Three men have been jailed for life for strangling a 22-year-old woman to death and burying her naked body under the floor in the home of one of the alleged killers.
Araceli Fulles was found covered in agricultural lime under a floor at a property owned by one of the suspects in the area of Jose Leon Suarez in the Greater Buenos Aires region in Argentina on 27th April 2017.
Her family last heard from her at around 7am on 2nd April and she remained missing for 25 days until a police team with sniffer dogs found her body under the rubble.
Her naked body was covered with lime under a subfloor, some 35 centimetres deep, in the home of Dario Badaracco, who was one of the suspects in the case.
The autopsy determined that she died of mechanical asphyxiation caused by strangulation with a plastic tie.
The crime took place after she reportedly went out to meet a group of people at a party the suspects attended.
Four years and seven months after the femicide, the Oral Criminal Court No. 3 of San Martin sentenced three men to life for the young woman’s death, named as Carlos Casalz, Marcelo Escobedo and Hugo Cabanas.
Meanwhile, Hernan Rodrigo Badaracco, Carlos Antonio Ibarra, Daniel Alaniz and the brothers Jonathan and Emanuel Avalos were all acquitted during the proceedings.
Araceli’s mother Monica Ferreyra told local media: “It was a very painful fight because it exhausts you. And you have to draw strength from wherever you can so she can rest in peace and this can never happen again.”
The victim’s father Ricardo Fulles said he felt “joy” at having uncovered some “half truths”, adding that he is “beginning to believe in the Judiciary”.
Suspect Dario Badaracco, brother of defendant Hernan Rodrigo, was also arrested for the woman’s murder but died on 13th April 2019 after being attacked and burned with boiling water by inmates at Sierra Chica prison.
The trial, involving eight men accused of ‘homicide aggravated by femicide’, lasted 53 days and involved over 300 witnesses who testified in 14 hearings.
Local media did not report on a motive for the woman’s killing.
