In La Plata, these hours are characterized by great sensitivity, because a terrible crime has been added to the drama of insecurity. It is the story of psychiatrist Virginia Franco, for whom answers are still waiting.
According to what investigators told the newspaper, one of the leads they are following is a robbery that for some reason ended with the professional being beaten and dismembered.
It is known that multiple procedures are being carried out due to this fact, although so far there seems to be more doubts than certainties (see separate).
Virginia Franco, the psychiatrist whose throat was cut at City Bell. His death awaits answers. No detainer/web
These are the same feelings that also occurred in two other murders in the city, with great media impact. It is these violent deaths of Betty Martinez and Nelly Dozo that are remembered in these chronicles.
Beatriz Martinez was a distinguished woman, with a guarded presence and a keen awareness of her appearance. Her biggest concern was stopping the progression of years: although she was sixty years old, she confirmed that she was just over forty-five. She was separated and a mother of two daughters, and maintained a relationship with a famous extremist MP for several years. However, in the months before her death, she was seen in the company of a young man almost three times her age whom she introduced as her partner.
Betty – as everyone called her – lived alone in an elegant country house on Gunnett Bell.
On the afternoon of January 25, 1999, one of her daughters came to visit her with her husband. At that time, they encountered a scene that would shake the city of La Plata, and this scene, even today, is still surrounded by questions.
Two nights ago, on January 23, Betty called a local restaurant to order pizza and appetizers. The delivery man completed the delivery without noticing anything out of the ordinary. But inside the house, as it would later be reconstructed, there were at least two other men.
One of them, while having sex with the woman, tied her with a piece of cloth torn from a curtain. The victim was naked and face down when the attacker grabbed her head by her hair to lift her up. Then he carried out the killing: he cut her throat with a deep cut, from left to right, with the blade.
Then the investigators arrived at Ariel Reynaldo Palacios, since that same morning, according to what he told his girlfriend, he had been walking with her in a white Chevrolet Corsa, which he said one of his friends had lent him. In fact, it was Betty’s car that was already dead at the time.
On January 25, 1999, Betty Martinez was cut off during sex. He was 60 years old / Web
The investigation progressed amid contradictions and delays, until orders were issued to search the homes of Palacios and his girlfriend. There they found chains, rings and other items stolen from Martinez’s home. Although Rollo initially confessed to the police – a statement that had no judicial validity – he later retracted before the judge.
Although everything seemed to be pointing towards him, new doubts arose. The cut on the neck suggests that the killer was acting from behind with his right hand, while Palacios was skilled at boxing with his left hand. Moreover, they discovered two different genetic profiles in the victim’s body, neither of which matched the defendant’s genes.
However, Palacios went to trial. After several sessions, the court considered him a partner in authoring the crime, and not a direct perpetrator of it. DNA analyzes indicate that whoever cut her throat did so while having sex with her. The seminal remains are not consistent with Palacios.
The case is not fully solved, with new suspects and incomplete leads. He has been trapped in a state of impunity, despite the Petit family’s persistent claims. The story will add another chapter: the change in qualifications and the abolition of the “2 × 1 law” benefited Palacios, who quickly regained his freedom. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison, and served only 5 years.
After his passing, a wave of violent crimes put him back in the news.
Soon after, between 2005 and 2006, complaints of robberies and rapes began to multiply at City Bell. The assailant was described as a strong man riding a gray bicycle who was in the habit of taking the victim’s cell phone and making a call while committing the assault.
In December 2003, psychologist Nelly Dozo was beaten and hanged with a belt. It happened in 59 between 23 and 24/Web
Reynaldo Palacios then received a new sentence, this time 44 years. The ruling was from the Fourth Oral Criminal Court, which charged him with the crimes of “aggravated sexual assault, aggravated coercion, unlawful deprivation of liberty, and robbery.”
Going back further, the ex-husband of psychiatrist Nelly Dozo (51 years old) was sentenced to life imprisonment as the instigator of her brutal crime in 2003 in House 59 between the ages of 23 and 24. Justice stated that he ordered the act to be committed to collect the life insurance – amounting to P200,000 – that the woman owned. This is Jerko Zlatar Ali (69 years old), who died shortly after the ruling due to illness.
It was proven during the trial that the woman received two blows to the head with an iron used to identify animals, and once the victim lost consciousness, she was hung with a belt, which led to her death by suffocation. Maximiliano Gaston Romano, Zlatar Alli’s caretaker, was convicted as the perpetrator and sentenced to 18 years in prison.