Photo: Eliana Obregon
An 18-year-old boy who disappeared a week ago with a friend in Florencio Varela’s party was found semi-calcined and with signs of having died from mechanical suffocation, on the side of a highway under construction, in the Buenos Aires town of Guernica, they reported. this Friday police and judicial sources.
This is Lautaro Morello (18), who was wanted since last Fridaywhen he came out with Lucas Escalante (25), still missing, to celebrate the victory of the Argentine National Team against the Netherlands in the quarterfinals of the World Cup in Qatar.
After confirming the identity of the victim, around 1:45 p.m., some incidents occurred in front of the boy’s house in Florencio Varelawhere family, friends and neighbors were.
Upon receiving the news, from the front patio of the house a young man threw rubble towards the journalists stationed there, while others present yelled and insulted them.
Photo: Eliana Obregon
“We ask that the Gendarmerie and the Federal Police act so that it is known who had Lautaro and who dared to touch him. We can no longer do anything, there is nothing to do or say, we are never going to recover from this, they took us away a piece of heart to each one,” Miriam, the victim’s grandmother, told A24 this afternoon, who clarified that they are still waiting to be notified of the autopsy report.
The woman was next to one of Lautaro’s sisters who said: “Since they waited so long to look for him that now at least they get up to find out who was guilty. They killed him while he was alive, there is a guilty person who appears because we are not going to rest, this is not going to end like this.”
The discovery occurred around 9:30 p.m. this Thursday when the son of a neighbor who had gone hunting with some greyhound dogs saw the body on the side of the “Buen Ayre” highway under construction, in Guernica, President Perón’s district.
Police sources told Télam that the body was lying face down, “semi-calcined and in an advanced state of decomposition.”
Photo: Eliana Obregon
In the same place, a black Vans shoe appeared, similar to the one Morello wore, so from the beginning the investigations hypothesized that it was him. In turn, the researchers also found similarities in a piercing and other clothing.
After the rigorous expert reports at the place of discovery, the body was taken to the La Plata Judicial Morgue where the forensic doctors who performed the autopsy determined that death was caused by “mechanical asphyxia” and that the date of death was between 7 and 15 days. A judicial source confirmed to Télam that in the afternoon the body was recognized as that of Morello in the same morgue.
Due to the finding, the prosecutor Álvaro Garganta intervened, who is in charge of the Functional Instruction Unit (UFI) 2 of President Perón. It is the same prosecutor who is also investigating the discovery, last Sunday also in Guernica, of two other completely charred corpses in the trunk of a truck and which are now believed to belong to two other missing persons, the mechanics Silvio David Vitullo (40) and Diego Fabián Segura (30).
Photo: Eliana Obregon
This Thursday, within the framework of the case for the disappearance of Lucas and Lautaro, the prosecutor in the case, Mariana Dongiovanni, from Florencio Varela’s Functional Instruction Unit (UFI) 2, carried out a search of the house of a major commissioner of the Buenos Aires police, in the La Capilla de Florencio Varela neighborhood.
According to the sources consulted, it is a son of that commissioner – who is a cadet of the force – and a cousin who are under investigation for a conflict they could have with Lucas.
In that sense, A witness declared that the night of the disappearance, the youths asked for the commissioner’s house and now it is being investigated whether the blue BMW in which the boys were traveling was parked in front of that police chief’s house.
The youngsters were last seen last Friday, December 9, in the town of Bosques, Florencio Varela’s game, when Escalante went to look for Morello in his blue BMW to go out to celebrate the triumph of the Argentine National Team.
The operation involved different areas of the local administration, such as the Community Guard, Civil Defense, Monitoring Center, as well as members of the Varela Station, Firefighters, the dog division plus the Buenos Aires Police helicopter together with delegations from Lanús, Quilmes and Berazategui
In addition, the investigators indicated that a last contact with them could be established at 10:30 p.m. that night.
At that time, Morello was wearing an Argentine National Team shirt, light blue Mom brand jeans and black Vans brand shoes.
The next day, Saturday, December 10, the incinerated BMW was found on the side of Route 6, in the Abasto area of La Plata, but there were no traces of the young people.
While in the last few hours a series of raking tasks were carried out in the vicinity of Route 53, the place where they found the vehicle in which the boys were circulating at the time of their disappearance.
The operation involved different areas of the local administration, such as the Community Guard, Civil Defense, Monitoring Center, as well as members of the Varela Station, Firefighters, the dog division plus the Buenos Aires Police helicopter together with delegations from Lanús, Quilmes and Berazategui.
