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It took Chile's Public Prosecutor's Office three years to identify Víctor Pulgar as the murderer of Nicole Saavedra, the 23-year-old lesbian who was kidnapped, beaten, and tortured to death in the last week of June 2016. Five years after the crime and an investigation that changed prosecutors four times, Pulgar has still not been convicted.

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

Her family, especially her cousin, María Bahamondes, embarked on an admirable crusade to demand justice. She is currently charged with disorderly conduct along with four other women, and faces a sentence of up to four years for taking over the Quillota Prosecutor's Office at the end of a march commemorating the three-year anniversary of Nicole's murder.

How the case continues

The court decided to begin the trial against Pulgar on August 6, after an initial preparatory hearing held on June 2 and several postponements.

That hearing was broadcast online, and important events took place: the Quillota Prosecutor's Office requested a life sentence for rape and homicide, plus 15 years for kidnapping and 540 days for petty theft. That day, Judge Nancy Riffo read part of the case file, and when she began to describe how Nicole was murdered, the broadcast was muted out of respect for the victim. But the family members, present in the courtroom, had to listen to everything and, for the first time, learned the details of what happened when the young woman disappeared while taking a minibus driven by Pulgar.

“The only one in the family who dealt alone with this horror and all the details over all these years was me. I wanted to protect the others, especially my aunt, Nicole's mother. But I was able to do it until that moment,” María told Presentes.

As of August 6, the estimated timeframe given to learn the sentence is three weeks. This has María anxious and crossing her fingers that the start of the trial won't be postponed, as has happened before. Also because the date would be emblematic: Nicole would turn 28 on August 9.

"I hope what happens there is a birthday present for her, and that at the end of all this we can achieve life imprisonment," he said.

"We believe there is an accomplice who is free"

On January 6, 2020, the Quillota Guarantee Court charged Víctor Pulgar, a bus driver, with simple theft, kidnapping, rape, and homicide in connection with Nicole's murder. Pulgar was already detained in the Valparaíso prison, serving two sentences: the first for rape and sexual abuse of a girl under 14 years old. The other, for a rape committed in November 2016, five months after Nicole's murder.

They arrived at Pulgar after a series of forensic investigations involving Nicole's cell phone, which had been missing since her disappearance and was finally found in the hands of a relative of the driver. According to the investigation, he sold it to her after murdering her. Searching for that phone was one of the family's first requests, but at the time, they were ignored.

The case is now closed and awaiting sentencing. But María isn't satisfied that they're getting closer to that day. She asserts that they will continue working with Silvana del Valle, the family's lawyer, because they have the material to reach another person: "We believe there's an accomplice of Víctor Pulgar who is free. This doesn't end here."

Criminalized

The justice system that took so long to reach Nicole's killer is the same one that, in the face of repeated protests, charged the victim's relatives and friends with "damage and disorder" committed during a demonstration.

On the morning of Wednesday, June 23, two months after breaking the agreement they had reached earlier this year with the five women on trial, the Prosecutor's Office reaffirmed its accusations, despite having "weak evidence," according to María, of the crimes they were charged with.

The agreement was for the defendants to paint a mural on the facade of the Quillota Local Prosecutor's Office to avoid prosecution. "We don't have the consent of the prosecutor's office staff, so we can't install a mural that goes against the will of those who work there," said prosecutor Elizardo Tapia.

The date of the trial against the five activists is still unknown. But María is outraged because there's a possibility it could even be before the start of the trial against Nicole's killer. " Who's going to pay first? Víctor Pulgar or the five of us who are just demanding justice?" she said as she left Wednesday's hearing.