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On Friday, September 2, 2016, at 10 p.m., Brenda, the eldest daughter of Sandra Yesenia Bernal Díaz, arrived at the Police Station of the Socorro municipality, Santander, to report the disappearance of her mother.
Sandra left her house at 10 in the morning on that Friday, with the excuse of attending a prenatal checkup, since she was about to give birth to her sixth daughter, but he was actually going to meet a woman calling herself Mary, whom he had met at the hospital when she was just beginning her pregnancy.
That same Friday night, a woman with a coastal accent named Esilda María Díaz came to a house located on the main road of the municipality owned by Patricia *, where they rent rooms and also operate a store.
Esilda came to ask for a lodging with a newborn baby in her arms, arguing that she had recently given birth on a farm in the rural area of Guapotá, Santander, and that she had fought with her partner so she had no place to sleep that night since he was very aggressive.
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“It breaks my soul to see a newborn baby like this, she told me to let her stay while she was looking for where to go, so I told her to lie down on a mat that she had in an empty room “said Patricia, who also bought diapers and milk for the baby.
The baby was constantly crying, so she insisted that Esilda take the child to be examined by a doctor at the Manuela Beltrán Regional Hospital.
“I told her it was because the girl had to register and see that she was fine after that delivery but she refused,” remember.
In the store the rumor of the arrival of the baby spread and a policeman who went to eat there found out and told another uniformed man.
The grave where the remains of Sandra Bernal are in the Socorro cemetery.
Later that night, there was a knock on the door of the house. Patricia thought it could be Elsida’s partner so she did not open it, but after insisting she noticed that it was Brenda, Sandra’s daughter who was accompanied by a policeman to check if the woman who was there was her mother.
Patricia let her into the room and Brenda identified Elsida as Mary, the woman who was supposedly a friend of her mother and with whom she went to see before she disappeared.
“Are you a friend of my mother?” He said. She replied that she was, but that she had not heard from her since they met in the morning for a talk at the hospital.
Elsida kissed Brenda on the forehead and said, “Don’t worry, your mom must be fine and she’s going to show up soon.”
Brenda left without suspecting anything about the woman’s baby, as she had met her at the hospital in a course for pregnant women.
Before they left, Patricia told the patrol car to insist that the woman take the baby to the clinic since she would not stop crying.
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“I told her that I was worried that something would happen to the girl because she had no life record or anything and then I would get into some trouble,” says Patricia.
Finally, Elsida agreed to go to the Manuel Beltrán Regional Hospital, after she was practically forced between the patrol car and Patricia.
Once at the scene, the doctor checked the baby and determined that everything was fine, however, They would not let her go until the gynecologist, who took his shift the next morning, could see her.
Subintendent Luis José Pérez Vega, investigator of the Sijín, who was in charge of the case.
The find
The next day, the concern in the family for Sandra was greater. His whereabouts were a mystery. She was already 22 hours missing.
At 8 in the morning of that Saturday, September 3, Isidro Hernández, Sandra’s husband, and Salomón Sáenz, the missing person’s uncle, went to the Socorro Police Station and were attended by Deputy Mayor Luis José Pérez Vega, investigator of the Sijín.
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At the station, the relatives confessed to the police officer that Sandra went to see that woman, whom they knew as Mary, because she asked him to help her unearth a cove worth 75 million pesos that the husband of an alleged husband had left her. robbery that he would have committed in Bogotá.
Sandra, who had taken the risk for her financial needs, before leaving confessed to her uncle what the appointment was about and told him that they were going to the Luchaderos village, about five minutes from the main Socorro park.
“I went to the site on Friday around noon and I saw them both opening some holes in the ground, then I went around 5 in the afternoon and there was no one there”Solomon told the policeman.
The account made the assistant superintendent react immediately.
The authorities found Sandra’s body buried on the outskirts of town.
“When he told us this, we immediately went to the place he indicated, there we found multiple holes that had been dug but one was larger than the others and we required the support of a shovel because the earth was trampled,” says researcher Pérez.
