He disappeared four years ago. Nathaly Salazar, the young Spanish woman of Ecuadorian origin, was in Cuzco (Peru) that January 2, 2018. Since September she was traveling as a backpacker.
The official hypothesis, the one that prevails, is that that day Nathaly had an accident on a zip line that crossed the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Brakes failed, died. Wrongful death (reckless), handed down the sentence. They detained two people: Luzgardo Pillco, 21 -the instructor- and Jainor Huillca, a friend of his and a taxi driver who recommended him and was with her in the activity.
They threw the body
Both of them They confessed that after the incident, they disposed of their body “out of fear”, they threw her into a river. “They lie,” says Alexandra Ayala, Nathaly’s mother. Instinct told him, “I never believed what they said”, today he clings to “hard evidence” to disassemble the version.
Talk about the mobile geolocation -that of his daughter, that of the Peruvians-, his WhatsApp messages and his calls. Speak, too, from the anonymous message of a witness that later, threatened, disappeared. And he clings to the two expert opinions carried out where, supposedly, the accident took place: There they found no footprints or Nathaly’s blood. “My daughter was alive. They didn’t kill her.”
His confessed ‘murderers’ are silent. The young woman is not there. His body does not speak. Contradictions, lies, threats, drug trafficking, fear, silence and trafficking in women. It is what Nathaly Salazar’s family has lived with since that fateful January 2.
Contradictions
Mother and daughter spoke daily. It was the condition imposed by the family when Nathaly announced the trip to Peru. He left Valencia on September 22. His alleged death occurred on the morning of January 2.
The official version: Nathaly dies in an accident
According to the summary of the case, to which OPEN CASE has accessed, Nathaly’s last reliable clue that day was given by a Peruvian yoga teacher who was on the zip line. He says it started to hail and everyone left. From there, the police only have the information provided by the two convicts.
They claim that that morning Nathaly met Jainor, who works as a taxi driver, when leaving his hotel. He guided her on a three-hour tour of different cities and then they went to practice canopy (zip line through the jungle) at the company where Luzgardo, a friend of Jainor, worked as an instructor. Although the one who taught, without training, Nathaly during the tour was the taxi driver.
With the rain, the group decided to abandon the activity. Everyone except Jainor and Nathaly who continued to the end. The brakes failed and, according to his account, realizing that Nathaly was dead, he called the real instructor, they removed the harness and lowered her. They put his body in the trunk of the car and took him to the Vilcanota River, where they dumped him.
“They say they were in Ollantaytambo (a town in the Sacred Valley of Peru) since 12:30 pm the accident occurred,” says Alexandra, Nathaly’s mother. “That they went in the car to the parking lot of the tourist center and that they stayed there until half past six in the afternoon, when they dumped my daughter’s body at kilometer 82, at the height of the electric station “. Alexandra checks her mobile, saves the captures, that day, when she supposedly died,” my daughter She is talking to a friend from Spain on WhatsApp from 8:00 in the morning to 6:59 p.m.. At intervals, but they talk. “He does not ask for help. He does not say anything.
“Calls are registered about 40 kilometers from the place where Nathaly had the accident”
His mother continues: “Jainor – the taxi driver turned zip line instructor – says that his phone falls at the site where they have the alleged accident and that after four days it is returned to him. Calls are registered, none in Ollantaytambo, they leave from another side: Calca, about 40 kilometers from the place where Nathaly had the accident. The calls are made from 2:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and my daughter’s WhatsApp, from 3:00 p.m., also leaves from Calca. ”
Soon after, Nathaly’s family discovered that “Calca, next to the Madre de Dios jungle, is a place where not even the Peruvian police can enter. It is controlled by drug traffickers.” It was when it was clear to him: “They sold my daughter“.
Land of narcos
After not hearing from Nathaly, a flight left them in Peru from Spain. In total, the family has made five trips looking for the young woman. Tracks, shakes … Her body is missing, Nathaly is missing. They have found others, “hundreds, men and women: in half decay, a burned girl …“But not their daughter’s. They have traveled peaks and mountains:” the highest, I remember, was 5,200 meters. “They surrounded themselves with local community members, Red Cross volunteers, mountaineers and trackers.
