Global Courant
“Where is Cecilia Strzyzowski?”. The question, which began as a mother’s doubt in the face of her daughter’s disappearance, today became a slogan. One that shocked the entire province of Chaco and captured the attention of the entire country. An alleged femicide with chilling elements, sinister characters and political power always going around.
But beyond the slogan, the question of where Cecilia is one of the many unknowns that remain to be resolved in a judicial case that maintains that the young woman was murdered by members of the Sena clan, the most powerful piquetero group in the province. A path to which all the clues point, and even the members of the group themselves. This week, Marcela Acuña, the matriarch of the organization, targeted her own son César Sena in a withering letter, where she blamed him for the crime.
Cecilia’s is a case where clues were sought even below the pavement and that “is on the right track” to reach the oral trial, according to judicial sources confirmed to Clarín. But those questions, what is still missing, can be decisive at the time of the verdict. For some, the difference between a life sentence or being released.
what is already known
As much as the lawyer who defends the three Sena today says that it remains to be confirmed, among the certainties that the case has, one of the most resounding is that Cecilia is dead. Although it is true that the expertise is missing to verify that any of the remains found belong to the young woman, from the first week the Special Prosecutor Team (EFE) went from investigating a possible disappearance of people to a femicide based on the initial evidence that arose.
The first indication was the movements of the clan’s cell phones, including the three members of the piquetero family and a group of totally trusted collaborators. All of them discarded their devices, but the antennas located them moving frantically in the following hours, a route that was reconstructed by prosecutors. The same with Cecilia’s cell phone.
And it is that while from the phone that belonged to the girl messages were sent to her family saying that she was happy and walking in Buenos Aires and Ushuaia, the antennas indicated that the device was in Campo Rossi, on the outskirts of Resistencia. The place where the Emerenciano Sena pig shop is located. Between Friday the 2nd and Monday the 5th, a battery of WhatsApp messages came out with the plan to mislead and prevent them from asking about the girl. All of that is within the cause.
Another certainty is that Cecilia entered Emerenciano’s house with César on Friday, June 2 at 9:16 a.m. and never came out again. This is shown by the security cameras of one of the neighbors who take the front of the home, a test that allowed us to reconstruct the step by step of that day and locate each of the Sena on time.
The camera that takes the moment when Cecilia arrives at the Sena house
It is known that Cecilia had gone with the promise of a move to Ushuaia for a job that Acuña was going to get her. This is reconstructed by the girl’s relatives. As stated in the case, according to the records of her phone, she was googling information about Tierra del Fuego until the day before. The morning of her disappearance, he looked for a place to eat chocolates in Buenos Aires.
The couple was to travel that Friday. From the two airlines that operate the area they confirmed that tickets were never taken out of it in her name or in César’s name.
The file also includes a reserved witness named Papa who was Cecilia’s confidant and always spoke to her. The chats on her phone in the previous months (which Clarín revealed) allow us to have traces of the bad relationship that the young woman had with her mother-in-law (“She hates me,” she said) and how she influenced the couple to divorce four days later to marry civilly.
But even more relevant, they reconstruct a scene from May 3 of this year, a month before the disappearance, where César physically assaulted his partner during an argument. It was a martial arts take, he grabbed her by the neck and forced her to stay in the car as she tried to get out of it. “I saw my life in front of my little eyes,” Cecilia said.
Fragment of the conversation that Cecilia Strzyzowski had with a trusted person.
Another confirmed detail is the marks on César’s neck, whose expertise indicates that they occurred around the time of the disappearance. This evidence is also complemented by the statements before the prosecutors of three witnesses who affirm that César did not have them on the morning of the disappearance, but did in the afternoon. It is believed that they would belong to Cecilia and they coincide with a possible defense against a hanging. The young man even told a witness that those injuries were inflicted by his partner during a fight.
The discovery of clothes that belonged to Cecilia in a suitcase that was set on fire in the Emerenciano neighborhood is also confirmed. There they found some rings and some clothes that were later identified by Gloria Romero, the girl’s mother.
In that same expertise a key moment occurred. Gloria also recognized a cross-shaped pendant that appeared in the Tragadero River. He was with a series of charred bones, which despite being destroyed, the experts were able to identify as “human” and belonging to the same person. What remains to be determined is whether these remains still contain genetic material that would allow a DNA test.
