Candela case: judge orders preventive custody for last suspect. Judge Alfredo Meade issued a preventive custody order for Leonardo Jara, the last detainee in connection with Candela Rodríguez‘s murder.
Judicial sources informed that Meade agreed to public prosecutor Marcelo Tavolaro´s request, and deemed Jara as a “necessary participant” charged him with the crime of aggravated manslaughter.
Sources said that Tavolaro considers that Jara was used as «bait» and tricked Candela in the afternoon of August 22nd, when she was kidnapped outside her home and held captive. Nine days later, her body was found on the side of the West highway, in the Greater Buenos Aires area of Hurlingham.
Several witness whose identities remain secret testified that Jara “pretended to be Candela’s boyfriend,” and that alongside Héctor Moreyra, who is accused of being the mastermind of the crime and a third man, they forced Candela into a grey Suzuki car. Later, they allegedly took the eleven yeard old girl to the house along Kiernan 600 street and finally to a home along Cellini 400 street, four blocks away from where her body was found.
Aside from Jara, there are other seven detainees- all of them indicted and remain in protective custody- in connection with Candela’s murder. Moreyra, who had a feud with the girl’s father and who reportedly recruited the rest of the gang including Hugo Bermúdez, who allegedly was the one who choked Candela to death, carpenter Néstor Altamirano, beautician Gladys Cabrera and Alberto Espíndola, Gabriel Gómez and Guillermo López.
buenosairesherald.com