Death of Rafael Orozco: how it was and responsible – Barranquilla – Colombia

On the night of Thursday June 11, 1992, the Vallenato singer Rafael José Orozco Maestre was shot by a hit man who came to his home in the north of Barranquilla. The artist received eight bullet wounds.

The ballistics report in the case noted that the criminal fired at a distance of two to three meters, then would approach to finish him off. One of the shots against Orozco was in the face, even hitting his characteristic mole.

Later, the bandit turned the dying body of the singer with his foot and gave him more shots in the back and in the buttocks.

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At the time of the crime, between 9:40 and 9:50 at night, according to the file, Orozco was in dialogue with Alonso Ariza and Francisco Manuel Corena, musicians who had arrived at his house minutes before the murder.

Ariza and Corena arrived at that home, located at 96A Street with Carrera 47, with the assumption that the leader of the Binomio de Oro would provide them with congas for the Diomedes Díaz group.

(Of interest: They looted a truck with donations for children on the road to Tasajera)

This request, Diaz said at the time, was never an order from him, but it was proven that it was from another member of the group.

For several years, Ariza and Corena were the main witnesses and also suspects as accomplices to the homicide. It was considered at the time that they fulfilled the mission of removing the singer from his residence to facilitate the action of the murderer.

However, these subjects mysteriously disappeared just six months later and are believed to be dead. Their relatives have said that they were forcibly taken away in a van, since then they have not heard from them.

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In addition, an alleged witness accused some subjects who were later disproved as responsible.

Also, the architect Jorge Navarro Insignares, father of María Angélica Navarro, Orozco’s lover, began to be named within the investigations.

In fact, Jorge Navarro was in prison for several months accused of the crime of concealment in the modality of favoring, because – according to the prosecutor in the case – he had knowledge of the criminal plan against Orozco and did not warn or denounce the mastermind.

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At the time, Navarro said that on the afternoon of the day that Orozco was murdered, he was looking for his daughter not because he knew of the plan against the singer, but because María Angélica had been summoned by her husband to travel to London.

It was even raised that Navarro would have reasons to kill Orozco as a jealous father, given that the singer had relationships with his daughter.

One of the key clues to solving the case was the discovery of a Heckler & Koch pistol, caliber 7.65 of German manufacture, which was the weapon with which Orozco was killed.

That weapon was found as the property of José Reynaldo Fiallo Jácome or Jorge Alberto Méndez, a drug trafficker who used both identities and his alias Nano.

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This pistol was found next to his lifeless body on November 18, 1992 in a restaurant via Las Palmas, in Medellín. Just four months after Orozco’s murder.

Next to the body of the Nano Fiallo was that of Sergio González Torres, alias Tato, who worked as his bodyguard.

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Before his crime, the Prosecutor’s Office waited for Fiallo to be treated in the investigation, since it was considered that it was possibly related to Orozco’s death; however, this man never appeared to give his version and was later found dead.

The investigating body had discovered that Fiallo and Orozco had a love dispute over María Angélica Navarro, Jorge Navarro’s daughter.

However, the resolution of the case of Rafael Orozco’s death took six years. After a long investigative process, in which there were at least eight deaths of witnesses and investigators, disappearances and lies that made the resolution difficult, the fourth criminal judge of the Barranquilla circuit in August 1998 made judicial decisions.

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Nano Fiallo, as the intellectual author, and Sergio González, alias Tato, were found responsible for the crime as the material author; that is, the hit man who shot Orozco on multiple occasions.

According to court records, the motive was passionate, taking into account that Fiallo had long sought to win the affections of María Angélica Navarro, who ended up having an affair with Rafael Orozco.

(Further: They looted a truck with donations for children on the road to Tasajera)

No criminal action was taken against Fiallo and González, since it was proven in the record that they were murdered on November 18, 1992 outside the Casa Vieja restaurant in Medellín. Fiallo was buried in Cartagena, his hometown.

As for Ariza, Corena and Navarro, the Criminal Chamber of the Barranquilla Superior Court acquitted them of responsibility in the crime of Orozco, who died at 38 years of age.

Corena and Ariza were investigated as alleged accomplices, and Navarro as a cover-up in the favoring modality, but the magistrates considered that the three were outside the criminal plot against the artist.

NATION

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