The family of Marisa Hernandez He always insisted that his murderer had to be looked for in San Juan de la Rambla, where the young woman was from. Today, 20 years after a crime that shocked the entire municipality and the Island, he continues to defend the same and that is why he requests the collaboration of the neighbors who saw the deceased for the last time or have information about what happened, please let them know. contribute so that the investigation continues and the case does not prescribe.
María Isabel Hernández Velázquezwhom everyone knew as Marisa, had a mental disability and was brutally murdered. The last time she was seen alive was on September 9, 2003. That day she left home to run an errand at the store two blocks from her house. As always, she drank her coffee and bought a coupon from the ELEVEN but he never returned. Two days later his body appeared floating off the coast of Las Aguas.
The autopsy revealed that Marisa had been the victim of a sexual assault, probably committed by more than one person, and that she had suffered a violent death. The only accused at the time, a 28-year-old resident of the municipality who was accused by another person with a mental disability, was released due to lack of evidence. His murderer is still free.
Ángel Beltrán Hernández is Marisa’s nephew and spokesperson for a family that does not want her death to go unpunished and asks for citizen collaboration to join the initiative of criminologist Félix Ríos Abreu who designed a poster with a telephone number and an address so that everyone can People who can provide any useful information that helps to clarify the crime do so anonymously. “We know that there are neighbors who, due to fear, threats or indirect involvement, have not spoken until now,” he maintains.
“When 20 years have passed since the event, only the accused would be sentenced, while nothing would happen to those who had some type of participation or were witnesses of what happened,” he states.
Ángel is the son of Loly, the oldest of Marisa’s four sisters, for whom the psychological wear and tear in these two decades of injustice is increasingly intense. Added to this is the significant financial effort they must make to pay for the lawyer who handles the case.
He remembers that in his aunt’s case there have been irregularities from the beginning, from the search efforts to the hiring of the first lawyer by the City Council at that time, while the investigators persist that her murderers lived in San Juan de la Rambla and They belonged to the young woman’s closest environment – “always in the plural because it is impossible for a single person to commit a crime of these characteristics” – clarifies her nephew.
A thesis that the family shares. “Those who did that to Marisa are because they knew her and knew her routines, they know the town and they are from the town, because San Juan de la Rambla does not have shopping centers, large sports facilities or other attractions that invite you to enter. Furthermore, it is strange that someone from another municipality takes the risk of coming and being identified as someone suspicious,” says Ángel Hernández Beltrán.
Despite his pain, Ángel Beltrán Hernández does not forget his aunt, who was 36 years old but had the mentality of a 6-year-old girl. She took care of assigned tasks such as hanging the clothes and cleaning up her room, she ate wherever she wanted among the three nearby houses. of the family, “where she liked the food best, she stayed. She was the girl of all of us,” he emphasizes.
