the direction of that station and, indeed, the cameras detected her on the platform at 2:20 p.m.
Minutes before, at 2:18 p.m., they found another camera at the station entrance in which, according to sources in the case, she was seen
"offering the phone to a passerby
. "
For them, the phone is Wolfenson's.
In parallel, Paniagua had his own cell phone.
In the footage it is clearly seen how he manipulates two devices and keeps them in different pockets of his backpack.
With one he sends audios and responds to messages.
That line hit the same antenna, at the same time, as Wolfenson's.
All this information from the cybercrime area allowed Camafreita to obtain a search warrant.
But it was the Bluetooth speaker that allowed the arrest.
In Paniagua's house they kidnapped the device, which perfectly matches the one described by Wolfenson's widow, with whom he had been in a relationship for 18 years.
At 2 in the morning, while the employee's house was being raided, the woman approached the police headquarters and provided information that allowed the arrest to be ordered.
Paniagua was questioned but refused to testify.
Camafreita has a few days until he requests that the arrest be formalized, in the meantime he continues adding information to the file.
During the raid,
the woman excused herself and said that the speaker "had been given to her daughter
," although she did not formally declare it.
The Wolfenson family house in La Delfina, by Pilar
From the woman's house, they also seized combs and toothbrushes to take DNA samples, the backpack she used to go to work, and clothing in search of any evidence that would link her to the crime scene.
More precisely with
a "long hair" that was found on Wolfenson's leg
"curly, with characteristics of having been torn out at the time of the fight."
That sample will now be compared with Paniagua's DNA.
The goalkeeper
This weekend, they also raided the house of José, a doorman from La Delfina who was on duty the day of the crime.
It was he who recommended Paniagua to work in the house of Graciela Orlandi and Roberto Wolfenson and who
should have checked
– according to neighborhood protocol – the maid when she left on February 22.
It did not.
For those who know him, it is unlikely that José would have had anything to do with the incident: the doorman has been an
employee of the neighborhood for more than 20 years
, everyone knows him and he is a "trusted" person for the administration.
Cell phones and two computers were taken from her house with the idea of reviewing them and establishing if there were communications with the detainee to look for any connection between them
. Was there a plan to rob Wolfenson?
The woman had started working on February 5 to replace the permanent staff during the summer vacation and that day, the last day the engineer was seen alive, she finished the substitution.
For now it is not clear if the employee was involved and he has not been accused of any crime, at least until expert reports are carried out on the seized material.
As Clarín
learned,
"he was very calm" and confident.
In La Delfina security is in charge of the company Watchman.
When questioned by this newspaper, they denied that the last raided person was an employee of this company and clarified that it is up to the neighborhood administration to hire the doormen.
"We understand that the established protocols were complied with as stipulated in a timely manner," they warned.
And they excused themselves by saying that "the corresponding report was made" at the time of the incident.
The doubts surrounding the country crime hypothesis
While investigators are trying to determine if there was a robbery behind the motive for Wolfenson's crime, some doubts arise that have not yet been fitted into the puzzle of the file.
The Google account that synchronized with Wolfenson's cell phone before the crime had determined that the victim took his
daily walk between 1:55 p.m. and 2:18 p.m.
, but the SUBE card registered Paniagua allegedly with the phone in his possession - according to the accusation - at 14.04.
It remains to be seen if the route they thought corresponded to the walk was actually a way to simulate the businessman's routine.
Furthermore, could a 34-year-old woman of around 1.60 tall have
enough strength to suffocate Wolfenson
with a cable, rope or fine thread as determined by the autopsy?
For the prosecution it is possible, although they have not ruled out anything yet.
Another unclear point is why in his first statement there were no defensive injuries compatible with the attack on the businessman?
In the videos from the security cameras, Paniagua has
a napkin in his hand
, as if he were covering an injury, he even watches her while he waits for the train.
But Wolfenson defended himself until the last minute: he had blows to his face, hands and neck.
Should that fight have left marks on the murderer?
Wolfenson's body was found on Friday, February 23, and on Saturday it was learned that he had been murdered, after the Vital company ambulance doctor and the
Buenos Aires Police forensic doctor indicated that he had suffered cardiac arrest
.
On Sunday they managed to locate the employee, the last to register entry to lot 397 of La Delfina, and on Monday she testified.
At that time she had no visible marks that could have implicated her in the incident.
Farini Duggan is the lawyer for the electronic engineer's two children, Laura and Esteban Wolfenson.
They were the first to establish themselves as private victims to have access to the case and request evidentiary measures.
From the beginning, the children raised the possibility of a
financial motive
and asked that the bank accounts be analyzed in depth.
Orlandi, Wolfenson's partner, made a move and withdrew about
$8,000 from her husband's account.
According to her version, she did it to "protect the assets" and prevent the thieves from being able to make movements with that money from the stolen cell phone.
The date of death remains unknown: the autopsy established that Wolfenson died on February 23 between 1 and 7 p.m., but his body was found at 4:30 p.m.
However, all indications would indicate that he died the day before.
He had the same clothes in which they saw him on Thursday the 22nd and he was not a person who wore the same clothes two days in a row.
His bed was made, as if he hadn't slept there.
He stopped responding to messages and hasn't contacted anyone since Thursday.
He also missed his gym class, at 7 p.m., and did not give notice, something unusual because he is described as a very organized man.
He also left a
yogurt maker on
and appeared dead in the guest room.
The house was in perfect order, there were no signs of a struggle or that they had searched the house for anything.
MG