Cuban detained in Aguacate for complaining about three murders in less than a year.

In November 2023, the town of Palma Soriano, in Santiago de Cuba, witnessed the murder of Dorka Velázquez (15 years old) at the hands of a rapist. In March, Jorge Luis Heredia Cala was murdered, and this week, the young mother Arianni Céspedes was stabbed to death.

Jorge Heredia Cala, asesinado en marzo, y su primo, Luis Ángel Ríos Cala © CiberCuba
Jorge Heredia Cala, murdered in March, and his cousin, Luis Ángel Ríos Cala.Photo © CiberCuba

His name is Luis Ángel Ríos Cala and he was arrested this Monday for having remarked yesterday, at a burial, that there are so many murders in Aguacate because there is no justice. He is referring to the three violent deaths in less than a year, recorded in the small locality of the municipality of Palma Soriano, in Santiago de Cuba.

The town of Aguacate is in shock after the murder of Arianni Céspedes, a young mother of three children, who died from a single stab wound that pierced her lung, sources close to the deceased's family tell CiberCuba.

The crime occurred in the Alejo neighborhood, where three murders have been recorded in less than a year. Arianni was killed by her ex-partner in front of two children, aged five and six, who were the children of a neighbor and were nearby gathering almonds.

"There is total silence in the neighborhood. Everyone is feeling high or low blood pressure, and no one wants to walk in front of Arianni's house. The boys' stepfather, after he killed her, gathered the children and took them to some neighbors and told them to hand him over, saying he had just killed the mother of his stepchildren."

In such a charged environment, the pain of families who have lost one of their own without justice being served so far surfaced at the burial of Arianni Céspedes, when a cousin of Jorge Luis Heredia Cala (Case 97/2024), murdered in March of this year in Aguacate, loudly stated that "if there were justice in the town, there wouldn't be so many murders."

This Monday, the National Police went to find Luis Ángel Ríos Cala, cousin of the person murdered in March, and took him into custody for making that comment at the funeral of Arianni Céspedes. In contrast, the confessed murderer of his cousin, known by the alias Tatico, remains free in Aguacate. Also, the "Man," who was with him on the day of the crime and recently beat up a 19-year-old, is at large. Both are free. The Police have not held them accountable.

At the time of publishing this news, Luis Ángel Ríos Cala, who has not killed anyone and only seeks justice, remains detained in the La Territorial Unit in Palma Soriano.

The murder of Jorge Luis Heredia Cala took place in March of this year, in an alley in the Alejo neighborhood. He was about to turn 51 years old when he was killed, just a few days after discovering a marijuana plantation in the woods and warning those responsible that he knew what they were growing. He was struck several times on the head with a rock.

The Prosecutor's Office released the confessed murderer because he claimed in his defense that he had thrown a stone while aiming at an owl, in a dark alley, at eight o'clock at night. He only served five months of provisional imprisonment.

But this was not Aguacate's first crime. The most terrible of all took place in November 2023, when a girl, Dorka Velázquez, who had just celebrated her 15th birthday and did not even get to see the photos of her celebration, suffered an attempted rape. As she resisted, they killed her.

At first, it was said that she had been raped, but the autopsy revealed, according to sources familiar with the case, that she was a virgin after her death. Her murder shocked the community because the police took time to locate the rapist, who was eventually arrested while stealing food from the house of some neighbors of the murdered girl.

When they captured him, the neighbors took justice into their own hands and beat him up so badly that he lost his teeth. "If the police hadn't taken him away from the people, the women would have killed him," says a witness to the events.

Dorka Velázquez's family, who studied at the Juan Vitalio Acuña pre-university, did not report the case although it became known through Facebook. "They are Christians and very private people. That case was indeed severe. The boy who killed her was from Media Luna (Bayamo) and was so psychopathic that he watched the funeral from a tree," said a neighbor from the town.

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Tania Costa

(La Habana, 1973) lives in Spain. She has directed the Spanish newspaper El Faro de Melilla and FaroTV Melilla. She was the head of the Murcia edition of 20 minutos and a Communication advisor for the Vice Presidency of the Government of Murcia (Spain).


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