Sunday April 30, 2023 | 12:00 p.m.
The cinema is prodigal with scenes where the defendant breaks down and confesses his crime, but in real life this sequence is not common and it rarely happens that the accused admits his guilt. Fiction allows certain concessions that clarify the plot.
On the other hand, reality is always more complex, no matter how much the defendant confesses, as was reflected in the oral trial for the murder of David Anselmo “Napy” Ferreyra (20), stabbed to death on the night of May 1, 2021. at Kilometer 28 of Campo Viera.
“I realize that I hurt him, but it was never with the intention of killing him. It was out of fright, because he comes out and hits my partner with the saw, who starts running, but I stay there; Then I stab him out of nowhere and run away, also with the knife, which I later hid in the garden of my house”, declared Pablo Daniel Espíndola (21) on Thursday before the Criminal Court One of Oberá.
The young man came to the debate as the main defendant, since from the beginning they accused him of being the material author of the act.
In addition to confessing, he also endorsed the alibis of the other three defendants: Darío Alejandro Pío (23), Laura Viviana Batista (24) and her boyfriend Alexandro Mario Becker (20), accused of being primary and secondary participants in the crime.
Espíndola denied that Pío had held the victim so that he would stab him, as stated by Karina Pío, Darío’s sister and the victim’s widow. She also dismissed that Batista and Becker persecuted Ferreyra, as several witnesses mentioned.
Contrary to this, the testimony of the widow was devastating for those involved -among them her own brother-, since it put them in a situation of persecution by an armed mob.
The accusation
According to the request for trial, between 9:30 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. on May 1, 2021, all those involved were at the house of Batista and Becker, a circumstance in which they argued with Ferreyra, who escaped from the place and the defendants chased him.
Investigation witnesses declared that the defendants chased the victim, caught up with him and beat him. It was then that Pío held him and Espíndola punched him in the abdomen. Ferreyra passed away at the local hospital.
Among the most compromising testimonies is that of Samuel Pellizzer, who stated that Ferreyra ran through the patio of his house and was followed by a “gang with stones, sticks, machetes and knives.” He then heard that he asked for help because he was going to die.
Always based on the contribution of the witnesses of the investigation, Ferreyra was under the influence of alcohol and, in the first instance, injured Gladis Barboza, the mother of the accused Batista.
In this context, Mrs. Barboza mentioned that to defend her, her daughter ran to Ferreyra with a stick.
Already in the enlargement, the mother of the accused indicated that between Espíndola and Pío they said “we are going to run because I poked him and the cap is going to come”, alluding to the punch suffered by the victim.
key witness
Already in the trial, Karina Pío cited that there were six who persecuted the victim, adding Batista’s mother and brother, who threw stones at his house.
“I asked them to please leave because of my baby and because they were all drunk. My brother and Pablito entered my house to look for Napy, but he ran. Laura Batista had a machete, “she said through tears, adding:” My brother put a stick to Napy’s neck and Pablito stabbed him.
“They cornered him against the wall, they took off his coat and pants, they started beating him. Napy said ‘that’s it, they’ve already done the evil thing, let me go’, but they kept hitting him and throwing stones,” he recounted.
When asked by the prosecutor Estela Salguero, he remarked that “everyone was on top of Napy, my s grabbed him and Pablito poked him.”
Instead, he stated that he did not see any of the assailants bleeding, alluding to the alleged injuries to Becker and Batista’s mother.
Regarding what she stated the day after the event, when she said she did not see who hit the victim, she argued that “it was a shock, my baby was nursing and she was worried.”
the spark of tragedy
Before the Court, the defendant Laura Batista acknowledged that she has a previous sentence of five years in prison for violation of the Narcotics Law, although she was benefited from house arrest for being the mother of a girl.
He mentioned that he was a friend of the victim, although he commented that he was violent and mistreated his wife and son, but above all he insisted that that night he acted in defense of his mother.
In addition, Becker confirmed his partner’s version, denied having persecuted the victim and did not see what Espíndola and Pío did.
tax plea
After listening to witnesses and defendants, in addition to analyzing the evidence contained in the file, prosecutor Estela Salguero dismissed Espíndola’s version and considered that he intentionally attacked the victim in complicity with the other three defendants.
Consequently, he requested 15 years in prison for the confessed murderer of Napy Ferreyra.
For Pío, he asked for a 13-year sentence, since he considered that his participation “was very important and essential because he grabbed him by the neck and prevented him from defending himself.”
Regarding Batista and Becker, he considered that their role “was not essential for Espíndola to stab him, but they did collaborate so that the act could be carried out”, for which reason he requested 6 years in prison for both.
“There was a first stage, there was a second stage and it was the defendants who participated in both. Ferreyra escaped from the place (where they were celebrating) and they all appear running after him. That annuls any possibility of defense,” said the prosecutor.
He remarked that Karina Pío -Ferreyra’s widow and sister of one of the defendants- was “the only direct witness” to the event.
She indicated that Pío referred to the attackers as “a herd” that “had entered her house violently,” and that “after holding and beating her husband, she said that Darío (her brother) grabbed his neck and Espíndola injured”.
“He was looking for his death”
For the respective defenses, the defendants were first victims of Espíndola, whom they described as “violent” and “quarrelsome” who was armed, so all they did was defend themselves from his attacks.
José Bridier, Espíndola’s private defender, insisted on undermining the figure of the victim and opined that that night “he was looking for his death.”
In this sense, he took the statements of the accused regarding the fact that during the celebration for Labor Day Ferreyra was manipulating a dagger and throwing it against the wall of the house, while saying “today they kill me or I kill someone ”.
He described the victim as “a bully who bothered the entire neighborhood. He was violent, so much so that he even beat his sister and his own mother”. Bridier requested the change of cover to excess in legitimate defense.
