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Police brought Agostina’s alleged femicide to Neuquén

A commission of the local police force transferred Juan Carlos Monsalve from Viedma, accused of being the perpetrator of the femicide.

Agustín Martínez

LMCipolletti : 30.05.2021

This Sunday the second person arrested for the femicide of Agostina Gisfman was transferred from the town of Viedma to the capital of Neuquén. This is Juan Carlos Monsalve, accused of being the perpetrator of the femicide of the 22 year old girl from Cipole, who was murdered and then burnt in a rubbish dump in Centenario.

Agostina went to a meeting, which Gustavo Chianesse had arranged for her, at the roundabout at Rutas 151 and 22 in Cipolletti on Friday 14 May at 7pm.

To do so, she asked an acquaintance to take her to the agreed place and once there, she got into a dark vehicle. That was the last time Agostina Gisfman was seen alive.

Investigators believe that the young woman was killed with a stabbing weapon on board the vehicle, which evidence suggests was the Chevrolet Tracker van seized last week where human blood was found after a bluestar test.

The femicides then went to a rubbish dump in the town of Centenario, where they dumped the young woman’s body and burned it. It was found there the following day by a person passing through the area.

To date, two people have been arrested for Agostina’s femicide: Gustavo Chianese, already accused as a necessary participant, for being the one who handed over the girl when they agreed to meet; and Juan Carglos Monsalve, suspected of being the perpetrator, taking into account how the telephone antennas located him at the meeting place and the place where he was found.

These were reached as a result of key wiretaps that link them both to the planning of the young woman’s femicide, after Monsalve had a conflict with his wife as a result of the encounter he had had with Agostina in April. When he was unable to locate her in order to “kill her”, as the prosecutor’s office stated in its theory of the case, he asked Chianese to look for her.

It is even known that Monsalve had rented the Tracker on the same day of the femicide, hours before, that is, on Friday 14 May. The same dark vehicle was captured together with another lighter-coloured one by a camera in a house, near the area where the young woman’s body was dumped.

Monsalve had been arrested on 18 May in the town of San Javier, in Río Negro. Finally, this Sunday, his extradition was finalised and therefore, a commission of the Neuquén police travelled to the capital of the neighbouring province to bring Agostina’s alleged femicide to Neuquén. Now, the prosecutor’s office is expected to request a hearing for the formulation of charges in the framework of the case.

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Detecting Blood in an Outdoor Environment with the Bluestar Reagent and DNA Analysis

Author(s): McCall, Keenan; Woods, Grace; Richards, Elizabeth

Type: Article

Published: 2021, Volume 71, Issue 4, Page 309

Abstract: Blood is an important physical material that may be encountered in violent crimes such as murder, assault, and rape.

The examination of bloodstains is of immense value in the reconstruction of crime scenes and the potential identification of subjects and victims and their linkage to a scene.

When crime scenes occur outdoors, the identification of blood evidence can become difficult with the naked eye.

The objective of this research was to conduct examinations of the Bluestar reagent to determine whether it could successfully detect blood in outdoor sites after prolonged exposure to the elements and whether the identified blood could produce a DNA profile.

Bluestar advertises the ability to reveal bloodstains that have been washed out, wiped off, or which are invisible to the naked eye.

For this research, approximately 0.5 oz of human blood was deposited onto the soil surface of 30 plots to be tested over 10 time intervals up to 45 days. At each interval, a soil sample and a cotton swab of the plot‘s surface were collected for later DNA testing. Results showed a positive Bluestar reaction throughout all intervals of the experiment. DNA profiles were developed from cotton swabs while the blood was visible to the naked eye.

Some of the soil samples returned weak profiles that could not be correlated to the donor. The results of this study demonstrate that even if there is a delay in locating an outdoor crime scene, the application of Bluestar is a reliable tool in the effort of locating blood evidence. 

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Thomas Lesire trial: These clothes are examined with Bluestar reagent

Assizes: trial of Thomas Lesire, accused of the murder of an octogenarian in Châtelet, begins

RTBF 03.05.2021

The neighbourhood investigation led the police to a suspect, Thomas Lesire, the son of a neighbour. The latter’s home was searched on 1 June 2019 at 05:00. The suspect was not present at the scene but the investigators found a T-shirt, shorts, a pair of shoes and various other items of clothing in the drum of a washing machine, which they seized.

These clothes are examined by the criminal investigation laboratory using the reagent “Bluestar”. The result is that they have been in contact with blood.

Assizes: trial of Thomas Lesire, accused of the murder of an octogenarian in Châtelet, begins
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