A double femicide shocks Santiago del Estero

Two women who were wanted in the province of Santiago del Estero since Tuesday they were found dead during the last hours in the rural area of ​​Robles. Their bodies were inside a car, with signs of having been stabbed. In the case, the partner of one of them is detained.

The victims of the double femicide were identified as Morena Marcela Banegas, 20 years old, and Luz Nahir Banegas, 23. They were a niece and aunt, respectively, and they studied together in Primary Education teaching, where they left school around ten of the night.

The bodies were found on a road next to a cotton field, in Pampa Múyoj, Robles. The area is located about forty kilometers from the capital of Santiago. The victims lived in Villa Hipólita, a small town located two kilometers from the place where they were found.

Their families had been desperately searching for them since Tuesday. They became worried after neither of them reported that they had arrived safely after college, a habit that the girls had. But having no news, around three in the morning they decided to report her disappearance to the police, according to sources in the case.

Consequently, a police operation was deployed that same night and early Wednesday morning. It was carried out between the city of La Banda and in various places in Robles. And it was shortly before six in the morning that the discovery of a gray Gol brand vehicle similar to the one used by Luz, one of the victims, was reported. It was about 150 meters from the road. There the women appeared lifeless and with signs of violence all over their bodies.

The same night that the young women disappeared, a man showed up at the Comprehensive Health Center in the city of La Banda requesting medical assistance for a wound on one of his hands. He was cut and entered with a lot of blood.

He was identified as Gabriel Cejas and turned out to be Morena Banegas’ boyfriend. The man claimed that he had been the victim of a robbery. According to local media El Liberal, the young man claimed that three hooded men had attacked him and that they had taken his motorcycle, his cell phone and his jacket.

The agents acted on this complaint and set out to search for the alleged thieves. Also, the belongings of the alleged victim. In this context, the officers found her jacket and also a diver, who was near a canal, full of blood. At the same time, a report was made to find out the whereabouts of the two missing women. Then the Prosecutor’s Office set off the alarms and began to suspect the story of Cejas, who is now detained and is the main suspect in the crime.

Prosecutors Natalia Saavedra and Álvaro Yagüe intervened in the case, who are in charge of the investigation to clarify the causes of the femicide. The bodies of Luz and Morena Banegas, for their part, were transferred to the morgue where the results of the autopsy are still awaited.