A name is repeated in each paragraph of the statements that seek to identify the suspect for the murder of Hernán Franco in Parque de la 93, in Bogotá. Even, according to a statement seen by SEMANA, the same auditor, in his last words, while he was dying on the floor, and as if it were the most dramatic scene in a movie, pointed out who would be responsible for the murder.
The witness told the Prosecutor’s Office that he managed to hold Hernán Franco in his arms, after a hitman entered the building’s parking lot, like a shadow, to shoot three times. Everything was on video, the distressing scenes left by the security cameras, in which the auditor can be seen walking, talking on his cell phone, and the bullet impacts on his body.
Then he falls to the ground, when an employee of the victim comes to help him and Franco himself makes a revelation, the last of his life. “When he falls to the floor, he tells me three times: it was Jonathan Romero, it was Jonathan Romero, it was Jonathan Romero. He only told me not to scream and at that moment Hugo Romero arrived and we took him to the Country Clinic, but when we got into the truck he was no longer speaking well, we entered the clinic and about five minutes later they told us that he had died. “said the witness.
“We had had a talk the day before, he told me that he had been threatened by Jonathan Romero, that’s what he always told me, and this was no exception. A day before, at his apartment, I met with him, he told me that he had a lot of stress issues and that they had to do with Jonathan Romero. “He told me that the situation was quite complicated, that they were going to have a meeting, that they were going to try to reconcile the last time,” the witness told investigators. Even Hernán Franco left a tragic foreboding as his sentence.
The witness did not hesitate to tell the Prosecutor’s Office about a conversation with the auditor, weeks before the murder, and there he warned him that if something were to happen to him, the person responsible would be the same person who, apparently, threatened him in his office: Jonathan Romero .
“Two weeks before we had also spoken with my boss and he had already told me that the issue was dangerous. I told him: ‘If they are dangerous, why don’t you get out of it’, I don’t know how Jonathan threatened him, I don’t know if it was over the phone, since they no longer saw each other in person, but he always said that Jonathan was the cause. of what could happen to him,” the witness warned.
Jonathan Romero was the manager of the El Arrozal company and, according to witnesses, he would be responsible for a series of irregularities recorded in the audit report that would be delivered to the rest of the company’s partners on the day of the crime. He is the heir to the company, along with his brothers, but it was Jonathan, according to the statements, who was caught in the middle of the irregularities.
“This conciliation sought to get Jonathan to sell his share and leave the matter at that, that they were not going to investigate it and that nothing was going to happen. What happened was that they had already seen differences in the financial management of the company El Arrozal and Tiendas El Líder, in taxes, invoices, payment of suppliers and mismanagement of Jonathan Romero. They were asking him to stop, since it was a family business, but Jonathan always refused,” the witness explained to the Prosecutor’s Office. The map that the witnesses drew with their statements, some with great forcefulness and few doubts, leaves Jonathan Romero in three different events, all linked to the murder of Hernán Franco.
First, in the irregularities of El Arrozal; then, the problems and threats to the auditor; finally, on the day and place of the events, when Franco himself, with his last breath, pointed him out as the person responsible for the crime.
“That Tuesday, my boss told me that Jonathan hung out with very dangerous people and was the ‘bringer’ in the family… I told him to leave everything like that, that situation was dangerous, I told him to leave for a while and He told me he was going to look, but he made a lot of emphasis on me getting another escort because Carlos was a driver,” the witness explained when Hernán Franco’s fears were combined with threats.
Romero already testified at the Prosecutor’s Office and SEMANA learned the testimony. He revealed details of his relationship with Hernán Franco, whom he considered his “guardian angel.” He spoke of his closeness to the family, of how he mourned his death. He revealed some “grievances,” but never threats. He assured that the relationship was fluid, that Franco’s “temperament” did not help much and that his children knew each other. Obviously, he denied any connection to the crime.
“I was an advisor, but I went to the company every day, that’s where we became partners. He worked until February 2019, then he became a personal advisor to me, my son and my brother… Everyone said that we looked like husband and wife, because we fought, but we were happy. The last fight was in September of last year.”Jonathan Romero said in his statement.
What there is no doubt, according to the memories of the witnesses, is that corrupt findings in the El Arrozal company would have motivated the murder. The problems that arose after that audit became the story that Hernán Franco was kidnapped in his apartment in the north of Bogotá, he almost never left. A kind of paranoia that did not leave him alone, that frightened him. The auditor was sure that “they wanted to screw him.”
“Yes, I was worried about his safety. I say this because first, on Monday, February 19, I heard him talking on the phone, I don’t know who, and he was talking about Jonathan Romero and he said: ‘These sons of bitches want to screw me.’ Last week I heard that the doctor had some audios where Jonathan and Sebastián Romero were talking about him,” indicate the statements seen by SEMANA.
Fears led Hernán Franco to take security measures and completely change his routines. Turn his apartment into his office, ask for more escorts, monitor the surroundings, place cameras and microphones. The fear was latent and his own employees saw how over the weeks, before his murder, the auditor knew and said that they were going to kill him.
“He told me that he would stop going to the office, but that anything was pending at home, he was afraid to go out. That time it lasted about two weeks that he did not go to the office and he had the drivers drive around the block of the building to see if they were watching him,” the witness stated in his statement with the Prosecutor’s Office.
In Jonathan Romero’s statement to the Prosecutor’s Office, it was noted that the auditor had a million-dollar project to create a website with adult content. An investment of 2,000 million pesos that he had with another member of the Romero family, heirs of El Arrozal. “He has a systems company and they were developing a dating website, a project where Dr. Franco was,” Jonathan said in his testimony. SEMANA sought him out for more information, but he did not respond to the messages.
The revelations of the witnesses, the last words of the murdered auditor and the findings of the Prosecutor’s Office became a new chapter of the investigation. Rarely do homicide victims reveal their alleged killer. Hernán Franco did it and now his family is asking for justice and security. The person responsible is still free.
