If convicted, they could give him 88 and up to 200 years in prison.
Rosario Alfonso was already determined to accept responsibility for four femicides. At the last minute, he decided to change and will face an oral trial to prove that he did not commit them.
The fisherman from the Las Arenitas field, in the Eldorado union, is accused of murdering four women between the ages of 17 and 24, between December 2018 and January 2020 in Culiacán.
He is the first serial femicide detained in Sinaloa to face criminal proceedings and will be the first to go to trial.
In 2013, he survived a 13-day shipwreck, after the boat in which he left Las Arenitas for Baja California Sur broke and drifted on a piece of panga along with two other people who died on the high seas.
For the mothers of the victims, the process against Rosario Alfonso has been a tortuous road that has been lengthened by the postponement of hearings. The process has already taken two years and they estimate that it could still take at least another six months.
“We thought this was going to end, but no, now it will take longer,” said the mother of one of the victims.
Rosario was arrested in January 2020 after committing the fourth femicide and the process was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic that paralyzed the activities of the State Judiciary.
The defendant reached an agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office to accept his responsibility in an abbreviated procedure and obtain a reduced sentence from January 2021.
Since then, various hearings have been scheduled but have not been held, first because the then Attorney General of the State, Juan José Ríos Estavillo, had not authorized all the abbreviated procedures and then because one of the victims had not been notified.
Last November, all the procedures were already authorized and all the victims were notified. That day the abbreviated procedure would be held and Rosario would be sentenced, but at the last minute he gave up.
At the beginning of the hearing, the public defender said that it would not be held because the accused wanted to change his defense.
Days later, he appointed a new lawyer and decided to face an oral trial and then again stated his intention to accept an abbreviated one and after negotiations with the FGE he again withdrew.
Last week the intermediate hearing was held in which the FGE and the defense announced the witnesses, evidence and expert opinions that they will present during the trial.
The Prosecutor’s Office ensures that it has sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction.
Among the tests is a genetic expert report that, according to the FGE, confirms that DNA traces of a man were found in the bodies of the victims and that after confronting him with that of Rosario, it was confirmed that it is the same genetic profile.
It will also present an investigation of the geolocation of the defendant’s cell phone that locates him in the places where the victims were found.
One of the victims was found in a motel, when Rosario left after murdering her, she told one of the workers that a person had stayed in the room, not to bother her and she would come back for her later.
The person with whom the accused spoke will be taken to testify and they will present images from the surveillance cameras in which the Nissan truck in which the accused was traveling is observed.
The vehicle was owned by Rosario’s employer and this person will also come to give his statement.
In the trial, an Uber driver who took one of the victims to the place where Rosario was waiting for her will also testify.
After the arrest of the accused, along with other people with similar characteristics, they put him in front of the driver and he pointed to Rosario as the person who was waiting for the young woman.
Other witnesses who will give their statements are friends and relatives with whom the victims had communicated or lived before meeting with Rosario.
Rosario Alfonso was arrested days after committing the fourth femicide, on January 26, 2020.
The crime occurred in a motel located in Costerita, in Culiacán.
According to the Public Ministry, that was where Rosario left evidence that allowed her identity to be established.
According to the FGE, Rosario strangled the victim with her blouse and died of suffocation.
The first victim was Cecilia Guadalupe, 22, found murdered in December 2018.
On the morning of December 17, Rosario went to pick her up at the Villa Bonita party room, located in the El Barrio neighborhood.
Later, when they were driving in a vehicle on Álvaro Obregón avenue, he wounded her in various parts of her body with a sharp weapon and then caused a neck injury that caused her death.
The accused moved the corpse to lateral canal 35, in the Costa Rica syndicate, where on December 19 it was found by a man who was working with a backhoe in the drain.
Lucía Mariana, 17, is another victim and disappeared on December 11, 2019. That night she sent a message to her mother saying that she was going to La Lomita to celebrate the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Since that day, her family no longer heard from her and filed a complaint about her disappearance, but she was found strangled on December 16 in Costa Rica.
Another of the victims is Melissa Angélica, found with her throat cut on the main street of the 21 de Marzo cemetery, on February 18, 2019.
At dawn, Melisa took an Uber that took her to the Heroico Colegio Militar road where Rosario was waiting for her.
After the holding of the intermediate hearing, the control judge will turn over the oral trial opening order to a trial judge to set the start date of the trial.
For the four victims, the minimum sentence is 88 years and the maximum is 200 years.
Source: riodoce.mx
