Calvario crime in Cartagena: accused tested weapon hours before murder
A chief inspector of the Judicial Police in Cartagena testified before the Jury Court that the accused rehearsed gunshots in an open area hours before the 2015 crime.
Gunpowder residue, fingerprints and a weapon tested in the early hours: evidence from the Calvario crime
A chief inspector of the Drug Squad of the Judicial Police in Cartagena testified before the Jury Court that the accused in the Calvario crime acquired a firearm and was rehearsing gunshots in the early hours in an open area of clandestine garages, located between 200 and 300 metres from the Lo Campano neighbourhood, a few hours before his victim's body was found in October 2015. According to Google News ES — Crime (es), the testimony is based on networks of police informants.
The session took place in the Fifth Section of the Provincial Court. During the oral hearing, agents from the Scientific Police Brigade and the then head of Drug Squad Group I laid out the biological, chemical, ballistic and documentary evidence that makes up the body of proof from the criminal investigation.
The victim, intermediate link in drug trafficking
The chief inspector noted that the victim regularly operated as an intermediate level—or "bridge"—in a drug trafficking network, and that his main function during the months before his death consisted of supplying drug consignments continuously to the accused. Both were friends.
Mechanics of death: shots to the ground
A Scientific Police inspector who acted as secretary during the initial proceedings and body removal reconstructed before the jury the hypothesis regarding the mechanics of the violent death. The evidence on the ground suggests that the car in which the deceased was travelling was forced to stop in the middle of the road. "Either they made him get out or they forced him to get out," the officer recounted when questioned by the Public Prosecutor.
As soon as the victim set foot on the ground, he received several bullet impacts that knocked him face up onto the asphalt. The violence of the fall caused one of his trainers to become dislodged, which was subsequently found placed "artificially" on his limb. Once on the ground and in a situation of total defencelessness, the aggressor positioned himself over the body and fired between three and four vertical shots directly to the chest. The projectiles pierced the body and the asphalt, which indicated "clearly that he had been shot whilst already on the ground," according to the experts.
Scientific Police officers recovered two deformed bullets trapped between the road surface and the victim's back, once the forensic doctor had authorised the body to be moved.
The weapon: a revolver with no cartridges at the scene
The forensic team agreed in concluding that the attacker used a revolver-type weapon. The technical basis for this lies in the fact that, following a meticulous inspection of the area and the road, not a single cartridge case or casing was found. The experts explained to the court that semi-automatic pistols expel the waste metal several metres away—"the cartridge flies out and then to collect them you have to spend a lot of time"—whereas with revolvers "we usually never find" casings because these "stay inside the weapon," retained in the chambers of the cylinder.
The body, searched at the crime scene
The forensic officers noted signs that the body had been searched at the same place where the crime occurred: his keys, a lighter and other personal items were found scattered outside the pockets of his tracksuit, and the mobile phone could not be located in the area. "It seemed like they had searched him," the inspector noted. Samples of a brown substance were taken from the deceased's hand, which the laboratory confirmed as "soil" from the area itself, which he presumably grabbed during the moment of the assault.
Gunpowder in the interior of an intercepted vehicle
Chemical ballistic evidence was obtained in the interior of a vehicle intercepted days after the crime. The head of the Scientific Police Group certified the discovery of residue on the steering wheel and on the front dashboard, and clarified that one of the investigators' conclusions was that the person who committed the crime could have fired from the passenger side. The police commander explained that the hot fixing of these particles demonstrates securely a detonation in the enclosed space of the interior and rules out accidental physical transfer through hand contact. However, the experts qualified before the jury that in the swabs carried out in that vehicle, no biological trace, hair or DNA profile belonging to the victim was detected.
The victim's car and a footprint mark
In the car owned by the deceased, chemical inspections ruled out the presence of gunpowder on the steering wheel. However, the experts identified a "footprint dent" on the front passenger door, where "the shoe mark was visible," although the relief of the impact did not retain "sufficient identificatory value" to technically determine the footwear.
On the outer surface of the right front window glass, officers reactivated by means of physical powder an "imprint" consisting of the mark of an ear and traces of hair stuck on, a trace compatible with a person who had pressed their head forcefully against the glass to listen towards the inside of the vehicle.
Fingerprints in drug accounting
The house searches carried out in the Lo Campano neighbourhood in the days following the crime provided what investigators consider the definitive link between the drug trafficking operations and the accused: Scientific Police experts certified the discovery of the accused's fingerprints on handwritten documents that contained records of drug accounting.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)