For a week the calm of the small town of Laboulaye, in the south of the province of Córdoba, has disappeared. The murder of Joaquín Sperani, 14, is the only topic of conversation and the neighbors do not come out of his stupor. Not only because of the death of the teenager from more than ten blows to the head, but also because the one who confessed to his crime was his best friend, “L”, another boy of only 13 years old who is mentioned in that way in the case to protect your identity. The routine tranquility of the little more than 20,000 inhabitants disappeared and now the only thing they are looking for are answers. From knowing if there were accomplices in the murderous act to the motive for the crime, the residents of Laboulaye are paralyzed waiting for the progress of the legal case to reveal these unknowns.
In the streets of the city no one can believe that between these two friends who used to always be together and were seen as inseparable the tragedy was going to mediate. But, as the investigation progresses, all the questions about what may have happened within that link become more relevant to understand the tragic outcome.
Union. Laboulaye’s neighbors insist on pointing out the intense bond between Joaquín and “L”. Not only were they best friends, but they were practically the only ones. They were known as ‘the three musketeers’ because they were that trio always together everywhere,” explains Sara, a neighbor of the Speroni’s house. That union arose when both boys met at the age of 8, when they were in third grade. and it grew to the point that they had practically no more friends. Esteban Sartori, Joaquín’s uncle, comments something similar: “They were very friends. Since ever. They went everywhere together and the friend always came to the house”.
The bond even transcended the two of them. “The families of both would get together, they would meet for some event and they would be seen around the town as if they were a single family,” explains Sara. Meetings in the fields of the “L” family, who live on the outskirts of the city, where they are engaged in dairy farming, were also common.
“L” is an only child and thus Joaquín had become his “false brother”. However, from Laboulaye they warn that the bond that united both boys began to crack or at least to give indications that something was wrong. Joaquín and the person who confessed to his murder had not sat together at school for a few weeks. They went from being together to sitting practically one in each corner of the classroom. At first no one paid attention to this situation. However, after the crime, the young people’s own companions were the ones who commented on this situation, which is even recorded in the judicial file. Investigators seek to determine what caused the breakup or at least the alteration of that friendship and this is a key situation to understand that something was wrong. Sources close to the file revealed to the Cordoba media that there are indications to think that what made the relationship change was jealousy, although they did not add much more due to the secrecy of the summary that weighs on the case and because they are minors. However, Mariela Flores, Joaquín’s mother, was the one who made this line of investigation public: “It could be that the boy had a sexual inclination, that perhaps he was in love with Joaquín and that this would have had to do with his decision.” , said the mother while slipping that the trigger for the crime would have been, according to this theory, the fact that this crush was not reciprocated.
To this hypothesis is added another, which does not necessarily exclude the previous one. Joaquín’s family is convinced that the crime was not perpetrated by “L” alone, but that he had accomplices. “The way he died, it’s not like he hit him with a stick and it got out of hand. I don’t think there was an adult (involved), but there were two or three other boys and I ask the Justice to tell us what is happening. We know that the kid confessed, but nothing else”, remarks Sartori. It is at this point that the family connects the dots with a situation that Joaquín experienced months ago. As they explained, the teenager had been a victim of bullying. “I denounced it, I spoke about it at school. A month ago I made statements to the preceptor. There are minutes at the school, ”said Mariela Flores, who added that the institution had not taken action on the matter.
Thus, another investigative line is opened by which Joaquín could have been deceived by who his friend was to end up being the victim of harassment by a group of people that ended in murder.
While the investigators try to determine what happened inside that abandoned house where Joaquín was murdered, what were the reasons that triggered the tragedy and if more people were involved, Laboulaye is astonished and they await news. The judge in charge of the case, Sebastián Ignacio Moro, ordered the transfer of “L” to the Admission and Diagnostic Center (CAD). There, diagnostic, psychosocial and environmental studies will be carried out to determine his psychological condition. One of the only certainties so far is that the confessed murderer will not be able to be tried, and therefore not sentenced, since he is under 16 years of age.
