The life of Laura Moreno, Jessy Quintero and Carlos Cárdenas 10 years after the death of Luis Andrés Colmenares

The tragic death of the student of the University of the Andes Luis Andrés Colmenares became one of the most mediatic court cases in Colombia. It all happened on the night of October 31, 2010 when a group of young university students went out to party at a renowned bar located very close to the Virrey park where Colmenares died..

While Luis Andrés’ family insists that the student of Economics and Industrial Engineering was murdered, the Colombian justice has maintained that it was all an accident, and those involved in the case: Laura Moreno, Jessy Quintero and Carlos Cárdenas were acquitted.

In the case of Laura Moreno and Jessi Quintero, on February 20, 2017, the Judge 11 of knowledge of Bogotá absolved them of all responsibility for the death of Colmenares. Moreno was investigated for improper co-authorship of a homicide, while Quintero, for false testimony and cover-up of murder.

While Carlos Cárdenas was acquitted in June 2014, when the judge handling his case assured that insufficient evidence was found to prove Cárdenas’ responsibility in the events: “it was not proven that his death was a homicide.”

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Ten years later, the three involved try to rebuild their lives by dragging what they experienced after Colmenares’ death.

Laura Moreno got married in 2019 and seeks to end her professional career

Laura Moreno was the sentimental partner of Colmenares and one of the first involved in this controversial judicial episode. In an interview with Semana Magazine in 2019, he pointed out, about what happened after Luis Andrés’ death:

“I lost someone special, a friend, a very beautiful person. That’s where it all started, my life was in a balance between being in the prosecution and being in university. Then I received the indictment and the media pressure and the misrepresentation of many things by the media began. I was no longer a simple young woman in the world, but was already a well-known, marked person. Then I had a house for jail, they were 13 very difficult months, a really complicated time “.

In 2019, it was known that she married an Ecuadorian in Villa de Leyva, Boyacá. In fact, the photos of his wedding went viral on social networks and of course he received many offensive comments.

Jessy Quintero preferred to go to Spain

After long years accused and identified as an accessory to the alleged murder, Jessy Quintero resumed her life and finished her career as a Mechanical Engineer at the Universidad de los Andes.

She tried to live in a normal way in Bogotá but it was not possible, where she went she was recognized and insulted. According to the La2Orillas portal, Jessy stopped taking her dog to the park and once when she was with her family in a restaurant, they recognized her and told her that she was a murderer.

That situation led her to make a difficult decision. In 2019 he packed suitcases and left Colombia to settle in Spain, where she is not recognized and she can lead a calmer life.

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Quintero was the best friend of Luis Andrés, in fact his family and Colmenares’s were very close, but after the young man’s death everything changed and they never spoke again.

On the night of October 31, 2010, when Colmenares died, a photograph of Jessy dancing with him was recorded.

Carlos Cárdenas could not finish his career

In 2012, the name of Carlos Cárdenas, who was Laura Moreno’s boyfriend, made headlines in the main media in Colombia. In June of that year, he was captured as the main person responsible for the death of Luis Andrés Colmenares.

This decision came after José Wílmer Ayola, an alleged witness, said he saw Cárdenas giving instructions to beat Colmenares in El Virrey park, north of Bogotá, on Halloween night in 2010.

He spent several months in prison, but in 2014 he was acquitted and little is known about him since. According to Revista Semana, he could not finish university and works very far from public opinion.

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To that same medium, his lawyer Mario Iguarán, told in 2017 that “his life was spoiled. Carlos is not the young man with the surnames they said he has, that he is a relative of the minister, that of the Cardenas ”.

“I know in the case of Carlos Cárdenas, whom I defended as a lawyer, that his family is totally stigmatized and that day by day they live with a risk to their moral and physical integrity, perhaps for the rest of their lives”Iguarán pointed out in Semana.