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The prosecutor Viviana Ramos requested this Monday, before the Oral Criminal Court (TOC) 2 of San Nicolás, the sentence of life imprisonment for Roberto Ramón Romero, 46 years old, the man accused of murdering his partner, María Esperanza Fernández, with eight hammer blows, 43 years old, on May 3, 2020 in the Buenos Aires city of San Pedro, within the framework of the oral trial that began last Thursday. The verdict will be known on March 3.
In her argument before the court made up of María Elena Baquedano, María Belén Ocariz and Alejandro Gabriel López, prosecutor Viviana Ramos considered Roberto Ramón Romero the author of a “homicide triply aggravated by the relationship of coexistence, by cruelty and by mediating gender violence”, and asked for him the sentence to life imprisonment.
For its part, the defense requested that the accused be declared incompetent appealing to the fact that, at the time of committing the act, Romero had a transitory mental disorder that prevented him from understanding the magnitude of his acts.
After the arguments, Romero did not use his “last words”, so the Court went to an intermediate room until next Thursday, March 3 at 12, when it will announce its verdict.
Among the witnesses who testified during the first day of debate were two of the victim’s daughters, her maternal grandmother, her partner, experts, police officers and doctors.
According to judicial spokespersons, when one of the daughters went on to testify, she looked at the accused and said: “You know very well what you did” and he replied between tears: “Yes, I know what I did”, and bowed his head looking to the ground.
femicide
Roberto Ramón Romero is accused of murdering María Esperanza Fernández with eight blows to the head while she slept. the early hours of Sunday, May 3, 2020, in the house where they lived together for 15 years, located at 3000 San Lorenzo Street, in the El Amanecer neighborhood of the Buenos Aires town of San Pedro.
At the time of the crime, none of Fernández’s five children was at home. One of her daughters, who was 18 years old at the time, had arranged to meet her mother that Sunday at noon, but since she did not arrive, she went to look for her at the home she shared with Romero.
The victim’s daughter arrived at the house and realized that the door was closed, so she had to enter through a window. There she found her mother already deceased, with her face covered with pillows and her body wrapped in a blanket, on the bed in the room.
The results of the autopsy determined that Fernández’s death was caused by polytrauma and internal bleeding caused by eight blows to the skull received from a blunt object, information compatible with the mason’s hammer, six centimeters in diameter, found bloodied at the scene. the fact. Likewise, the reports indicated that the attack would have taken place between eight and nine hours before the discovery of the body.
In addition, it was found that the woman was in a “state of defenselessness”, so it is presumed that the femicide pounced on her while she was sleeping, since “she did not present injuries from a previous fight,” according to statements by prosecutor Ramos.
He was a fugitive
Some witnesses might see Romero fleeing the scene of the crime, around 7 am that Sunday, on his victim’s bicycle. Before escaping, the man had left a note, apparently written by him, in which he reported an alleged emotional bond that he had with the eldest of his partner’s daughters, sources from the investigation indicated.
Romero remained a fugitive for six days until he was arrested on May 9, 2020, at the house of his uncle, located in the 291 Viviendas neighborhood. The relative of the main suspect called 911 to report that his nephew went looking for him, following he had been hiding in a rural area near where he worked.
During the search for Romero, multiple resources were available: raking in different areas of San Pedro, dogs trained to detect odorous traces and, at the request of Justice, the Buenos Aires Ministry of Security released photographs of the accused and asked for the collaboration of citizens to locate him. .
He will have to face another trial in a sexual abuse case
Romero is charged in a parallel case for the crime of sexual abuse committed, for 13 years, once morest the victim’s eldest daughter and will soon face trial. The young woman, who was then 23 years old, had made the complaint during the days in which the defendant for the femicide remained a fugitive.
Romero tried to involve the victim’s eldest daughter in the crime by leaving a letter, before escaping, in which he claimed to have a consensual relationship with her. In addition, the defendant had sent an audio to her relatives in which he attributed to the young woman the role of her accomplice. As the investigation progressed, that circumstance was ruled out.
Sources of the investigation indicated that Romero was opposed to the relationship that her stepdaughter had with her boyfriend and she “began to become aware that the bond she had with her stepfather was abusive, that she had been perverted, so she tried to get away.”
In this sense, the Prosecutor’s Office pointed out that the trigger for the femicide would have been “revenge” once morest the young woman since, in addition, days before the crime, Romero had learned that she and her relatives were going to meet to define the complaint that was going to be filed. to do once morest him.
Report: Karla Gongora
