As General Gustavo Sánchez says, “a perfect crime is one that is not committed.”
22.09.2024
SUMMARY. The remains of a woman are found in a lonely spot near the southern highway. When the police arrive at the crime scene, it is still burning, but only the bones remain. At noon, a couple arrives at the Police Investigation Department (DPI) to report the disappearance of their daughter, a twenty-three-year-old girl named Lucia.
She works for the government and always comes home early, but that afternoon she called her parents to tell them she was going to have dinner with some friends, and she never came back.
At the crime scene, DPI agents talk to each other, saying: “We have the remains of a woman who died from a stab wound to the throat.
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“She was then brought here and burned to the bone. And we have remnants of a plastic hose, a gallon-sized plastic container as well; remnants of what appears to be a towel, and remnants of what appears to be a sheet, red in color. What can we deduce from all this?”
+The step by step for a crime (1/2)
Minister
General Hector Gustavo Sanchez sat back in his chair, turned up the air conditioning a little, and said to me: “Look, Carmilla, those who think the police are stupid are wrong. And those who think we don’t have a good criminal investigation are also wrong. This girl, the girl in this case, was killed in an intimate place, as the agent deduced, and that place can only be a motel. There are no clothes at the scene, or burnt remains of clothes, so the woman was attacked when she was naked and standing, at the moment when, perhaps, she was arguing about something with her partner. He, taller than her, wounded her from below upwards, with force and anger, and it is clear that he acted with caution from the moment the woman began to bleed, although the coroner said that death was immediate, since the knife severed her spinal cord. But, even so, the murderer wrapped a towel around her neck, to stop the bleeding, which must have been little; then, he wrapped her in the sheet from the bed they had been in, took her to the car, which he had in the parking lot, where no one would see him. He gathered the woman’s belongings, such as clothes, underwear, shoes, wallet, phone, and every thing that belonged to the woman that he found in the room. He put these things together in a single bundle, and got rid of them further in front of where he set fire to the body; or further back. That’s what the agents thought, and you’ll see that the DPI investigators are very good at their job.”
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The general paused to drink some water. Héctor Gustavo Sánchez is also a writer, and he is a good storyteller. And the cases he has shared with me for this section of Diario EL HERALDO he has told me with the passion that dominates the born writer when he delves deeper and deeper into history. After putting the plastic bottle aside, he added:
“The coroner found an interesting detail, and that is that the woman was wearing a dental bridge on the upper right side… It is a fixed prosthesis for three teeth… First premolar, second premolar and first molar. And it was a good job, made of porcelain. With that, the agents had enough elements to begin the investigation of the crime, and, of course, to solve it.”
+Selection of Great Crimes: The power of a lie (part I)
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In the DPI
“Sir,” the officer in charge of the case told the missing girl’s parents, “we would like to know some special information about your daughter. Something particular that will help us identify her.”
“I don’t understand you very well,” said the father.
“Her daughter, Lucia, disappeared yesterday, after leaving work. Up to this hour, nothing has been known about her. Her phone is off, and she did not go to work today… And we want to find her…”
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“Please…”.
“What kind of phone does your daughter have?” the officer asked, as if he had no time to waste, and as if he was beginning to direct the questioning toward the remains of the woman they had found burning.
“A new iPhone, sir.”
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“¿Un iPhone?”.
“Yeah”.
“Okay… Give me the number…”
“I already gave it to his partner…”
“Give it to me, please.”
The agent wrote on his notepad, stood up, and said, “Wait a moment, please.”
He went to another office, gave him the page on which he had written the number, and said to a simple-looking boy:
“Help me locate this phone. It’s an iPhone, and the GPS has to be on. And I want it now.”
When he returned to Lucia’s parents, he added, as if he had not been interrupted:
“Tell me something, sir…”
The man looked at him with fear painted on his face.
“Does your daughter wear dentures? Do you use a…?”.
The man interrupted him.
+Big Crimes: He who does it pays for it
“Yes!” he said. “He has a bridge, a fixed prosthesis on his right side… There are three teeth… He once fell off a motorbike…”
“Do you know who your daughter’s dentist is?”
“Yes, of course. I have the number here…”
“We are from the DPI, doctor, and we are conducting a special investigation… And we need your help… Can we send you some information, please?”