Although it does not figure in the criminal case, another point that has been proven is the well-oiled relationship that existed between the Senas and Governor Jorge Capitanich. From the provincial government they lowered 414 million pesos only this year for the Saúl Acuña foundation, from which the clan managed schools and works in the neighborhood. As much as he now tries to detach himself, Coqui was best man at the wedding of Emerenciano and Acuña, and wrote the prologue to the autobiographical book entitled “Emerenciano, Caudillo del Norte.”
Emerenciano Sena and Jorge Capitanich. The provincial government delivered 414 million pesos this year to the Saúl Acuña Foundation.
When the police went for the first time to notify César so that he could testify about the disappearance of his partner, Acuña said that he was going to communicate with “the provincial police chief and the Governor” before introducing himself.
What remains to be resolved
Despite all the evidence that allows us to reconstruct the femicide, history still has a series of unknowns that prosecutors Jorge Cáceres Olivera, Jorge Gómez and Nelia Velázquez are working to resolve.
Perhaps the most important is to be able to reliably confirm whether the remains found at the bottom of the Tragadero River belong to Cecilia’s body. It is a series of charred bones, of which three were identified as human. They are fragments of a phalanx of the hand, another of the foot and a metatarsus. The largest piece measures 3.5 cm by 1.5 cm. They are tiny. The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) has these remains in its possession and will begin this Monday to analyze whether they find genetic material that allows DNA to be made.
This Friday, in another expert opinion in the Tragadero, a new batch of bones appeared. They will have to examine them to see if they are human first, and then they will just go to see if they return DNA results.
The bones found in the last search in the Tragadero river.
The mechanics of the homicide, the how, is also another unknown. Without a body to examine, it is not possible to finish defining how Cecilia died. The marks on César’s neck are the strongest tip yet on material authorship.
The reason for the crime is another of the questions. It has been proven that the Sena family did not love Cecilia and did not approve of the relationship. There are also testimonies that indicate that the family would have given her money in cash to get her to divorce the boy, but the motive for now is one of the most diffuse points of her.
On the contrary, the prosecutors have well reconstructed the route that Cecilia’s body would have taken and the roles of each of the accused after the crime. That is why one of the missing points in the case is to know what happened in the previous days.
For this, the clan’s cell phones are being examined to search for WhatsApp messages, audios, and calls that help confirm the existence of a premeditated plan. “We are looking for keywords, see who they were talking to, if there were changes in the usual. There are many devices and it takes time,” they explain.
Prosecutors believe that there was a previous plan, which places Emerenciano and Acuña as co-perpetrators of the femicide. Obregón, Reinoso, Fabiana González and Griselda Reinoso, the other defendants, appear only as accessories.
César Sena (19) and his parents, Emerenciano Sena (58) and Marcela Acuña (51).
This is key. It is that according to article 277 of the Argentine Penal Code, the parents are “exempt from criminal responsibility” in case of being accessories. That is, if they found out about the femicide later, they would be released. This week Acuña published a letter questioning his imprisonment, pointing out that his son was responsible. “If it was César, why are they blaming us?” he wrote.
“César is 19 years old, he is too young to orchestrate such a plan on his own,” judicial sources respond to Clarín. The false trip to Ushuaia is the strongest evidence in favor of premeditation.
Was there anyone else? Nahir Barud, who leads the representation of the Human Rights and Gender Secretariat in the complaint, stated this week that they suspect the existence of an eighth implicated. It is about a Sena collaborator nicknamed “Laucha”, who would have participated in the disappearance of the body in Campo Rossi, once it had already been cremated.
There is an extra unknown, which appears hidden within the cause, although it is not the center of the crime but is under investigation. And it is that Gloria Romero found out that something was wrong when on Monday night, the 5th, someone leaked the information to her.
It is that two presumed policemen began to try to communicate with the family. First they called Ángela, the girl’s sister, to ask for an address. They needed to see them in person. When they went to her house, one of the officers introduced himself as “Toledo”, from the Investigations area, and commented that “something had happened to Cecilia.”
Angela Strzyzowski’s statement, where she comments that two policemen approached her house
“I heard that they did something to her and that she is missing,” they told Gloria and Ángela. According to the officers, the information had come to them from the Emerenciano neighborhood. There they began to ask if they knew where César was, if the person who was writing to them from the phone was Cecilia and if “the messages were like she used to send them.”
“They were guiding us on suspicion. That’s when we began to despair,” declared Ángela. She was someone who was well dated. At the time, it was not possible to identify those police officers where they had come from.
“Where is Cecilia”, the question that continues to go around in Resistencia, changed in the last marches to a specific request: “Justice for Cecilia”. One that needs to clear up the greatest number of unknowns in order to materialize.
AS
