Shocked and in tears, relatives on Friday laid to rest two women and a girl whose live-streamed torture and murder caused an outcry in Argentina, where activists are planning a weekend protest against femicide.
The bodies of Morena Verdi and Brenda Del Castillo, cousins aged 20, and 15-year-old Lara Gutierrez were found buried Wednesday in the yard of a house in a southern suburb of Buenos Aires, five days after they went missing.
The crime, which investigators have tied to narco activity, was perpetrated live on Instagram and watched by 45 members of a private account, officials said.
Investigators said the victims, thinking they were going to a party, were lured into a van last Friday night, allegedly as part of a plan to “punish” them for violating a gang code, and as a warning to others.
Police discovered the Instagram broadcast after one of four detainees — two men and two women — revealed it under questioning, according to Javier Alonso, security minister for Buenos Aires province.
In the footage, a gang leader is heard saying: “This is what happens to those who steal drugs from me.”
Argentine media are reporting the torturers cut off fingers, pulled out nails, beat and suffocated the victims.
On Friday, dozens of people accompanied a mourning procession to a cemetery outside the capital where a private burial for Verdi and Del Castillo was held.
Gutierrez was laid to rest in a different location.
“I went to where the two little coffins were, side by side, and there I was able to cry more, and I promised them that I would find out who did this, because they destroyed the bodies, Antonio Del Castillo, grandfather of Brenda and Morena, told AFP.
“Holding a wake for a family member with the coffin closed is very painful for me, very painful,” he added.
“They were with the wrong people at the wrong time, and that’s all. They had nothing to do with it,” Federico Celedon, Morena and Brenda’s cousin, told AFP.
He said that Brenda had a one-year-old son who will now be cared for by his grandparents.
Rights groups have called for demonstrations around the country Saturday under the banner: “There are no good or bad victims, only femicides,” in an apparent allusion to the victims’ reported involvement in sex work.
Maria Eugenia Luduena, director of the Presentes rights NGO, told AFP the victims were youngsters with few options, coming as they did from a poor background.
“We are talking about three very young women, one of them 15 years old, who, according to various reports, were summoned to an event related to sex work,” Luduena said.
“The lack of work and the economic crisis we live in today affects women more,” allowing criminal networks to take advantage of them, she said.
A lawyer for the youngest victim’s family, Gonzalo Fuenzalida, said they had received death threats and he will seek police protection.
Dozens of political, cultural and social leaders have spoken out against the crime and called for an end to gender-based violence.
A man nicknamed “Little J” or “Julito,” believed to be the head of the gang behind the murders, is on the run.
