By Oscar Guillén, from Mendoza. Photos: Marcelo Ruiz

The Mendoza Public Prosecutor's Office has requested life sentences for two young men accused of murdering Natalia Sandoval, a 35-year-old transgender woman. Natalia worked as a secretary and was brutally murdered last year in a carjacking. The verdict will be announced next week.

Sergio Domínguez (24) and Alexis Oliva (22) are accused of homicide criminis causa and next Tuesday they will hear the sentence from the judges of the First Criminal Court.

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“Both of them knew Natalia. They took advantage of their relationship, the anonymity she afforded them, and her reserved nature to murder her,” said prosecutor Laura Rousselle during closing arguments. These were presented on Thursday at the Mendoza courthouse, in the presence of a small group of Natalia's transgender friends, who followed each of the five days of the public trial.

"She changed her name in 2015 and that made her happy."

Natalia Sandoval worked as a secretary for a trans astrologer from the age of 20. On weekends, she worked as a hairdresser. She lived with her mother in a house in Rodeo del Medio, Maipú. She had a very close relationship with her brother, a member of the Mendoza Police. She was known in the local LGBTQ+ community because she had participated several times as a candidate in a festival that has become a Mendoza classic: the Gay Harvest Festival.

“Natalia was very private. She changed her name in 2015, and that made her very happy. Everyone at work adored her. She got along very well with her mother and had a great relationship with her brother, a police officer. He and his girlfriend accompanied her when she ran for office in the Vendimia festival,” explained Adriana, the astrologer who was her friend and with whom she worked for 15 years, yesterday in court.

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“Natalia was a woman, as indicated by her birth certificate and national identity document. Unfortunately, she crossed paths with these two people who took advantage of her,” said lawyer Mariano Tello. Tello acted as a plaintiff along with Cristian Zangoli, representing the victim's mother, Magdalena Montován.

Natalia's friends believe the investigators' hypothesis—that she was killed for her car—is correct. "She wasn't going to hand over the car. The car took her life. I think those two planned the robbery and she must have resisted," Adriana said.

This is what the autopsy said

Natalia Sandoval was found murdered on June 5, 2016. Her lifeless body was discovered by a couple who accidentally stopped in an open field at Víctor Hugo and Falucho in Rodeo del Medio, a semi-rural area of ​​the Maipú department, near the El Viborón lagoon.

She was hidden among some bushes, wearing a black sweatshirt and a black jacket. The autopsy confirmed this, but it was already clear at first glance that it was a violent death. She had been beaten and attacked with a knife. Later, forensic experts determined that she had died of asphyxiation.

The night before, she had left her house in her car, a 2011 Fiat Uno Novo, which she had recently purchased. Natalia had gone to have dinner at the home of a couple of friends, the last people—excluding her killers—to see her alive.

Why are they being accused?

The day after the body was found, police investigators located the vehicle in Costa de Araujo, Lavalle department. Two young men from Lavalle—Sergio Domínguez and Alexis Oliva, construction workers, along with two girls who were immediately cleared of involvement in the crime—were trying to sell it for only 10,000 pesos.

Forensic experts later found traces of Natalia's blood on the passenger seat and the roof of the car. Investigators also seized Natalia's cell phone from the home of relatives of Domínguez who had bought it for her.

Special Crimes Prosecutor Santiago Garay charged Domínguez and Oliva with homicide committed during the commission of a crime. He inferred that they had murdered her to steal her car and cell phone. He added the aggravating circumstance of a relationship between the victim and Domínguez, believing they had a romantic relationship, a claim that was dismissed during the trial. The two construction workers were taken to the Boulogne Sur Mer prison to await trial, which began on November 24.

Her mother's statement: the complaint that wasn't taken

On the first day of the trial, her mother, Magdalena, a missionary woman and devotee of the Virgin Mary, testified that she had a premonition the night her daughter disappeared. She knew something bad had happened to her daughter and called her son, a police officer. She tried to file a report at a prosecutor's office in Guaymallén, but as is often the case, they refused to take it.

The woman explained to the court that she didn't know if her daughter was having a relationship with any man. These were topics they didn't discuss. “She liked to go out dancing with her friends. She was acting strangely. She had been working as a secretary for a parapsychologist for 15 years. Her car was her treasure; she wouldn't lend it to anyone,” she recalled.

Her friends knew she was dating a boy. She had shown them pictures, told them he was "the boy with the most beautiful eyes in the world." One of them saw him one day in Natalia's car and never forgot that look, to the point that she later identified them in a lineup.

WhatsApp tests

During the debate, the two defendants testified and accused each other.

But the exhaustive work of prosecutor Laura Rouselle managed to dismantle both of their alibis. She used evidence that had been "hidden" in the case file due to a police error.

Initially, police experts had asserted that there were no WhatsApp messages exchanged between the victim and the perpetrators. However, during the trial, Rouselle ordered the analysis of compressed files. It was then that experts from the Fiscal Investigation Support Unit (Udapif) detected the exchanged messages.

It was determined that both Domínguez and Oliva had a romantic relationship with Sandoval. They exchanged messages with her using Domínguez's phone.

According to the prosecutor, these messages must be read in conjunction with a series of clues that place them as the murderers. Domínguez and Oliva were the last to communicate with Sandoval; they spent the entire night after the crime in his car, sold his rugs and the victim's cell phone, and deleted all the messages from the device.

"They robbed her, they killed her, they complemented each other."

“These are serious, unequivocal indications: this death cannot be interpreted in any other way or with other perpetrators. They acted together, they robbed her, they killed her, they complemented each other, they had the same interests,” the judicial official stated.

I also believe that the brutality with which Natalia was murdered indicates that the act was carried out by more than one person. She was stabbed seven times in the chest (one of the stab wounds punctured her lung), struck three times on the head with a blunt object, and suffocated for two minutes, which ultimately caused her death.

The plaintiff, Mariano Tello, echoed the prosecutor's argument. He emphasized the coldness and cynicism with which the defendants testified, stating that "the victim's trust and close relationship allowed them to lure her, and then commit an abhorrent crime with which they intended to ensure impunity for the robbery."

Meanwhile, the public defenders representing Domínguez and Oliva requested their acquittal, arguing that there is no direct evidence placing them at the crime scene. The judges will deliver their verdict on Tuesday, December 26.

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