Monday May 8, 2023 | 7:36 a.m.
“We haven’t heard from you for 42 days. Tell us you’re fine, it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to come back, we’ll understand. Your nieces and I, your sister Sara are waiting for you.” The post published on Facebook is from Sara Wojtowicz, sister of carpenter Pedro Damián Wojtowicz (42), who has disappeared since March 25 in the town of Los Helechos.
The man’s search persists when there is no information or data leading anywhere, covering the case with a thick layer of mystery. “I ask you with my hand on my heart to put the image of the search for my brother Damián back in your states. We have no indications of any kind, so we believe that he is out there, hidden, or that they hide him or perhaps disoriented. For I insist that any small doubt be made known,” Sara wrote on her social network account, leaving her WhatsApp contact: 3755-587887 to report “whatever information” to guide the investigation.
In the days after the complaint made by the man’s family, there was a police deployment and the search was joined by the Oberá Volunteer Firefighters with their dogs trained to find and rescue people. But Pedro does not appear and the anguish is enormous.
Mabel, another of the sisters, had explained that the only indications that are available from neighbors’ versions -which could not be confirmed with evidence- indicate that the man would have left his farm -where he lived alone- at the command of his Yamaha YBR motorcycle. 125 black with which he always mobilized, but inexplicably he did not take anything with him: neither clothes, nor his wallet or money, even less the vehicle papers nor his cell phone, rendering any attempt at communication or satellite tracking unsuccessful.
What’s more, when his relatives looked for him at his house a few hours after he stopped giving signs or answering messages, they detected no signs of having suffered an attack or possible criminal act. Everything was tidy inside and the door was locked, giving the case a thick layer of mystery.
In this context, they observed that the only thing missing from the property was the motorcycle and the blue helmet, for which the complaint was filed, but so far nothing is known about Pedro.
Previous hours with his sister
“On Friday (March 24) he was at home, he came very often. We had a tereré and around 3:00 p.m. he decided to return to Los Helechos because the weather was a bit bad,” recalled Mabel, who lives in Oberá. It was the last time she saw him in person, although in the following hours they exchanged some messages via WhatsApp.
“Around 6:00 p.m. I wrote to him, he replied that everything was fine, that he had to wash clothes but over time in that state he did not want to plug in the washing machine,” Mabel said, noting that during the night they exchanged messages again: “He asked me about some things that I had to do, it was around 9:00 p.m., the conversation was not long”.
But on Saturday Pedro gave no signs. Mabel remembered that in the middle of the morning she had to leave her house and sent her a couple of messages that were not seen or answered. “He missed me a lot because he always came home early, to drink mate or to go shopping later, I waited for him for a while until I had to leave but I let him know in case he arrived during that time.” He no longer responded.
The communication attempts were repeated during the course of that day, without answers from the other side, until between Sunday and Monday they decided to go to the farm. The grief was increasing.
“First there were two cousins, no trace of my brother, but they noticed that the house was closed from the outside and they did not want to force themselves in. Then it was my husband, who entered through a window and noticed that everything was tidy, clean and the phone charged. My brother hadn’t even opened the chats or seen the messages since early Saturday morning,” Mabel said.
“The motorcycle or his helmet were not there,” he said, something extremely striking because “he did not go anywhere without the papers that he had in a backpack and his phone, he is very responsible in that sense,” he warned, adding uncertainty to the disappearance .
Versions and search
At that point, Mabel mentioned that in the town they collected versions from some people that they would have seen him in control of his vehicle on Saturday morning and again in the afternoon. “But they are data about which there is no certainty,” she lamented.
The complaint triggered a search operation that is in full swing, but with no positive results so far. The family, in parallel, also searches but does not get answers either. Oberá firefighters with their dogs found nothing either.
The Oberá Regional Unit II reported that Pedro Damián Wojtowicz has a thin physical build, is 1.75 meters tall, has fair skin, brown eyes, and brown hair. “For any information, contact the free line 911 or go to the nearest police station,” they insisted.
