The main suspect in the hate crime against Nicole Saavedra has been identified.

By Airam Fernández, from Santiago, Chile. Nicole Saavedra's family believes that after three long years without progress, they are finally close to justice. On Tuesday night, her cousin announced that the young lesbian's killer had been identified. The accused, Víctor Alejandro Pulgar Vidal, was already…

October 16, 2019

By Airam Fernández, from Santiago, Chile

Nicole Saavedra's family believes that after three long years without progress, they are finally close to justice. On Tuesday night, her cousin announced that the young lesbian's killer had been identified. The accused, Víctor Alejandro Pulgar Vidal, was already in custody, serving a sentence for other crimes.

At a press conference this afternoon, Regional Prosecutor Claudia Perivancich and Prefect Inspector Sergio Muñoz, Regional Chief of the Investigative Police (PDI), confirmed the information provided by the family. Perivancich stated that after "reorienting" the investigation and reviewing the information they had gathered to date, they located Nicole's cell phone. It was in the possession of a relative of Pulgar. They then conducted a DNA test and determined her connection to the crime, with a sample matching those found on the 23-year-old's body.

The prosecutor did not rule out the involvement of third parties in this case and said that this is an aspect that will be investigated within the timeframe granted by the Quillota Guarantee Court. She added that on November 13, Pulgar will be formally charged again, this time for Nicole's murder. She also said that the motive for the murder "is still part of the investigation."

What happened since June 18, 2016

Nicole Saavedra was last seen alive on the morning of June 18, 2016. The night before, she had been at a party until dawn, when she left for her home in El Melón, but she never arrived. On June 25, her body was found in the Los Aromos Reservoir in Limache. The autopsy confirmed that she died from multiple skull and facial traumas and that she had been raped before being murdered.

From the beginning, the family believed she was killed for being a lesbian. They repeatedly demanded, both in the streets and formally before the courts, that the case be classified as a “hate crime of lesbicide.” During one of the protests, her cousin and other women were arrested and charged with damaging public property. The case passed through the hands of three prosecutors, and the family's pleas were never heeded.

Who is the accused?

The regional head of the PDI (Chilean Investigative Police) stated that Pulgar worked as a bus driver in the area where Nicole disappeared. On August 5th, the Quillota Criminal Court sentenced him to 10 years in prison for the crimes of rape and sexual abuse of a minor under 14 years of age, on repeated occasions between 2012 and 2014.
“What we know is that this person committed previous rapes against a minor and had an outstanding arrest warrant for that case. He was wanted when he committed the crime against Nicole. If he had been arrested and convicted at the time, Nicole would be alive,” emphasized Silvana del Valle, the plaintiff's lawyer in the case.

María Bahamondes, the victim's cousin and the one who took charge of the case from the beginning, told Presentes that the news is a result of the mobilizations they coordinated over the past three years: “ Nothing would have happened without this joint work with the lesbian feminist movement. Now we only ask for the maximum penalty for this man.”

We are Present

We are committed to a type of journalism that delves deeply into the realm of the world and offers in-depth research, combined with new technologies and narrative formats. We want the protagonists, their stories, and their struggles to be present.