It was on October 5. 2015 that the young man, 22-year-old Gerardo Cruz Barquero, shamed publicly an alleged “viejo verde” (sexual pervert) for videoing, with his cellular phone, up a woman’s dress while walking in downtown San Jose. The video that went viral in the social media and reported in the local and international media.
Two days later Gerardo was stabbed, after work, walking to an interview he had at Parque Kennedy, known as Parque Musmanni, in San Sebastian, on the south side of San Jose. Two men on a motorcycle stopped and stabbed Gerardo in the throat and chest.
The young man fought for his life, agonized for forty-three days, when on November 19, 2015, Gerardo died in hospital.
At first, it was believed the viejo verde had had something to do with it, too much of a coincidence to have been a random assault, authorities theorized it to be an act of vengeance, retaliation.
Read all our reports on Gerardo Cruz
However, as time passed, police had their eyes on what would turn out to be the real motive behind the attack and persons responsible. In June 2016, five persons arrested, including two women, mother and daughter, suspected to have contracted the hired killers.
On Tuesday, Samady Fonseca Fernández also known as ‘Barbie’ was sentenced by the Tribunal Penal de Pavas (Pavas Criminal Court) to 30 years in prison for the murder of her ex-boyfriend, Gerardo Cruz.
In addition to the 42-year-old hair stylist Samady Fonseca, three others were sentenced each to 25 years in prison: Samady’s daughter, 20-year-old Kristina Valerin Fonseca, also a hairstylist; 22-year-old Ronald Arce Barrientos, an informal taxi driver; and Cesar Chaves Cerdas, 24 years of age and a painter.
The three-judge panel found the two men to have been intermediaries between women and murderers.
The fifth suspect, a 46-year-old man identified by his last name Castillo, was acquitted for lack of evidence. Apparently the man had only made a call alerting the women about the time Gerardo left work.
With respect to the civil action for compensation or economic retribution, the Court set awarded the Cruz family ¢90 million colones for moral damages.
The reading of the sentence began at 3:00 pm by Judge Leonardo Pereira, in room 5 of the Third Judicial Circuit of San José, in Pavas.
One of Gerardo’s murderers was captured, a 16-year-old who accepted the charges of homicide and underwent an abbreviated trial shortly after being captured. The second is still at large.
After the trial, Karol Zúñiga, the young woman who was pregnant with Cruz’s child, said that she is satisfied with the sentence, although she asserted that because of those people her two-year-old daughter does not have a father.
“Justice has been served, but there is never going to be peace, I am grateful to God, and people were condemned who really had to be condemned,” she said between sobs.
Kattia Cordero, Gerardo’s, said she feels at peace because her nephew can rest in peace. On those sentenced, she said she does not harbor hatred against them. “They have the forgiveness of our family, but they have to pay what they did,” she said.
The sentenced mother and daughter had been in preventive custody (remand) since June 7, 2016, at the Buen Pastor women’s prison in San Rafael Arriba de Desamparados. On Tuesday their preventive detention was extended to August 7 when the appeal time has ended and the sentence is final.
Source: La Nacion