“Of course… But what is it about?”
“You’ll find out soon enough…”
Half an hour later, three officers were at the dentist’s office.
“We need you to tell us if you recognize this work,” they told him, showing him some photographs… “And if you can go to the morgue to recognize it.”
“There is no need to go to the morgue,” the doctor replied. “I have this girl’s file here, her name is Lucia. I remember her very well because she had a motorcycle accident…”
“Are you sure, doctor?”
“Compare for yourselves, although in your photos it looks dirty. It is a fixed prosthesis for the first and second premolars, and the first molar.”
“Excellent, doctor… Let me make a call.”
It didn’t take long for them to respond.
“It’s the girl Lucia,” said the agent. “Ask our friend to check the last calls from the girl’s number…”
“We have already located the phone… We are on our way there right now.”
Meanwhile, the missing girl’s parents watched everything without understanding anything.
“Sir,” said the officer in charge of the case, looking him straight in the eye, “I am very sorry to tell you that this morning we found the burnt remains of a woman’s body; and that woman was wearing a fixed prosthesis with three teeth… The dentist, whom you know, has just confirmed that this prosthesis is the one he made for your daughter… I am very sorry…” The mother fainted; the man turned white.
“They… killed her…” he said. “We are investigating, and we are going to find the killer… But, it would be good if we wait to confirm some more details.”
One hour later
At around two in the afternoon, the officer received another call. His colleagues had just found a woman’s clothing at the location indicated by the phone’s GPS.
Black pants, Lycra, a red flowered silk shirt, black leather tennis shoes with white platforms, rings, a chain, a watch with black straps, black bloomers and a white bra.
There was also a thin black synthetic leather belt and a small wallet containing a purse with Lucia’s ID card, a card from the institution where she worked, a debit card and a credit card, small photos, cosmetics, a toothbrush and a hairbrush. When they were taken to the DPI, the agent put them in front of Lucia’s parents.
“Do you recognize these things?” he said. “And this phone?”
“They are from Lucia…”
General Sanchez sighed.
“There was nothing else to say,” she exclaimed. “It was Lucia… And the officers were already on the trail of the murderer. The phone, which was intact, like the girl’s other things, could not be unlocked, but the fingerprint technicians found several fingerprints on it. Two were from a man.”
The officer smiled when he was called in for fingerprinting. “Two of the fingerprints belong to a man named Ruben…” It was six in the evening when the officer asked the parents:
“Do you know this man?”
“Yes… He is the owner of a workshop, near the house…”
“It was time to put Ruben in the case!” exclaimed the minister. “But it must not be done hastily. The agents had to give the prosecutor all the evidence, without missing a single one.”
“Let’s call 911. We have a description of Ruben’s truck,” the officer said.
They searched the archives from the previous day. They started with the cameras near the Presidential House, and at around five in the afternoon they found the van stopping at the exit of the Government Civic Center, where Lucía got in.
Then, they followed the van along Centroamérica Boulevard, continued through Miraflores, entered the Vía Rapida, then the peripheral ring road, continued along Fuerza Aérea, went up to Lomas de Toncontín, went down to the overpass in the América neighborhood, and returned through the Popeye’s restaurant.
He stopped at the motel on his right, but there was a long line to get in, and he continued on to Lomas de Toncontín. Then, he continued along the southern highway.
At one of the motels in that area, the agents found the security video in which the van was seen entering. But there was something else: the person in charge of collecting the money recognized Rubén.
“I think we have enough with this to request an arrest warrant,” said the prosecutor. “We have the killer.”
+Selection of Great Crimes: The mystery of the Santa Teresa estate
Final note
Rubén is married and twenty years older than Lucía. She was pregnant, and she demanded that Rubén keep his promise of starting a family with her.
They argued, she got angry, threatened him, and he went for a knife that he always carried with him. Without thinking, he attacked her.
Then he realized what he had done. He used a towel to stop the blood from her neck, wrapped her in a sheet, cleaned up the blood that had fallen on the floor, and picked up all of the girl’s things.
He took her further along the southern highway and in a lonely place he burned the body. He used the gasoline that was in the tank of his car and the one he had filled that morning.
“That man thought he could make fun of the police,” General Sánchez told me, “and of justice… And that’s fine… But he was never going to make fun of God…”
