On January 30, 1984, 19 years ago, the body of university student Gloria Stockle Poblete was found on one of the banks of the Copiapó River, 800 kilometers north of Santiago, bearing signs of beating and clear evidence of rape.

Investigations into the crime, sponsored by lawyer Eric Villegas and conducted by three visiting judges over time—Federico Pizarro, Gloria Collantes, and Alvaro Carrasco—determined that there are serious presumptions that the event took place in the officers' club during a party with the participation of special guests and representatives of Copiapó society, where the then-captain Mario Martínez Villarroel, currently a retired lieutenant colonel, and lieutenant Sebastián Flores Cañas, now a retired major, beat and raped the young university student, allegedly accompanied by civilian Ivo Lingua Latorre, then-vice consul of Italy in Copiapó. Since then, the case has been closed on several occasions without the justice system being able to clarify the facts. For a few months now, however, it has been reactivated, and important developments are expected for March or April. Lawyer Erick Villegas, who represents the victim's family, requested a few days ago, for the second time, statements via summons from General Juan Emilio Cheyre to confirm whether any investigation into the murder was carried out while he was commander of the No. 23 Regiment of Copiapó and Intendant of Atacama. The first summons was answered by the Chief of the Army General Staff, General Jorge Arancibia Clavel, who indicated that some inquiries were made into the matter but that it was a "verbal inquiry." "It seems inconsistent to us that a verbal inquiry was carried out in circumstances where the characteristics of the crime indicate that we are in the presence of a qualified homicide with aggravating circumstances regarding the responsibility of the perpetrators," maintained Villegas, who finds it striking that the Army, as its officers were summoned to testify, did not order a formal investigation of the facts at that time. Last year, Villegas requested the indictment of the former Intendant of Atacama, General Alejandro González Samohod, which was denied by the courts. The retired military officer was the commander of the regiment when the dramatic events occurred.

Source: February 22, 2003, Zonaimpacto.cl

Five years and one day of effective prison for the murderers of Gloria Stockle

On January 29, 1984, the young university student was murdered inside the Copiapó Officers' Club. Two days later, she appeared on the bank of the river that crosses the city. After 27 years dedicated to the case, the plaintiff lawyer, Erick Villegas, succeeded in having two former military officers and one civilian sentenced to the penalty of presidio mayor in its minimum degree.

Álvaro Carrasco, the visiting judge in the 1984 homicide case of the young Copiapó university student Gloria Stockle, announced the final first-instance sentence that condemns former Army captain Mario Martínez Villarroel, former Army lieutenant Sebastián Flores Caña, and civilian Ivo Lingua Latorre to five years and one day of effective prison as authors of the crime.

The information, which appeared Wednesday in the regional newspaper El Chañarcillo, was provided by the plaintiff lawyer, Erick Villegas, who, after 27 years of following the case, managed to have the accused sentenced to said penalty of presidio mayor in its minimum degree, without the right to any benefit for alternative fulfillment of the sentence.

To reach this resolution, the visiting judge considered the mitigating factor of irreproachable prior conduct regarding criminal responsibility. Although the sentence may seem low in consideration of the serious events that surrounded the death of Gloria Stockle, for the plaintiff lawyer it is necessary to take into account that "it is a sentence of effective prison in which there is no right to any benefit of alternative fulfillment, in addition to highlighting that this is a tremendously solid ruling that has 443 pages in which the 27 years of investigation and more than 10 volumes attached to the process are precisely summarized, and which correctly resolves each of the situations that were raised regarding the participation that corresponded to each of these people as authors of the homicide of Gloria Stockle Poblete." According to the publication, the three convicted of homicide must pay the victim's family one hundred million pesos as compensation. Now it remains to wait for the three sentenced individuals to be personally notified of said ruling, and then wait for the appeal period, although due to the solidity of the ruling presented by the visiting judge, it is possible that said process will not prosper, allowing the fulfillment of the sentence to begin in the coming months.

THE HOMICIDE

The crime against Gloria Stockle Poblete occurred between January 29 and 30, 1984, on the premises of the Army Officers' Club in Copiapó. The 21-year-old was found dead on the north bank of the river that crosses the city, due to multiple contusions, complicated closed traumatic brain injury, skull base fracture, intracranial hemorrhage, and homicide with rape, according to the Death Certificate from the Legal Medical Institute and the Autopsy Protocol.

In the judicial process instructed to investigate her death, for which a visiting judge was appointed, through statements from eyewitnesses and other evidentiary means, it was established that a private party was being held that night, attended by around 45 people, including uniformed personnel, civilians, and young women.

During the gathering, an argument broke out between two officers, a civilian, and Gloria Stockle, whom they beat, raped, and murdered. Her body was taken from the place in a car and thrown into the Copiapó River, where it was found two days later, semi-submerged and covered with reeds.

The women attending the party were subjected to intimidation and pressure to prevent them from testifying before the courts; one of them was even the victim of an attempted hit-and-run. In 1998, the event was in the news again because the Copiapó Court of Appeals decreed the reopening of the summary and the acceptance of the proceedings requested by the plaintiff.

However, the court did not grant the indictment presented against the alleged authors, accomplices, and accessories after the fact. At the time, plaintiff lawyer Erick Villegas indicated that "this is a process in which for a long time there was an attempt to obstruct the action of justice." He recalled that they managed to prosecute Captain Mario Martínez Villarroel, Lieutenant Sebastián Flores Caña, and Ivo Lingua Latorre as authors, who filed a complaint appeal that was rejected by the Supreme Court.

Thus, the indictment of the two officers and the civilian Ivo Lingua as authors was not granted, nor were the prosecutions of the former Intendant of Copiapó, General (R) Alejandro González, and the civilian Hilda López Candía as alleged accessories after the fact.

Lawyer Villegas continued his fight by requesting the indictment of a significant number of people for obstruction of justice, several of them retired military personnel. In the same year, Villegas declared that the investigation was exhausted, as they already had expert reports from the OS-7 of the Carabineros of Antofagasta and Santiago, which determined the place of the crime, the way in which it was committed, and the people who were allegedly eyewitnesses to the event.

Throughout all these processes, long years passed in attempts to silence the case; however, in October 2002, the plaintiffs were able to put the crime back into the public interest when an episode about the homicide of Gloria Stockle was broadcast on the TVN program Enigma.

After the broadcast, the process investigating the death was reopened. The program provided statements that were not included in the ten volumes of the file. Guillermo Muñoz, its host, was called to testify about the findings of the journalistic investigation.

EMBLEMATIC CASE

Of the 31 years that Erick Villegas has been practicing law, he has dedicated 27 to the Stockle case. This was a request he received from Monsignor Fernando Ariztía, when he was Bishop of Copiapó. At that time, the bishop responded to the request of Gloria's mother, who watched with hopelessness as her daughter's case remained in impunity.

Villegas decided to take the case when he was working at the Vicariate of Solidarity, and since then he fought alongside the victim's siblings to reach the truth in the homicide of the young pedagogy student.

FAMILY MEMBERS

After learning of the sentence, the victim's younger sister, Susana Stockle, told the newspaper Chañarcillo that "I cannot say that I am happy or satisfied because nothing they do will return my sister to us, nor the 27 years we have spent fighting to know the truth about the horrific end that these people gave her.

I can only think that now I feel calm because I believe that justice was served; we can finally say these are Gloria's murderers, because among all my siblings we always said that we would go to the end, even if only one of us remained."

Source: March 24, 2011, La Nación