the similarities with the Loan case and a disturbing ending

“Boys who are already older and are still searching,” reads one of the flaps on the page of Missing Children Argentina. Among so many children’s faces, there is that of Marina Fernanda Aragundewho was 33 years old, but who disappeared at only 4 in 1995. His case is the oldest of the organization and was full of clues, but all false. Since the appearance of a skull that wore a dress of its ownbut not with the one who disappeared, until a woman who pretended to be her for two years.

“It is very difficult for me to follow the case of loanbecause it has many similarities with my daughter’s“says the girl’s mother, María Beatriz Aragunde, at the beginning. It was the first weeks of 1995. On January 4, Marina had turned 4 years old and she had celebrated it at her father’s house in Marcos Paz. On February 1, in that same place, the girl was playing in the yard and From one moment to the next he disappeared. Beatriz explains to Clarion That same day her brother came to invite them to his house. She ran to look for her little girl who was playing in her hammock, but she was no longer there.

“I wasn’t scared at the time. I never thought he could disappear, I thought he was in the house next door, or that he was giving milk to the kitten or that he was doing something naughty. At that time, there was no fear, children could play anywhere. It wasn’t like now,” explains Beatriz.

“Culi”, as the girl was affectionately called, was looked for by some 500 agents of the Buenos Aires Police with dogs, tactical divers, infantry personnel and even helicopters. They searched non-stop and still came to no avail. “The dogs indicated that their trail was lost around the corner,” he recalls, and assures that the police did not investigate too deeply when taking testimonies.

The hours passed and the girl with blond curls did not appear. Beatriz began to repeat in her head over and over what her steps were that afternoon, who passed by, where she was, what Marina was doing, but her thoughts took her on “Culi’s” birthday.

“I had remembered that an acquaintance of Marina’s paternal grandfather came to the celebration and that day he had taken many photos “In fact, when I asked for them, he told me that he didn’t have them anymore because his house had been flooded. I never understood why they came that day, but they didn’t question them either,” he recalls.

Some witnesses had indicated that Marina had been taken away by a white traffic. It just so happened that the acquaintance of his former father-in-law had a similar vehicle. “At one point, my daughter’s paternal grandfather said to her father: ‘Go and file a complaint, but be careful because you don’t know what’s coming to us.“’” she says, adding: “I am convinced that he and the police were involved in my daughter’s disappearance. I will never forget that Marina’s paternal grandfather would lock himself in his bar with the police at night and for long hours.”

When Beatriz took her daughter’s case to the media, the comments began to arrive. threatening calls saying that they were going to kill her nephews if she continued searching. Among so many calls, one was from the police and they asked her to come to a place “because they had found her daughter’s remains.” From a distance, Marina recognizes that that day was chaotic and dramatic.

“When I entered there was a skull with blonde hair and navy clothes, they were his clothes, but they weren’t the clothes he had disappeared in. It was precisely the one she had in her paternal grandfather’s house in Marcos Paz. And clearly those skeletal remains were not hers,” he says.

The outlook was increasingly cloudy. Marina still did not appear. Between hopelessness and anguish, in September of that same year, Fernando and Horacio Esquivel, the girl’s father and her paternal grandfather, were arrested for being members of a gang that robbed businesses and trafficked drugs.

“Marina was small, but very bright. That is why I maintain that the person who took her was an acquaintance. He knew her full name. She was very bright,” her mother says and constantly repeats to her. Clarion.

Marina Beatriz’s voice breaks when she tries to reconstruct and retell the story. The years passed, but her pain remains intact. Currently, she has two children. They are both her support in this fight. In fact, she says that her eldest daughter, when she was little and went to school, always had a photo of Marina in the pocket of her uniform. At such a young age she understood that this could help find her sister.

With the advent of social media, Mariana, with the help of her children, created a Facebook page called “We are looking for Marina Fernanda Aragunde” which has more than 15,000 followers. In the posts she recounted when she last saw her, her photographs from when she disappeared and a progression of her face.

When everything was lost, among so many messages of hope and encouragement, the one from Valeria Ziggiotto. She claimed to be his daughter and assured him that everything was “for a settling of accounts.” It was a very emotional reunion and, for two years, for Marina there was no doubt that she was her daughter, that they had finally met again.

“One day he asked me if anyone told him ‘I’m going to steal those curlers from you, those curlers are mine’ . And yes, her godmother told her. On another occasion we were talking about toys and there was one that I never mentioned, but that she did remember and it was the yellow tricycle. Then she asked me if she had ever burned her hand, but I didn’t remember and a relative told me that that had happened and that I had cured her. I was frozen when she told me all that,” she recalls. Clarion.

The disappointment and farce lasted two years. It came to an end when both underwent two DNA tests, one in Rosario and another that was sent to Houston, United States. “This gave me a lot of helplessness, I deceived myself for two years and I thought I had found my daughter. When we had a video call, her youngest boy told me: ‘Bela when am I going to meet you‘. Or when we were on the train on the way to do the DNA, he fell asleep on my legs and I thought I had my daughter,” she says, her voice almost breaking.

But Marina wonders, where did Valeria get such precise information? How does she know so much? Did she ever know Marina? The woman never showed up to take another DNA test in court. She was not summoned to testify either. The case is in the Court of Guarantees No. 1 of Mercedes in charge of Luis Marcelo Giacoia and continues to be classified as alleged kidnapping.

“It is very difficult to remember what happened to my daughter, but it is necessary so that they do not forget. I still have with me the dress that my mother gave her and a stuffed animal of hers. She is alive and I will continue to look for her,” says Marina at the end.