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LA PLATA, Buenos Aires Province . On the third day of the trial accusing Luis Ramos of being an accomplice in the aggravated homicide of Tehuel de la Torre, motivated by hatred based on sexual orientation and gender identity (Transphobia), police officers who participated in the raids on the homes of Ramos and Oscar Montes ( the other defendant, whose trial date has not yet been set ) testified. Also testifying before the Oral Criminal Court No. 2 of La Plata were the personnel who analyzed phone calls and geolocation data from the phones of Tehuel and Ramos.

One of them was police expert Federico Di Luca. He recounted: “They asked me to locate a user's phone using an email address. I didn't know about the case or where it was. I remember entering a username and email password, and Google displayed the phone's location history. I checked that there was only one phone associated with that email account. I copied down what the screen showed.” 

Tehuel's phone analysis

The trial prosecutor, Juan Pablo Caniggia, asked to be shown the pages of the file where the report made by Di Luca appears, so that he could specify the phone movements. 

In the search on March 11, 2021, “13 km were observed. Point 1: Saenz Peña 723. 2. Argentine Post Office in San Vicente. 3. Chemical Feed Store. 4. Mansilla 1212 (from 9 PM to 12:24 AM the following day),” the expert read. The last address, Mansilla, was Ramos's home.

He then explained that Google's location service uses data from both the phone and the device's GPS and mobile network. "Most likely, the phone turned off. It lost signal completely," he noted. When questioned by Judge Claudio Joaquin Bernard about the possibility of a system error, he clarified: "Distances may vary, but the time of day does not. The system doesn't fail." 

According to those records, “the last place where Tehuel’s phone emitted a signal was at 12:24 on the day of his disappearance, there is no mistake. Tehuel’s last location is at Ramos’s house,” emphasized Cristian Ariel González, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, who represents Norma Nahuelcurá, Tehuel’s mother, Presentes

More evidence incriminates Ramos

Of the eight people, in addition to the expert, who testified today, five belonged in March 2021 (when Tehuel disappeared) to the sub DDI (Departmental Investigations of the Buenos Aires police) of San Vicente, where the initial investigation to find out where Tehuel was located was carried out. 

All testimonies confirmed that in Ramos's house they found, caught in the privet hedge, remains of fabric from a jacket; the casing of a Motorola cell phone and blood stains on the wall. 

At that time, Cristian Sebastián Pastore was the head of the DDI (Departmental Investigation Directorate) of San Vicente. In his statement, he explained that he was assigned the search for Tehuel's whereabouts. He took statements from Tehuel's mother, his girlfriend Michelle, and the last person to see him: Luis Ramos. He then worked on the raid of the accused's house. 

“There, the Scientific Police found bloodstains on a wall next to a door. Also, around the perimeter, we found pieces of a blue and red jacket. It was the one we had identified as the one Tehuel was wearing, lying on a privet hedge, in a straight line with a mound where something had been burned. The jacket was burned,” Pastore explained to the Court. 

He continued: “The pieces of a cell phone matched Tehuel’s email and phone number. When we let the dog in, the dog went directly to the place where Luis Ramos lived, and then went to the left, to an area where the ground had been disturbed .” He would later explain that the volunteer firefighters from Alejandro Korn, whom he called, only found chicken bones there.

In 2021, Fernando Emanuel Ortiz was the Brigade's Head of Operations. His first task in the case was to verify Ramos's address. He didn't recall whether he found Ramos or his mother, but later explained that he spoke with Ramos on the phone and Ramos told him he would pick him up to take him for questioning. 

When he had to return to the house for another errand, Ramos wasn't there. “We started talking to the neighbors, and we saw something in the fence that caught my attention: remnants of burned clothing. We requested a search warrant. In the afternoon, when it was already getting dark, they gave us the warrant and we were able to enter.” 

Police officer Laura Del Treti was working in the San Vicente sub-DDI in March 2021. She was in charge of analyzing the communications between the phones of Tehuel, Michelle L. (his girlfriend), and Luis Ramos. “We received the results from Movistar at noon. We analyzed the communications. Who had communicated with whom. It appeared that the last communication was between Tehuel and Michelle. And at the very end, several communications between Luis Ramos and Tehuel. A more in-depth report was then requested from the technology unit,” she stated. 

She was also present during the first raid. “The dog had indicated Ramos's house; it was getting nervous. Then it indicated the area behind the house. Forensic police took samples of bloodstains. Later, a mattress was found on the roof of Ramos's mother's house, and it was seized.” 

Sandra Carballo, also a police officer from the San Vicente sub-DDI, explained that in that raid “inside house 1 [house 1 is Ramos's, house 2 is his mother's, who lived on the same property] there were traces of bloodstains on the wall. A mattress, some sheets, and a condom were seized from the roof of that house.”

By the time he was captured, Ramos had changed his appearance.

Another witness was a police officer from the La Plata DDI (Departmental Investigation Directorate), who was assigned to search for Luis Ramos in Avellaneda. As was revealed on the second day of the trial , Ramos had gone to Dock Sud, in the Avellaneda district, to the house of an uncle he hadn't visited in over 15 years.

The first stop was at his ex-wife's house. The daughter who answered the door said they hadn't seen him in a while. She said some of his relatives were nearby. "It was also in Avellaneda, next to a Chinese supermarket. His niece answered the door. We took her statement: she said that Ramos had been around there two or three days earlier," explained police officer Cristian A. According to what his cousin, Celeste R., said yesterday, Ramos was threatening her with a knife to keep her from saying he was there.  

“We went back to the ex-wife’s house. We saw someone who looked like the person we were looking for stop. We approached him, asked who he was, and he told us his last name was Ramos. He was bald, wearing a beret and a red jacket. He had a backpack. In the presence of a witness [who also testified at this hearing], we searched him and found a knife, like a large knife, tucked into his waistband. We continued searching the backpack and found pills: clonazepam. There were empty blister packs and others with pills. And that’s when we gave the information to the San Vicente DDI,” the officer stated. 

When asked how he saw him at that moment, he said that Ramos “wasn’t in his right mind. He didn’t resist. He got on top of the vehicle and calmly drove to San Vicente. He was out of it.” 

The activists accompanying the trial, both in the courtroom and on the street outside the La Plata courthouse, assessed the day as positive. More and more witnesses and evidence point to Ramos. In addition to the incriminating evidence, he attempted to escape, hide, and disguise himself. And although everything seems to indicate that his house was the last place Tehuel was seen, Ramos never cooperated with the search for the man he claimed to be a friend.

On our website you can follow daily coverage of the Tehuel trial .