Authorities excavated about 10 inches from the surface and found a body.
They cordoned off the place and it was confirmed that it was Sandra’s body. They began the inspection of the corpse and the collection of the material evidence. What the authorities feared happened, Sandra had dug her own grave.
In the place they found a styrofoam, a bottle of soda and a document with a referral to gynecology in the name of Sandra Yesenia Beltrán.
We use the cyanoacrylate gun and physical reagents to obtain fingerprints and we achieve the development of a large fingerprint fragment
“We used the cyanoacrylate gun and physical reagents to be able to obtain fingerprints and we were able to reveal a large fingerprint fragment that did not meet the characteristics for a possible comparison but that due to its size indicated that it belonged to a male person, in other words, they had not been alone ”, indicates the Sijín researcher.
Sandra’s body had lacerations and bruises on the head, but what most impressed the researchers was the abdominal cut with organ exposure and a severed umbilical cord, evidencing that her baby had been removed.
The culprits
Subintendent Pérez immediately related this crime to the woman who remained in the hospital with her newborn baby because the patrolman who brought Elsida María hospital reported the news that he was treating without imagining that there was a crime behind it.
Pérez notified other units to go to the scene and demand an immediate assessment by the obstetrician gynecologist.
After the examinations, the doctors determined that it was not possible that Elsida had given birth less than 24 hours ago as she claimed.
“With this information from the specialist, we proceeded to capture her for Sandra’s kidnapping”, says researcher Pérez.
Being trapped, Elsida made a confession that would change the course of things.
“She told us that she had not killed Sandra, that the baby was given to her by Juan Carlos Vega, known as ‘Sindy’, a man characterized by drug use and theft”, says the researcher.
Elsida asked for a lawyer because she said she wanted to give a testimony, in the middle of this diligence she reported that she had met Sandra at hospital controls and that she planned to extract the baby, for which she hired ‘Sindy’ for 500,000 pesos.
“Once at the scene she says that she regrets doing it, but that ‘Sindy’ had already applied a medicine to put her to sleep, she took a stone and hit her twice in the face and then she did a cesarean section. But the tests showed that the medicine did not put her to sleep and she felt everything they did to her, ”emphasizes Pérez.
Esilda María Díaz and Juan Carlos Vega were convicted of this crime.
Once they obtained this testimony, the investigators began to sweep the security cameras of the surrounding places to attach more evidence.
In one of the videos of September 2, a taxi is seen going down around noon towards the exit that leads to the Luchaderos village, where they found Sandra’s body and after two hours, alias Sindy is observed going up on foot from this place He was on a crutch as he had a broken foot.
With this probative material, the Court of Simacota issued an arrest warrant against Juan Carlos Vega for the crime of homicide that became effective on Sunday, September 3 at 7:30 at night.
But it was a trail of blood that ended up blaming Juan Carlos for Sandra’s murder, according to Subintendent Pérez.
“‘Sindy’ denied that she had committed the murder but we did a verification of the clothing, including the crutch, and this had a blood trail that matched Sandra’s”, added.
The place where Sandra Bernal was buried by her murderers.
Elsida finally confessed that she did this because she did not want to lose her boyfriend, a young man from the town who wanted to have children and she could no longer, because of what she had in mind, to pass off Sandra’s baby as hers to retain her partner.
After a preliminary agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office, Elsida María Díaz was sentenced to 35 years in prison in the Chimitá prison, in Girón, and Juan Carlos Vega is serving a 25-year sentence in the Palogordo medium-security prison in Girón.
Sandra’s body is in the cemetery next to the municipality’s Battalion and her daughter is in good health, lives with a relative and will be three years old in September.* Name changed by request of the source
Read all the Solved Crimes stories
MARÍA ALEJANDRA RODRÍGUEZ CASTELLANOS
EL TIEMPO correspondent
BUCARAMANGA
On twitter: @MariasRodriguez
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