The story of Fernanda Maciel’s femicide, a crime that rocked Chile for over a year

For over a year almost everything Chile followed media for clue to Fernanda Maciel’s fate, a 21-year-old woman who mysteriously disappeared near her home, located in the municipality of Conchalí, Santiago, without leaving a trace on February 18, 2018.

Throughout this year, both audiences and entities specializing in expertise, their families and friends went out of their way to try to uncover the details of the alleged femicide and the young woman’s disappearance, who was also 7 months pregnant at the time of her loss.

Overtime this case would become one of the most tragic police cases in the history of Chile.

His family, seeing his disappearance, filed a complaint with the authorities. Hours later a security camera recording was known where Fernanda was caught walking towards a cellar located at the intersection of Llaima and Puntiagudo streets, in the Conchalí district, just 40 meters from your home.

After his disappearance, multiple theories have emerged: first it was said that the young woman had run away with an alleged lover, who had ties to dangerous drug traffickers, who traveled to Bariloche, Argentina, among many other scenarios that have only confused the investigation.

In addition, many “mediums” who claimed having had “visions” of the young woman and her whereabouts also flooded the investigation with unclear details. Fernanda’s partner crime participation theory, Luis Petersen, also hovered around the case.

Luis and Fernanda had met a year before the young woman’s disappearance. The relationship they had at the time was like everyone else: with ups and downs., which did not prevent lived together to raise their daughter who was on the way: the little one Josefa.

However, suspicions about Petersen were such that In October 2018, seven months after Fernanda’s disappearance, authorities authorized a search of the house. of the man to find the traces of the young woman, but nothing was found.

Desperation was a common cause among family, friends and the community at large, who every day saw how the media insisted on finding the culprit, and checking out the cellar where the young woman was last seen.

The cellar and a suspicious old neighbor

In March 2019, the whole company mobilized in the municipality of Huechuraba, in Santiago, for the discovery of human remains. Everyone initially thought it could be Fernanda. However, this did not happen.

Within hours, the victim’s family requested that the cellar where Fernanda was last seen be searched. This has been done several times but, mysteriously, nothing relevant was found in these tests.

As the days went by, everything pointed more and more to this place and the last person who had seen Fernanda alive: Felipe Rojas, who on the day of the disappearance invited the woman to share a moment.

“I have been a friend of Fernanda Maciel Correa for about 10 years when she came to live in the town, since I am a neighbor but at one point we moved, ”she indicated in the investigation.

Rojas assured that Fernanda had never arrived at the cellar and that he contacted her by messages on the day of her disappearance. “I waited for you anytime, but you didn’t arrive. I run everywhere ”, we read in the last text message sent by Rojas.

Felipe Rojas and his former partner have been repeatedly questioned by the police until July 23, 2019, almost 500 days after Fernanda’s disappearance, the neighbor’s responsibility for this crime has been revealed.

“He started to cry, yesterday he told me that Fernanda had slipped, had touched a tip. “I don’t know if on a chair or a table. She started having convulsions, when I tried to pick her up, she urinated and left. He said he was very tall and made some bad decisions. He wrapped it in a cloth and made a hole. There, he destroyed his hands and at that time, he proceeded to the burial, ”said Rojas’s ex-partner.

Later, according to this statement from the former couple, Rojas took Fernanda’s cell phone, he formatted it and went to sell it at a fair, then he came back by bike. Additionally, she gave details of where Fernanda’s remains were: in the cellar that the family asked to review in depth, and where the authorities found nothing at first.

According to those close to Fernanda, Felipe Rojas allegedly raped the woman there, in addition to burying her alive. “We were able to do a pre-report, finding out what Felipe had done to my sister. Felipe Rojas raped my sister, tied her up, buried her alive“Said Fernanda’s sister, Valentina Maciel.

Yesterday, Chilean justice confirmed that the accused Felipe Rojas would remain in preventive detention as the only participant in this femicide which affected the whole country.

Rojas is formalized in court by the crimes of aggravated homicide, abortion and illegal burial against the 21-year-old pregnant woman missing for over a year a few steps from her home.

According to the family’s lawyer, Pedro Díaz, the accused underwent psychological tests which will be the last before the end of the investigation. After that will come the stages of the procedure to pronounce a final sentence against Rojas.

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