They beat her to death in front of her 9-year-old Son: The boy’s testimony was key to arresting the Suspect

A 28-year-old girl was beaten to death last Sunday morning at his home in the Mendoza town of Luján de Cuyo: for the femicide, a 19-year-old neighbor was arrested as the main suspect.

The fact was discovered around 11 in a house from the Tierra, Sol y Luna neighborhood of the town of Ugarteche. As a result of the testimony of the victim’s 9-year-old son who witnessed the attack and was also injured, the provincial police were able to reach the alleged aggressor.

The victim was identified as Margarita Mercedes Zárate. His body was found by his brother, who immediately notified the authorities.

Upon arriving at the scene, the investigators of the case in charge of the homicide prosecutor Carlos Torres they specified that the woman presented injuries to the face and head, in addition to stitches in the neck and chest area. Everything indicates that the young woman was beaten to death in the middle of an argument and that the murderer used a screwdriver to end his life, as confirmed by sources in the case Télam.

In the precarious home was her son, who was also attacked by the aggressor and had to be treated by superficial wounds in the neck. The minor is already out of danger and with psychological restraint, police sources indicated.

While initially everything pointed to an ex-boyfriend of Margarita, who enjoys the benefit of home arrest at his home in the department of Godoy Cruz; his son’s statement was key to opening another thread in the investigation and find the whereabouts of Roberto López Martínez, a neighbor of the victim and with whom he had a previous relationship.

The alleged femicide is detained at Police Station 48 in Luján de Cuyo and he hopes to be investigated by prosecutor Torres.

Its about Eighth homicide that has occurred in Mendoza since the beginning of the year, of which six occurred during the first half of January. The last of 2019 had as a victim Florencia Romano, the 14-year-old teenager who was missing for five days and whose corpse was found burned in a field in Maipú.

On Saturday, December 12, when the teenager visited the house of the butcher Pablo Arancibia, whom she had met on the social network Instagram, and since then it has not been seen again. Five days later, the body was found: He was wrapped in blankets and partially burned, in addition to presenting blows and a cutting wound to the neck.

After knowing the fact, the police arrested the butcher and his partner, who was charged with the crime of co-authorship of femicide and then released.

Two pieces of information caught the investigators’ attention: One came from the victim’s cell phone. The last message that came out of that device was at 6:55 p.m. on Saturday. Florencia contacted a friend in Guaymallén at that time and He told him that he was at the stop, waiting for the bus. Five minutes later, the phone went dead and has remained that way ever since. Prosecutor Claudia Ríos handles the possibility that it was not the teenager who wrote that message.

The other The striking fact was that Arancibia had a large number of scratches on his body. The man claimed that a cat had scratched him.

The motive for the event is unknown, but the evidence was many: the butcher Arancibia had about 50 injuries on his body. On the other hand, he spontaneously confessed upon being arrested that Florencia was at his home. There is also a video that shows him looking for her at the bus stop at noon of the event. Then, he assured that he took her back to the stop. However, that video was not found.

Back to the case of Luján de Cuyo, Prosecutor Torres continues the investigation under summary secrecy to define the procedural situation of the accused under the classification of attempted homicide criminis causa and aggravated femicide by link. For now, there are no identified accomplices.

I kept reading:

Florencia Romano case: they investigate the 911 operator who ignored the call and could have prevented the femicide

The body found yesterday in Mendoza is from Florencia Romano: the 50 scratches on the suspect’s body