Breaking the Silence: The Maria Soledad Case

High school students in fifth year A at Carmen y San José School in Catamarca organize a fundraising dance to pay for classmates who cannot afford their senior trip to Carlos Paz. The party takes place on Friday, September 7, at the Le Feu Rouge club downtown. One of the students, 17-year-old María Soledad Morales, is in charge of the tickets. Because she does not live in the city, a friend offers to let her sleep at her house. Later that night, when the friend tells her, "Come on. Let's go, Sole," María Soledad replies, "I'm getting a ride from someone else." When asked with whom, she answers, "You know who." Classmates recall that María Soledad was in love with a 28-year-old man named Luis Tula, whom she called "el Flaco." Around 3:00 a.m., the power goes out at the club, and María Soledad leaves.

On Monday, September 10, 1990, her father, Elías Morales, arrives at the schoolyard and shouts to the principal, Sister Martha Pelloni, "Sister, my daughter never came home!" Brought into the classroom, he asks her classmates where she is, and they answer, "We don't know where she is. If we knew, we'd tell you." That morning, two workers find María Soledad's partially buried and disfigured body in a ditch along the road to Villa Parque Chacabuco. At 11:00 a.m., Elías returns to the school crying out, "They found my daughter!" A classmate listening by the principal's office screams, "She's dead!" Police officers walk around the unpreserved crime scene without cordoning it off. Luis Tula is briefly detained as the main suspect and released the same afternoon for lack of evidence.

The girls wear their school uniforms to bury María Soledad on the day she would have turned 18. Rumors circulate in Catamarca that sons of powerful politicians are involved. The students plan to march in the streets to demand justice. Before they leave the school, Police Chief Miguel Ángel Ferreyra visits Sister Martha's office and presents three theories, including a butcher relative or a satanic cult, and warns her, "Sister, you are responsible for anything that might happen." When Sister Martha tells the 500 waiting students, "What guarantees do I have that you'll all be okay?", the girls reply, "We'll walk in silence. We won't do anything." She tells them, "Girls, get out there," initiating the First March of Silence.

National journalists travel to Catamarca, which is governed by Ramón Saadi, whose father, Vicente Saadi, mentored Argentine President Carlos Menem. Residents on the street cover their faces when approached by reporters, saying, "The thing is, you can leave, but we have to stay here." Governor Saadi's government organizes a counter-rally called the "March of Truth," while Elías Morales states publicly, "Since those who killed my daughter belong to Catamarca's political elite, they want to cover it up." By the seventh March of Silence on November 1, 1990, 30,000 people—one third of the city's population—march through the streets.

Pressured by the media coverage, President Menem instructs Governor Saadi to appoint Deputy Commissioner Luis Patti to lead the investigation. Patti focuses on a "crime of passion" involving Tula, who later states he was tortured and offered two million to accept responsibility. Meanwhile, witnesses link the murder to "the children of power," specifically Guillermo Luque, the son of National Congressman Ángel Luque. A gardener at the Luque residence testifies that Guillermo returned home on Saturday, that his father yelled, "What have you done?", and that staff washed bloodstained clothes and a car.

Judge Ventimiglia orders Guillermo Luque's arrest, and Patti returns to Buenos Aires empty-handed. Questioned by a journalist, Congressman Ángel Luque asks, "Do you think if my son had been the perpetrator, the body would have been found?" Following this statement, Ángel Luque becomes the first member of the National Congress in Argentinean history to be expelled. After a national March of Silence is held on April 18, 1991, President Menem orders a federal intervention in Catamarca, removing Governor Saadi and appointing federal inspector Luis Prol. In the subsequent provincial election, the Civic and Social Front defeats Saadi. In December 1991, Sister Martha Pelloni is transferred out of Catamarca, telling her students, "Don't stop. Keep going."

To avoid local political divisions, the new government brings in prosecutor Gustavo Taranto from Córdoba. Six years after the crime, on February 26, the first oral and public trial begins and is broadcast live on national television. The reconstruction of events, as latestnetflix.com notes, indicates that Tula rode a motorcycle to Le Feu Rouge to tell María Soledad, "Look, I can't pick you up," after which she walked to a bus stop and got into a green Falcon driven by Guillermo Luque. Witnesses, including cashier Rita Furlán, testify to seeing María Soledad at Clivus nightclub with Guillermo Luque and Hugo "Hueso" Ibáñez. Another witness, Evangelina Sosa, denies seeing her on the stand, but later cries to Sister Martha, "Sister, what I said this morning is true. But my parents won't let me testify."

During the trial, forensic experts and witnesses detail that María Soledad was taken to a motel called Los Álamos, given a lethal dose of cocaine against her will, and repeatedly raped before dying of cardiac arrest and asphyxiation. Viewers watching the live broadcast observe presiding Judge Alejandro Rodolfo Ortiz Iramaín cutting off witnesses who accuse Luque, and catch Judge Juan Carlos Sampayo making a gesture to colleague María Alejandra Azar to dismiss a motion. The court bans the live television broadcast, prompting public protests. Judge Iramaín resigns, and the entire trial is nullified.

A second trial begins in August 1997 with new judges and over 300 witnesses. María Soledad's mother, Ada, publicly urges threatened witnesses to speak. Clivus bartender Jesús Muro testifies, "I was afraid. I received all sorts of threats," and confirms that María Soledad, Tula, Ibáñez, and Luque were at the club, and that Luque told Tula, "We'll leave with the girl. You leave after." Other witnesses testify that Luque had scratches on his face days after the murder, and that a biochemist cut María Soledad's long fingernails at the morgue.

In his closing argument, Prosecutor Taranto places a photograph of María Soledad in her school uniform on the wall, stating symbolically on her behalf, "I was drugged against my will, and I didn't want it," and, "I was raped by two or more people, and I didn't want that." The court rules unanimously, finding Guillermo Daniel Luque guilty as a co-perpetrator of rape followed by murder, aggravated by the use of narcotics, and sentences him to 21 years in prison. Luis Raúl Tula is found guilty as a secondary participant in the crime of rape and sentenced to nine years in prison. Both Luque and Tula are later released early, and no one else is convicted for participating in the crime or the cover-up.