:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/grupoclarin/CEUYAMW2H5CP7A2P3LYWWEMJNA.jpg "They arrest five new suspects for the homicide in Santa Teresita")
Five other men were arrested this Thursday accused of having participated in the crime of Tomás Tello, the 18-year-old young man murdered by a gang during the New Year’s celebrations in the Buenos Aires resort of Santa Teresita. In this way, there are already 16 suspects arrested for the incident.
The new arrests were made during the early hours of the morning at the request of prosecutor Pablo Gamaleri, head of the Functional Instruction Unit 11 of Mar de Ajó, which is carrying out the homicide investigation.
Tomás Tello: who are the five new detainees
The five suspects were identified as Lucas Carrillo, Alexis González, Dylan Damián Morel, Dylan Agustín Chávez and Iván Ezequiel Canaveri.
Their arrests were requested by the prosecutor and authorized by the judge of Guarantees 4 of the Judicial Department of Dolores, Diego Olivera Zapiola, based on the information arising from the analysis of the images that recorded different sections of the sequence of the attack suffered by Tello last January 1, as well as elements provided by witnesses.
The new detainees will be investigated by Gamaleri in the next few hours, within the framework of the case for “homicide aggravated by treachery and by the premeditated participation of two or more people.”
Those close to the victim’s family also confirmed that her mother, Samanta Ferreyra, gave birth in the last hours to the daughter she was expecting at the time of the crime.
The rest of those arrested for the crime of Tomás Tello
The new suspects join the 11 adults who were already detained as part of the investigation, among them Damián “El Kope” Kopelián (21), accused of being the material author of the fatal stab wound suffered by the victim.
Roberto del Jesús Ochoa (27), Federico Brandon (22) and Carlos Amestoy (29) are also accused as alleged co-authors of the crime.
As “necessary participants”, meanwhile, Darío Espinosa (33), and Avedis (57) and Aram Kopelián (27), father and brother respectively of “El Kope” are accused.
All of them were arrested in Santa Teresita in the hours after the crime.
Diego Roberto Cejas, arrested two days after the homicide, and Carlos Nahuel Flecha, Octavio Brian Cejas and Julián Agustín Cejas, arrested last Saturday, are also accused of the same charge.
A week after the crime, none of the eleven defendants investigated by Gamaleri have so far chosen to testify.
Regarding two teenagers who had been detained hours after the homicide, prosecutor Mónica Ferre, from the Juvenile Criminal Responsibility Jurisdiction of Dolores, ordered last Tuesday that they be released from the Reception Center of that city, where they remained housed.
The resolution was adopted after both minors, aged 16 and 17, were not identified among the victim’s attackers by witnesses who participated in a lineup held this Monday.
The cause
According to the investigation, Tello was attacked at 7:10 on January 1 in the Santa Teresita beach area, on Costanera and 38th Street, by “El Kope”, Brandon, Ochoa and Amestoy.
For the prosecution, these four defendants acted after “concocting a plan in advance in order to kill” the victim, as a result of “a previous dispute that occurred on December 23, 2023.”
According to the file, the defendants “rebuked” Tello on the beach while he was with his girlfriend and a friend, with expressions such as “stand on your hands, we are going to fight sons of bitches, we are going to beat you up, stand on your hands” and “Look how you treat yourself.”
In turn, at least one of the accused displayed “a knife” and at that moment the victim tried to escape, but was chased six blocks, until she was cornered and attacked again on the entrance porch of a home on the street. 44 to 100.
“They cornered the victim in the entrance hallway of the house located in said number, and took turns attacking him with kicks, fists, stones and bottles, to the head and body, while at the same time they simultaneously prevented him from his friends could help him,” described the prosecutor.
According to that sequence, the main defendant caused Tello “a fatal short stab wound at the level of the sternum with a knife.”