14ymedio, Havana, 28 July 2022 — Professor Santiago Morgado was murdered for 200,000 pesos. It’s the price for which the Suzuki motorcycle that was stolen on July 1 at Sancti Spíritus was sold. The news was revealed along with other details of the crime by the official newspaper, Escambray.
According to the investigation, of the five involved in the death of the professor — all of them in pretrial detention since their arrest on July 11 — two were the material authors. One of them, apparently, habitually hired Morgado’s transport service and knew him well, so he sensed that it would be easy to take him to a point where he could perpetrate the crime.
The first of the alleged murderers led Morgado to El Capitolio, a town of the People’s Council of Banao, where, hidden among the undergrowth, the second man was waiting. The attackers used a stick and a stone, in addition to two pieces of agricultural machinery that they used to immerse the teacher’s body in a well up to three meters deep.
A third man was in charge of driving the red Suzuki to Vertientes, in Camagüey, where the fourth involved tried to sell it for 800,000 pesos, but finally had to make a considerable reduction. The fifth detainee was the intermediary of the sale.
Sources from the investigation said that the trail of the helmet, found by the professor’s acquaintances, was decisive in reaching the well and finding the metal parts that helped clarify the case.
Of the five involved, between the ages of 28 and 45, three are residents of Banao, one in the same town, another in El Pinto and the third in El Capitolio. The other two are from Vertientes, from which it follows that the crimes occurred in places they knew well.
With the participation of the two direct authors, the reconstruction of the facts was carried out, a process in which it was demonstrated that they used the rental of the motorcycle with the intention of murdering its owner to steal it and subsequently sell it.
In Escambray’s note, the authorities insisted on admitting the relevance of citizen collaboration to clarify the crime. Family and friends carried out the first investigations and initially complained that the police were lagging behind.
Morgado, 62, disappeared at noon on July 1, and his acquaintances were the ones who found his biker’s helmet on the road through El Pinto. Three days later, on Monday 4, they found his glasses and a shoe near the well where, hours later, the firefighters recovered the body.
Although the official newspaper insists that Morgado’s murder was an “event that by its violent nature kept residents on alert,” it had been three days since the independent press reported the event when it was finally repeated in Escambray.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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