“When they told me that they had killed her, I thought of Pachelo,” said a friend of María Marta García Belsunce at the trial.

Viviana Becker de Binello is the woman with whom Maria Marta Garcia Belsunce I played tennis on Saturdays and Sundays at the country Carmel, a lifelong friend. When she entered the courtroom of the San Isidro court this Monday, she did so as if asking for permission. When she started to speak her voice was trembling. He was grateful that Nicolás Pachelo was not present and that the court agreed to remove him from the hearing for his testimony: “I needed it”.

Becker de Binello narrated four moments in which she felt intimidated by Pachelo. But before giving a detail about them, he answered the prosecutor’s questions Andrew Quintana.

The first was about whether María Marta was a fearful woman. She said that she did not and added: “Yes, he was very afraid of Pachelo because of the kidnapping of his dog Tom and that he had asked for the ransom. She actually told me: ‘Better not mess with this guy who is capable of doing anything’”.

After giving details of that October 27, 2002 in which he played tennis with the victim, but that they had to cut the game because it started to rain; of telling how the hours after the discovery of the body were and what was happening in the house of the Carrascosa-García Belsunce; she asked him how she found out that she had actually been killed and what she thought when they told her. It was forceful.

“When they told me that María Marta had been killed, I thought of Pachelo because he is capable of anything and that is why I am terrified of him,” The sociologist’s friend responded and confessed at the end that she is still very afraid of Pachelo. In that context, she recalled: “It was the first thing that came to mind, I think I’m not the only one who thought the same. When they accused the family I felt anger, unease, impunity, pain… The killer was outside, dying of laughter.”

Thus, she detailed each of the times she felt intimidated by Pachelo. “The first one already talked a lot about robberies and about their actions. She was working in the barbecue area of ​​my house and, Suddenly, I find him standing in front of cars, entering my garden, looking at my house”, he recalled and added that he did not see her because he has dark glasses and that this episode was before the crime.

And continued: “After the death of María Marta, he began to slowly pass by my house every afternoon with his truck when there was no need because I live at one end and he at another (in the country)”.

To which he added that, later, had two other encounters with Pachelo in a supermarket near Carmel. The first time, she was unloading the merchandise before paying: “I see him standing at the end of the box, with a threatening look, or I took it that way. I don’t know what she was doing there, but he knew what the friendship with María Marta was and I guess he wanted to scare me.

And he reported: “I tried to hurry up, pretend he wasn’t coming, carry the little monkey… He disappeared and I stayed in the supermarket for a while because I was afraid to get to the car and find him again”.

Becker de Binello ended with an antecedent of which she recognized that she was afraid because Pachelo threatened her: “He appeared behind a gondola, with his son in his arms, pushed me against the gondola, and told me: ‘Not even God is going to get him out of there,’ in relation to Carrascosa, who was in prison”.

Another friend spoke of fear

The second witness of the day had been Carmen Aberastain de Paneloa close friend of María Marta, who in her story made reference to the dog Tom, whom she took care of when the Carrascosa-García Belsunce couple went on a trip.

The witness said that the sociologist confessed to her that she knew that Pachelo had stolen it from her, and that he was also behind the ransom demand. “I’m a little afraid of this character, that’s why I’m not going to do anything”, he recalled that the victim responded when she asked him how he was going to handle things. Aberastain de Panelo also explained that her words caught his attention because “She was not a woman to fear”.

The woman maintained that, upon learning after the autopsy that her friend had been shot six times, she began to believe the version that she was killed in an attempted robbery and that she recognized her perpetrator. “If he fought as they say he fought, he will have recognized someone”remarked the witness.

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