“Let us pray that my son surrenders soon!”
declared Cecilia Guzmán, the mother of Abel Guzmán (43), the colorist who shot a colleague in the head on Wednesday from Santiago del Estero.
The video of the crime went viral and so did the speculation.
However, the murderer's mother claims that she could only look at him once and no more, out of shudder.
Almost five days after the murder,
Guzmán remains a fugitive.
In the Verdini hair salon, on the corner of Beruti and Austria, in Recoleta, the staff was enjoying a beer after having lowered the blinds.
Facundo Verdini, owner of the establishment, “Charly” Azorín, the manager, Noelia (a new employee) and Germán Medina (33) were chatting carefreely, sitting in a circle on the armchairs, when Guzmán, also a colorist,
burst into the conversation.
Verdini declared to
Clarín
that the reason for Guzmán's appearance was because he wanted to talk to him alone.
When the first agreed, Guzmán did not want it and, instead, took out a 9mm gun from his waist and shot Medina in the head.
Since then, on Wednesday at 8:10 p.m., Guzmán's whereabouts have been unknown.
New images from the premises' security cameras shed just a little more clarity: after the murder, he escaped through one of the two windows that face Beruti Street.
Once on the sidewalk, he headed north, apparently on the opposite sidewalk, as he darted across the street.
Suspicions placed him in various places: his home in Merlo, west of the Buenos Aires suburbs;
in a relative's house, in Balvanera;
in his mother's house, in Santiago del Estero, where Guzmán would also have been building a home.
However, his own mother seems to ruin the possibility of Guzmán being in that province.
Video
A camera captured how the murderer, Abel Guzman, escaped.
The investigation, led by the City Police, the Criminal and Correctional Court No. 48 and the Evaded Division of the Attorney General's Office, established several measures to find the murderer.
Firstly, they ordered
a search for evidence in telecommunications antennas and tracking of the telephone lines of Guzmán and those close
to him.
It turned out that five of Guzmán's six brothers had turned off their cell phones on Wednesday night, a situation that caught the attention of investigators.
On the other hand, various raids were also ordered, including at the murderer's home, in Merlo, and in other locations, but all showed
negative results.
Guzmán's situation is unknown.
Meanwhile, the hair salon staff and also the neighbors are afraid, since Guzmán
escaped with the key to the premises.
“I spoke to him a few days ago,” said the mother.
It made reference to the days before the crime.
"As far as I know, he worked a lot and went to a brother's house almost only to sleep. He was more dedicated to hairdressing," her statement continued.
Prosecutor Patricio Lugones took statements from the Verdini hair salon staff.
The testimonies, according to him, lead to the question of the
bad relationship between Guzmán and Medina,
something that was confirmed by clients and salon staff.
And that would be something quite common between colorists and hairdressers, who often have professional differences and dispute over clients.
In this case, the prosecutor's investigation was able to provide a detail, a possible trigger for the conflicts between the two: the trigger would be the
use of formaldehyde
by Guzmán in his work as a colorist, something that is inadvisable due to the toxicity of such a compound.
Germán Medina would have reported him to the staff, which caused him to be demoted at the hair salon.
That, it is presumed, would be the turning point of a relationship
marked by professional jealousy
.
The rest, except the whereabouts of the murderer, is already known.
S.C.