“The cousin of one of the boys who helped us look for my daughter was dismembered”
In November 2020, while searching for Nathaly, “a man, cousin of one of the boys who helped us look for my daughter put your vehicle up for sale. They call him, they contact him, he stays with them … and he disappears, “says Alexandra.” The police did not pay attention. He told them that he was going to show up. They did not take the complaint “, remember,”a week they found him quartered. The torso appeared first and after three days the head and one arm. That’s when I found out that Calca is the fastest way to go to Madre de Dios, the place controlled by human trafficking and drug trafficking. ”
“I can’t speak anymore, they kill me”
A voice, anonymous by force, reached the family through social networks. He confirmed his fears and drew another line in the investigation.
“A girl wrote us and He told us that he had seen Nathaly on the night of January 2 at a party in Maras. That day a festival is commemorated in the area. He assured that my daughter was there. “When she saw the message, Alexandra replied, but she could no longer get more information:” She told me ‘I can’t talk anymore because they are going to kill me.’
The Maras party started many hours after Nathaly – according to what they say – was dead. It could never be verified. “It will never get out of my head. Maybe the they drugged with ayahuasca, they sold it. My daughter didn’t die on that zip line. ”
One of the killers: friendship on Facebook
Luzgardo and Jainor were arrested ten days after the girl’s disappearance. Eleven years in prison passed the sentence, for Wrongful (reckless) homicide, cover-up, failure to report, and theft. Some time later, for “disproportionate”, they reduced the sentence to seven years and six months. “They told them that he had to say where the body was, the judge gave them time to talk.” They did not speak. Do not speak. They will not speak.
“They tease and intimidate us,” laments Alexandra. “Prosecutor, lawyer, they all know each other.” Police and family distrusted from the beginning of the version of the accident. The Peruvian, also the Spanish. The National Police UDEV was incorporated. Two Spanish agents traveled to Peru. “There are interests, favors, ties … We had to attach the reports of the agents again, they made the reports of the Spanish police disappear.”
A photo of Luzgardo, a weapon, an eye full of blood and the name of Pablo Escobar’s hit man
On April 4, 2020 “my daughter sees on her phone that Luzgardo asks for friendship on Facebook“. He has the capture, the complaint and the evidence, so he does not hesitate to speak.” His name was changed, He used that of the Medellín hitman, second to the one in charge of drug trafficking in Colombia, Pablo Escobar: JJ Velázquez Vázquez. In the profile photo there was a bloody eye, a weapon and he, Luzgardo himself “.
At the time, he was already serving time for Nathaly’s murder. “This was on a Saturday, on Monday they made an intervention in the jail, without warning, and they found the mobile, the Sim card …”. It had been him. It was Luzgardo from jail.
“Today he is in the high security prison in Peru, at 5,400 meters high, in Pucallpa. Between the border of Chile, Bolivia and Peru.” He has not yet been held accountable for the mobile.
For ten thousand euros, everything is over
The judicial battle turns its back on them, the investigation is entrenched. Finding Nathaly becomes fundamental to clarify if the injuries that the body presents correspond to the account of the condemned. They do not speak and, as the family fears, they will not. “Reduced the penalty, they neither win nor lose“.
They wanted to do it for money. They sent the figure through Herbet Quispe, their lawyer. Or he made it up. They would talk “if he gives them an economic reward, ten thousand dollars (…)”, Alexandra rescues from the conversation they had. They recorded it. They denounced for extortion.
It was admitted for processing, but now it is stopped. To formalize the complaint, they request a psychological test from Nathaly’s parents. “We have no problem, but that international conventions are used to be able to do it in Spain. We can’t go back there: because of the pandemic, because of the economic situation and because our life is in danger there“.
The Pope does not answer
The days, years, pass. Nathaly is not there. His family stirs heaven and earth. Believers, Christians, they have even written to Pope Francis. “He didn’t answer. He shouldn’t care about Nathaly or the hundreds of dead and missing in Peru.”
They continue. They do not rest. They do not stop. Not until you know what happened. “My hunch is that They drugged her, took her away and she’s in Madre de Dios. Now, if I tell you honestly, maybe my daughter was alive … Maybe now, with the pandemic, not anymore. “They try to follow in her wake. Her smile lights up,” Nathaly was good, supportive and happy. Never, no matter how bad they came, never stopped smiling. ”
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.