Global Courant 2023-05-03 14:01:47
The husband of Fermina Godoy, a 33-year-old domestic worker, went to look for his wife at the house where she worked, an old mansion in Rosario inhabited by two old women for more than 50 years.
When he arrived, that November 7, 1986, he was surprised that no one answered him despite the fact that a radio was playing. So he forced his way in, only to be met with a scene of horror: his wife lying on a bed, still clinging to a cleaning rag, dead. The two old women too.
They were Josefa Páez and Belia Zulema Ramírez de Páez, the two “false moms” of Fito Páez. It was the darkest day of the musician, the one that marked his life and his music with fire, which is dealt with in one of the chapters of the successful biographical series of the artist, “Love after love”, on Netflix.
Fito Páez, in 1965, with his grandmother and his great-aunt. Photo Twitter Fito Páez
Fito’s grandmother, 76, and his cousin Josefa, 80, had deep wounds on their bodies, caused by a stiletto. The domestic worker had also been shot in the head.
Fito was in Rio de Janeiro, on tour, when he found out about the drama. And the impact was profound. The musician’s mother had passed away when he was just eight months old, and his grandmother and his aunt had filled that void. A trashed hotel room, whiskey and Lexotanil were the first reactions to the unthinkable.
The cover of Clarín that reported the murder of Fito Páez’s grandmother and aunt, in November 1986.
In addition to the radio on, in the old house at Balcarce 681 there were other elements that revealed the surprise and vertigo with which the murderer had acted. A woven bag with purchases scattered at Josefa’s feet, a half-removed rug, the polisher plugged in. Everything had happened 100 meters from the Regional 2 Police Headquarters.
“I adored granny,” some neighbors repeated, shocked, about the musician. The identity of the killer was an absolute mystery. There were no prints or stolen valuables, except for a few trinkets. The Police arrested Fermina’s husband, as well as a couple close to the Páez family, but they were all released after a few hours.
The news of the murder of Fito Páez’s grandmother and aunt, in November 1986, in Clarín.
Then Fito returned from Brazil and appeared in the third section, in the midst of a flurry of cameras, journalists and onlookers. He spoke with the commissioner about the women’s routine and their ties and when he left he was predisposed to talk, although from the start he showed the claws of an injured animal: “Be careful, crazy, at the first set sail I’m leaving. In my recitals no one appears and now they are all ”, he pointed to a particularly excited cameraman.
Remembering her “mothers”, she blurted out: “My grandmother and my aunt were the people I loved the most. To me they were like two mothers. I can’t believe this crazy thing has happened. I dont understand her. There is very little that I can say, with all the trouble I have in the mate. I came to tell how my family lived in their house, because it can be useful for the investigation; to tell how those wonderful women lived.”
The news of the murder of Fito Páez’s grandmother and aunt, in November 1986, in Clarín.
Fito was shielded by the lawyer Albino Stefanuolo and his then representative, Fernando Moya.
Already in December it was possible to determine that two of the women had been murdered before noon, and that Josefa had been attacked when she was returning from shopping. But little more.
Fito Páez, together with his lawyer Albino Stefanolo at the third police station in Rosario, after the crime against his relatives. Courtesy of the newspaper La Capital de Rosario.
Meanwhile, Fito had to deal with his agenda: nothing less than the presentation of La, la, La, along with Luis Alberto Spinetta. It was in mid-December, at Obras, at a concert that Flaco was also able to play Privé for the first time, his album from that year that had not been released live.
The Clarín chronicle speaks as if in passing that in the 30 songs of the recital “several from Páez’s repertoire were added, including a new one.” That new one, “brand new” according to the chronicle, appeared in the final half hour without further ado, with the urgency of the case, and it was called “City of poor hearts”.
Fito Páez and Luis Alberto Spinetta in the times of “La, La, La”.
After the presentation, Fito flew to Tahiti. And on his return, at the beginning of February, he gave an interview to Clarín at a lunch in La Falda entertained by Charly García and Cachorro López. He already had his next album in his head, as a therapy.
“After the horror I started to give myself a handle and I composed, which was the only thing I could do,” he released then.
fito paez – city of poor hearts (original video)
While he finished presenting La, La La with Spinetta in Mar del Plata, Fito had the entire album in his head, including the order of the songs. Before traveling to record in Brazil, he recounted: “It begins with a funeral pomp and ends with a song in which I propose to do something -dance, but it’s a metaphor- until the night is over. This record is a downer, but it would be crazy if it weren’t. It’s an urgent album, like pain, I want to get rid of it as soon as possible”.
Finally, “Dancing until the night passes” was not going to close the album, but the funeral ceremony (“Pompa bye bye”) remained as the opening and indelible mark of horror.
“City of Poor Hearts”, Fito Páez’s most urgent and painful album.
That interview with Clarín closed with an idea that marked the spirit of the musician in those months: “I am a wounded animal, who licks his wounds and maybe doesn’t want to be seen. As Borges said, what unites me to life is not love, but fear.
A random fall
It seemed that the case was nothing, until in August 1987 it was turned upside down by the mysteries of chance.
A transvestite from Rosario, Paola, was arrested by the Rosario Police and they found jewelry that had belonged to the musician’s grandmother. Paola pointed to her lover, Walter De Giusti, 24. The young man was arrested along with his brother Carlos, 19. And he confessed to the crimes.
Walter DeGiusti. Photo File
The eldest of the De Giusti family had not only murdered the three women in the mansion on Balcarce street but, a month earlier, had killed two other women in a house in the southern zone, at 1000 Garay. had beaten and stabbed Angela Cristofanetti de Barroso, 80, and her daughter Noemí, 31.
The incredible thing about the story was that, just weeks after the five murders, De Giusti had joined the Police in December 1986. When he was arrested, he was one more agent in subsection 15 of the town of Esther. In his house, a recorder was found that Fito had given to his grandmother, Belia.
“I can’t rate them. They are crazy, but we are all crazy. I have my rolls and they have theirs. I had known them for many years, they were neighbors”, was Fito’s reflection at the end of August, with the case clarified, and bowing for the photo together with the chief of the Rosario Police, Deolindo Pérez.
The house where the policeman was serving his arrest, at Güemes 2130, Rosario. Photo File
De Giusti was sentenced to life imprisonment, although his sentence was later lowered to 24 years and seven months in prison. In 1998, with medical reports confirming that he had contracted HIV in prison and speaking of blindness, he was granted house arrest. In June of that year, the press discovered that he was constantly raping her and he went back to jail. There he died a few days later.
Fito recorded one more album for EMI, got a contract with Warner to publish Tercer Mundo in a country on the verge of disaster and, with almost no money and wrapped in a haze, he left for Spain to find love after love.
The musician, with his father Rodolfo, drinking mate and listening to music in the living room of the house at Balcarce 681, in Rosario, in 1985. Photo Instagram Fito Páez
EMJ
